Gulliver's Travels I

I have begun Gulliver’s Travels, by Jonathan Swift. So far, I have found it rather enjoyable, although I profess that I may have indeed missed a good portion of the witty satire that fills the book. Mr. Gulliver has travelled to the country of Liliput, where the miniature sized Liliputions find him to be a magnificent giant. The author’s sarcastic and satirical tone is apparent throughout the story, but due to the complexity of the language used, I believe I missed a lot of the jabs at society. There were several times when I could tell that the author was probably mocking someone or something, but I couldn’t for the world figure out what it was. I think that the cultural differences between the author’s time period and mine own were such that certain bits of wit were lost on me. I thought that the main purpose of the author’s adventures around the little people was to show and satirize the pride and insecurities of society. In the story, the protagonist is sentenced to death, or, at the very least, to have his eyes put out for putting out a great fire and saving the palace of the king, because of the indecent and insulting manner in which he did it. The protagonist was also imprisoned, when if the little people had been willing to let him have some amount of power and control, he could have literally moved mountains for them. The author used these sort of themes to show the flaws in society.