y's his own life giving him a satire within a satire. By pointing this out in the story, he mocks his critics. Swift further illustrates satire by comparing English government to Lilliput. In the early eighteenth century, the English government was under the Whig's political party. Swift represented himself as Gulliver as being a Tory, and the Lilliputians as being power-hungry Whigs. Their heels of their shoes identified these parties. In Lilliput the High-Heels represented the Tories and the Low-Heels represented the Whigs. George I favored the Whigs, so the Lilliputian emperor favored the Low-Heals. But the Prince of Whales favored both parties, and thus the Lilliputian heir to the throne wore one High-Heel and one Low. When Gulliver started learning about the Lilliputians government he noticed that their government officials were chosen by rope dancing. To Gulliver and the reader these practices seem ridiculous and idiotic, but to the Lilliputians they see these practices as normal. Swift uses this scene to satire the British government at this time. The British government also elected their ministers in a same foolish manner. Throughout the first book in Gulliver's Travels, Swift uses satire to demonstrate British politics by using the Lilliputians as a tool to mock and at the same time educate England and its politics. Through Gulliver's eyes, Swift demonstrates the way British people lived in the eighteenth century. From each experience we grasp a stronger understanding of the faults of their government and people who ran them. But most importantly, Swift teaches us through satire to take a good look at ourselves, not only our government and to recognize its faults and try to improve on them. ...
