Readers Place

About the Book

Starting Points for Discussion

• Gulliver’s Travels has frequently been adapted for children, and according to Swift’s friend and contemporary John Gay it was read ‘from the cabinet council to the nursery’. Do you think the novel in its original form is suitable for children? Why do you think so many people have wanted to adapt children’s versions?

• Swift was a political pamphleteer before writing Gulliver’s Travels and the book was conceived as a satire upon the state of European government. What political points do you think Swift was trying to make with each of the lands? Are his criticisms still relevant? If so, what does each land have to tell us about human nature and politics today?  

• The novel is highly structured in terms of Gulliver’s personal journey and the nature of the lands he travels through. For example each land can act as a contrasting pair with another land (big/small, complex/simplistic). What other forms of structure and progression can you see in the novel?

• The Vintage edition is published with many archaic spellings (for example rouzed for roused, publick for public, and tryal for trial). Did you enjoy this or did you find it distracting? What do you think are the advantages and disadvantages of modernising texts?  

• ‘I have ever hated all Nations professions and Communityes and all my love is towards individuals for instance I hate the tribe of Lawyers, but I love Councellor such a one…I hate and detest that animal called man, although I hartily love John, Peter, Thomas and so forth.’ Taken from Jonathan Swift’s letter to Alexander Pope (1725). What evidence for this can you find in Gulliver’s Travels ? Do you agree with Swift?

• Which land would you most like to visit yourself?

• Some critics have described Gulliver’s Travels as proto-Science Fiction. How far does it fit the genre? What elements of Sci-Fi can you find in the novel?

• Several feminist writers, including Davy King and Alison Fell, have written about the role of Mrs Gulliver. Why do you think they decided to do this? Were you interested in Mrs Gulliver’s character?

• Swift wrote Gulliver’s Travels, according to a letter he wrote to Pope, ‘to vex the world, not to divert it.’ Do you think he succeeded?

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  Reading Guide

Suggested Further Reading

• Jonathan Swift, A Hypocrite Reversed: A Critical Biography ~ David Nokes
• The Correspondence of Jonathan Swift (5 volumes)
• The Life and Strange and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe ~ Daniel Defoe
• Candide ~ Voltaire
• The Rape of the Lock ~ Alexander Pope
• Atomised ~ Michel Houellebecq – read our guide
• The Mistress of Lilliput ~ Alison Fell
• Gulliver’s Travels ~ retold by Martin Jenkins (a modernised version)