The kind of a man Swift was and the kind of a man Gulliver is are antithetical to one another. Gulliver is an "innocent-eyed" narrator; Swift was an ironist. Gulliver tells us what he believes is the truth; Swift reveals ambiguities. Gulliver reports to us as precisely as he can, often not realizing the implications of his observations. Swift, in contrast, lets us know the implications. Gulliver, for example, is impressed by the Lilliputians' grandeur; Swift lets us see beyond Gulliver's narrative line and realize the irony in the juxtaposition of the miniscule Lilliputians and their grandiose notions. Gulliver gives us his perspective of his adventures; then Swift pulls us farther back so that Gulliver himself is seen in perspective. Yet one thing that we can always count on, as far as Gulliver is concerned, is his honesty as a reporter. We can trust him because he is neither discreet nor imaginative enough to either withhold or insert inventive adventures on his own.
The tone that Swift has Gulliver use in reporting is one of the key factors separating author from hero. Gulliver reports to us as though we were as gullible as he is. Of course we are not. We can feel superior to Gulliver even though we like him. He has a fascinating curiosity and gets himself into many scrapes precisely because of his gullibility. Had he been as clever as Swift, there would have been no adventures. In fact, Swift would probably have so infuriated the Brobdingnagians that they would have snuffed out his life. They would not have tolerated the stinging-tongued little Dean.
One may argue that ultimately Gulliver is disillusioned about man, and so is Swift. But Swift was never so disillusioned about people that he boarded in a stable. Swift's disillusionment took an indignant turn. That's why he wrote his satires — to point out imperfections, to chasten, and to educate. Swift was his own judge. But Gulliver accepts the Houyhnhnms' judgment of himself. And he finally believes that he, though he hates to admit it, is terribly Yahoo-like. Gulliver worships the Houyhnhnm ideal; Swift subtly mocks it by letting Gulliver praise it; then he slowly reveals that it is an ideal devoid of any spark of life. In this way, Swift shows us that Gulliver is incapable of critically thinking and reasoning. Gulliver is worshipping something as lifeless as a mathematical equation. And, when we finish the book, the horses and their ideals are as uninteresting to us as they are captivating to Gulliver.
