SATIRE

in Gulliver’s Travel
 SATIRE:

The use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and

criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of
contemporary politics and other topical issues.
 Common Satirical Devices:

• Irony:
• The actual intent is expressed in words that mean the opposite
Examples: political cartoons, the Colbert Report (American
television program)
•Parody:
• A plotline that imitates something that really happened
Examples: Scary Movie series, SNL Weekend Update,
Shrek
• Exaggeration:
• Making an event bigger than it needs to be for comedic effort
Examples :caricatures ( a picture, description, or imitation of a
person in which certain striking characteristics are exaggerated in
order to create a comic or grotesque effect) in political cartoons.
• Invective:
• Harsh ,abusive language directed at a specific entity (person or
otherwise)
Examples: Borowitz Report, late night comedy
Movie Trailer:
 Satire in Gulliver’s Travel:

• Gulliver's Travels was the work of a writer (Jonathan swift )who had
been using satire as his medium for over a quarter of a century.
• In Gulliver’s Travels Swift is constantly using satire and exaggeration
to tell society what he really thinks of them and the structure major
flaws that humanity is guilty of.
 Irony:
• The difference in size between Gulliver and the Lilliputians
reflects the importance of physical power.
• This is clearly the use of dramatic irony in which the reader
knows the truth but the characters in the stories deny it. They
keep Gulliver tied up, thinking that he is under control, while in
fact he could destroy them effortlessly. In this way, Swift
satirizes humanity's pretensions to power and significance.
 Ridicule:

• Swift ridicules the Lilliputians' arrogance and ignorance by

describing how mathematicians in Lilliput measure Gulliver's
height by the help of a quadrant. They "having taken the height
of my body by the help of a quadrant, and finding it to exceed
theirs in the proportion of twelve to one…
 Parody:
• Gulliver tells the story is related to The High-Heels and the Low-Heels
correspond to the Whigs and Tories of English politics. Lilliput and Blefuscu
represent England and France. The conflict between Big-Endians and Little-
Endians represents the Protestant Reformation and the centuries of warfare
between Catholics and Protestants.

Purpose
• Swift expects us to understand that the history Gulliver
relates parallels European history
 Exaggeration:
• Gulliver is describing the Yahoos (humans that act like animals);
“The Yahoos were known to hate one another more than they did
any different species of animals;..

Purpose:
• This is Swift’s satirical way of telling the reader that humans
are the only species on Earth that fight and destroy one
another.