Gulliver’s Travels was unique in its day; it was not written to woo or entertain. It was an indictment, and it was most popular among those who were indicted—that is, politicians, scientists, philosophers, and Englishmen in general. Swift was roasting people, and they were eager for the banquet.
Swift himself admitted to wanting to “vex” the world with his satire, and it is certainly in his tone, more than anything else, that one most feels his intentions. Besides the coarse language and bawdy scenes, probably the most important element that Dr. Bowdler deleted from the original Gulliver’s Travels was this satiric tone. The tone of the original varies from mild wit to outright derision, but always present is a certain strata of ridicule. Dr. Bowdler gelded it of its satire and transformed it into a children’s book.
After that literary operation, the original version was largely lost to the common reader. The Travels that proper Victorians bought for the family library was Bowdler’s version, not Swift’s. What irony that Bowdler would have laundered the Travels in order to get a version that he believed to be best for public consumption because, originally, the book was bought so avidly by the public that booksellers were raising the price of the volume, sure of making a few extra shillings on this bestseller. And not only did the educated buy and read the book—so also did the largely uneducated.
However, lest one think that Swift’s satire is merely the weapon of exaggeration, it is important to note that exaggeration is only one facet of his satiric method. Swift uses mock seriousness and understatement; he parodies and burlesques; he presents a virtue and then turns it into a vice. He takes pot-shots at all sorts of sacred cows. Besides science, Swift debunks the whole sentimental attitude surrounding children. At birth, for instance, Lilliputian children were “wisely” taken from their parents and given to the State to rear. In an earlier satire (A Modest Proposal), he had proposed that the very poor in Ireland sell their children to the English as gourmet food.
