Gulliver's Travels is a work of satire used to describe the misanthropic depreciation of mankind. "Gulliver is neither a fully developed character nor even an altogether distinguishable persona; rather, he is a satiric device enabling Swift to score satirical points" (Rodino 124). Gulliver's first journey takes him to the Land of Lilliput, where he finds himself a giant among six-inch tall beings. His next journey brings him to Brobdingnag, where his situation is reversed: now he is the midget in a land of giants. As Swift leads Gulliver on these fantastical journeys, Gulliver's perceptions of himself and the people and things around him change, giving Swift ample opportunity to inject into the story both irony and satire of the England of his day and of the human condition.
Swift ties his satire closely with Gulliver's perceptions and adventures. In Gulliver's first adventure, he begins on a ship that runs aground on a submerged rock. He swims to land, and when he awakens, he finds himself tied down to the ground, and surrounded by tiny people, the Lilliputians. While he is in this land, the Lilliputians relate to him the following story: In Lilliput, years ago, people once broke eggs on the big end. However, the present king's grandfather once caught himself breaking the egg in this manner, so the King at the time, the father of the present king's grandfather, issued an edict that all were to break the eggs on the small end. Some of the people resisted, and they found refuge in Blefuscu, and "for six and thirty moons past" the two sides have been at war (I.iv.48). Of course, to Gulliver, such an argument would be completely ridiculous, for he could hardly distinguish the difference in the ends of their eggs. For Swift, Lilliput is analogous to England, and Blefuscu to France. With this event of the story Swift satirizes the needless bickering and fighting between the two nations.
