Part 1. A voyage to lilliput

This part is about Gulliver's adventures in Lilliput.

After being shipwrecked, Gulliver gets safely ashore and finds himself in a strange country inhabited by a race of people about six inches high Everything else is on a corresponding scale. By making them so small Swift stresses their insignificance, and makes the reader despise them as petty creatures and feel contempt for their ideas, customs, and institutions. Swift mocks at their Emperor, who boasts that he is the delight of the universe while, as a matter of fact, he is no taller than a nail.

It is easy enough to understand that Swift meant this small country with its shallow interests, corrupt laws and evil customs to symbolize the England of the 18th century; the government ("a great office"), the court with its atmosphere of hostility, hypocrisy and flattery, where the author felt as lonely as his hero when among the Lilliputians, and religious controversy.

Swift compares the courtiers with rope-dancers: those who can jump the highest get the highest office.

Courtiers who want to be awarded with a prize must undergo a special test. "a trial of dexterity", – they have to leap over a stick or creep under it backwards and forwards several times, according as the stick is raised or lowered by the Emperor and the first minister. Swift stresses the fact that it is very difficult for a courtier to please both the king and the minister. Flattery and hypocrisy are the only qualities necessary to work one's way up at the court.

Tramecksan and Slameckean, the two political parties which differed only in the size of their heels, were invented by Swift to ridicule the Whigs and the Tories who were always at loggerheads, though their political aims were almost the same.

In describing the war between Lilliput and Befuiscu which was caused by disagreement concerning the manner of breaking eggs, the author satirizes the religious controversy between Catholics and Protestants, their contradictions being as insignifican as those between the Big-endians and Small endians.

Part 2. A voyage to brobdingnag

Before long Gulliver undertakes another voyage. The ship meets with a terrible . storm and anchors near Brobdingnag, the land of the giants, to take in a supply of water. While on shore, Gulliver is captured by the giants. On the whole, they are good-natured creatures and treat Gulliver kindly, though they are amused by his small size and Ibok-upon him as a plaything.

Brobdingnag is an expression of Swift's desire to escape from the disgusting world of the Lilliputians and to find the ideal: an agricultural country ruled by an ideal monarch. The author creates such a monarch in the king of Brobdingnag. He is clever, honest, and kind to his people. He hates wars and wants to make his people happy. However, the king's character is not true to life. In this part we don't find the sharp and vivid satirical descriptions so typical of the story of the first voyage. The most interesting episode is Gulliver's conversation with the king, when he tells the king about the war policy of his native land.