Satire as Exposure: Systemic Crime and Moral Corruption in Gulliver’s Travels

Name of Author : Isha Rani Das

Abstract: This paper attempts to read Gulliver's Travels not merely as an imaginative travel narrative, but as a layered satirical text where the notion of crime does not remain confined within individual acts. Rather, it is dispersed across institutional structures and moral frameworks. Jonathan Swift, through a subtle yet piercing satire, exposes how law, politics, knowledge and morality themselves participate in the production of crime. Drawing on the ideas of Michel Foucault, this paper argues that crime is not always an act; at times, it becomes a condition—constructed, sustained and normalized by power.

Keywords : satire , systemic crime , moral corruption , institutional power, surveillance and discipline

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