Publisher's Synopsis
This study of "Gulliver's Travels" emphasizes the political significance of the text and explores the connection between Swift's narrative structure and his political philosophy. Focusing on the function of irony in the text it sheds light on both the novel's satire and its ideological themes, such as the attacks on corruption, imperialism and colonialism.;Liz Bellamy argues that the relationship between the narrator and the reader in the novel is used by Swift to symbolize the relationship between the ruler and the ruled within the polity. But, beneath Swift's satiric portrayal of the British political system lies his ambiguous attitude to his native Ireland. As a member of the Anglo-Irish elite, Swift was neither English nor Irish and, like Gulliver, he always felt himself an observer in a foreign land. This approach to Gulliver's Travels stresses Swift's uncertainty about the nature of national identity and ideas of the primitive and the civilized.
