. An important question about Gulliver’s travels is that it became a book for children, the same as Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. They were so critical that society turned them into children books.

Yet, today we can enjoy Gulliver’s Park here, in Valencia, where children can have nice times creeping up by Gulliver’s sword,
Gulliver's Travels talks about customs in the eighteenth century and makes a critical analysis of the society of the time. Critical view becomes more violent in the last trip of Gulliver to the Houyhnhnms' country. Horses are the upper class and Yahoos are the lower class. Yahoos look like humans and work for horses. These Yahoos are horrible humans because they are like humans in the past: they don't know any language, walk like gorillas... They are like prehistoric humans. In that particular country, Gulliver is considered an exceptional Yahoo but is also in that country where Lemuel turns into horror to humanity. When he returns to his country, he can't stand living with humans. This idea shows the social corruption.
     Travels go from Lilliput, where people are very small, to Houyhnhnms' country. He travels also to Brobdingnag, where people are very tall, to Laputa, Balnibarbi, Luggnagg or Glubbdubdrib. Swift used these travels in order to critize English society, aristocracy and science, and more subjects related to the eighteenth society.

Compiled by Ainhoa Sanchis Asensi
Academic year 1999/2000
10-February-2000
a.r.e.a./Dr.Vicente Forés Lopez

©Ainhoa Sanchis Asensi

© Universitat de València Press

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