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“Undoubtedly, philosophers are in the right when they tell us that nothing is great or little otherwise than by comparison.��

Swift’s masterpiece, brilliant satire Gulliver's Travels was published in 1726. Swift lived in the 18th century, times of great societal changes when the legacy of Enlightenment culminated in French Revolution and caused a great political and cultural change. Also, European exploration of the world advanced, resulting in growing colonization of the Americas and other parts of the world. That intensified mass migrations as well as expanded the slave trade on a global scale.

The novel is dived into four parts, each describing one of Gulliver's adventures. It has an epistolary form as the narrator is Gulliver himself, Swift is laying out the events as they happened, striving to be emotionally detached and as objective as he can, without deeper reflections. Swift never breaks character, and we see the world exclusively through Gulliver’s eyes, making the narration unreliable to an extent. The language is quite similar to Robinson Crusoe's, in long, detailed descriptions, somewhat dry and preachy tone with racist and imperialist overtones, but Swift uses the form to ridicule the adventure genre of novels and break out some inappropriate jokes, with unexpected descriptions of excretory bodily functions or genitals. Swift also writes a fantastic story, that could be in parts even considered as speculative fiction. With imaginative events the narrator claims have happened, he precisely mocks those who include untrue events in their travelogues and claim them to be true. Through his satirical overtones, Swift gives a critique of colonialism and slavery, European governments, rulers and scientists, doctors and attorneys, the complete human nature.

The first Gulliver adventure is the most famous one, in the land of Lilliputians, people 15.24 centimeters tall. Here Swift highlights the human tendency to consider themselves the most important creatures despite their small size, being unaware of their insignificance in the universe. The government of Liliput is unable to make and adhere to important decisions and their ruler abuses power. Lilliputians have a heavily bureaucratic society, with absurd rules and social conventions and brutal punishments if one does not adhere to them. Their obsession with rules comes from an inflated ego, where they have to have a rigid system that will hide their insignificance. They also want to use Gulliver as a weapon in their petty wars, which shows that someone's grandiosity is a reason for calculation and exploitation by others, and Gulliver is endangered by their number and eventually accused of high treason. Their system of court and punishment is not a reflection of justice - the more innocent a man is, the heavier and more brutal is the punishment, and the absurdity of the legal system is highlighted. They have a conflict with other nation in regards to what is the best way to break an egg - on a smaller or larger end. Here Swift comments on the conflict between Catholics and Protestants - and Gulliver is not surprised by the absurdity of the conflict over breaking an egg, which shows how people are well adapted to insignificant differences causing large divisions and violence among menkind.

On the next adventure, Gulliver visits the land of Brobdingnag, a land of giants. The giants of Brobdingnag are in contrast to the Lilliputians, showing that the concept of a person's size, significance, and power differs as the world around him changes. Gulliver's dominance and grandiosity, but also vulnerability is a relative concept, dependant on the size of those around him. Gulliver here has constant anxiety and feeling of inferiority as he goes from being colossal to smallness and endangered insignificance in Brobdingnag. Residents of Brobdinagnag have a tendency towards extremes, they are prone to both greed and tenderness. Here Gulliver is being exploited again by a farmer, which shows that exploitation is a matter of opportunity, not size, social status, or wealth. The king and queen of Brobdingnag are not malevolent, and they care for Gulliver, but at the same time regard him as a funny puppet. For them, it is unimaginable that Gulliver is a complete person, a man with a homeland with history, laws, philosophy. The king is interested in Gulliver's stories but only as entertainment, mirroring the European sentiment of the time, towards foreigners and other cultures, considering them fun and interesting, but not to be taken seriously. The king also has a very narrow, limited perspective of the world - he has absolute authoritarian power, the country is isolated, they do not travel, they learn only a few subjects in education, only ones with practical significance and they are not interested in philosophy and abstract ideas. They are very bodily, sensual and sexual, prone to pleasures and celebrations, with no interest in the progress of mind or culture. Their king does not understand war or democracy, representing the peaceful but limited and isolated monarchy. After the rescue from the land of giants, Gulliver can't get used to the size of normal people and he consideres himself bigger than them.

Gulliver’s third adventure is in the land of Laputa, floating island Swifts uses for satire of scholars and scientists, philosophers, Pythagoreans, and Enlightenment. In the contrast to Brobdinagnag, in the land of Laputa mathematics and music are of the highest importance, and the importance of theory and science is taken to an extreme. Lauptans know complex geometry but are at the same unable to build proportionate houses or make a decent suit. Their theoretical knowledge is deeply impractical, they do absurd experiments that are useless or even destructive, they complicate to an obscure level that becomes counterproductive. The wise man of Laputa embodies the futility of the search for knowledge as a means to an end, without taking into account the practical and concrete world. This is a reflection of Swift’s thought that the philosophers of the Enlightenment were theoretical in their thinking to the point of obscurity. It is a critique of schools and educational institutions, societies of top intellectuals. Gulliver also goes to the land of sorcerers where he encounters the spirits of the past - Alexander the Great, Caesar, Homer, Aristotle, Descartes. Gulliver here realizes how knowledge of history is used manipulatively for someone's interest as the history he knew was full of misinterpretation and learns that all knowledge of history is subjective.

The last adventure takes Gulliver in the land of noble talking horses, Houyhnhnms. Houyhnhnms use the benefits of a rational mind combined with moral virtues, creating a country where the common good is of the greatest value. Houyhnhnms tell only truth and live without lies, injustice, corruption, class, diseases, in an atmosphere of seemingly minimal suffering and inequality. They maintain domination with physical strength and reason. Here, friendship and goodwill replace romantic love and family. The marriages are arranged for the production of specifically two children of different sexes and they exchange of children if they are of the same sex, granting absolute gender equality, but with loss of emotional connections. Houyhnhnms have no emotional experiences of love (the death of a member of society is insignificant) which gives meaning to life, they do not celebrate and do not rejoice, creating a peaceful, but somewhat cold utopia with loss of individual identity and diversity.
In this utopian society, the ideal of Enlightenment, where reason rules everything, horses rule over the Yahoos- the savage, hairy, primitive, animal-like men. Houyhnhnms reject the primal human nature reflected in Yahoos, exposing their tendency toward superiority if one looks and behaves differently, rejecting everything that is not in line with their ideal of culture and reason. Benevolence and friendship are reserved only for their kind, embodying the basic idea of colonialism. Gulliver idealizes Houyhnhnmas, and being blind to their hypocrisy and narcissism, he wants to integrate into their society. In a quest in merging with the collective, he tries to give up the human identity that makes him different, being ashamed of his similarity to Yahoos.
But Gulliver is deceived because he identifies with the horses. Houyhnhnms are a reflection of himself �� his superiority he felt towards every culture he came to, but also his superiority he feels towards the European society.

Gulliver is ultimely the antihero that used the exploration of the world and different societies for making the faults of human nature visible to him, but not being aware he himself is also part of society, akin to human nature he keeps critiquing, full of flaws. Gulliver is both “gullible�� and full of prejudges and false concepts. He is grandiose, egocentric, pliable, without a firm attitude, restless, adventurous, insensitive, unsympathetic, always running from everything less than ideal, even if that means running away from his pregnant wife and children. Gulliver seeks the fantom of a perfect society and rejects the dark and primal side of human nature as unworthy of love. He criticizes and mocks others but never ridicules himself and his shortcomings. It is not a great wonder that Gulliver becomes the figure of repulsion and rejection in any society - he ultimately cannot integrate even in the society of narcissistic horses he regards as ideal. Unlike Don Quixote, his illusions and prejudices remain to the end, as well as disgust of others.

Through the novel in each adventure and the culture Gulliver encounters, we see a progression of the political systems from the unjust, brutal authoritarian bureaucracy of Liliput, to benevolent but ignorant monarchy of Brobdinagnag, to leaders that value science and philosophy of Laputa, and, in the end, to land of Houyhnhnms, the society that values reason, morality and equality - the utopian society that revolutions promised in the 18th century. But even the ideal society enlightened by reason and morality dominates tribes and races that are different, the ones they decide are not decent, or cultural enough to be equal. The morally superior horses push violently against the primal part of human nature symbolically represented by Yahoos, revealing the criticism of enlighted, morally superior European societies that continue to flourish in colonialism and the exponentially growing slave trade, brutal oppression of different cultures they call “savages�� in the period that is known as "century of lights" or the "century of reason". Colonization is the ultimate expression of pride and narcissism. Even worse than open tyranny, is the oppression that comes from moral superiority.

Recommended for the readers going through the literary canon, lovers of satire, misanthropes and social critics but also for narcissists who think all humans are corrupt, except themselves.