Gulliver's Travels

Gulliver's travels

Swift meant for this part of the book to be a satire on the French government and he uses the size of everything as a farce against the government. Swift is saying that he believes that everything in France is bigger. At the time, Louis the XVI was the king of France and Louis loved to build huge estates and use his wealth for his own desires. King Louis was known to not know or care about the conditions of the people whom he governed. Knowing that, how does Part 2, Chapter 4 mirror activities in France?

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There are several references to both poverty and nobility in this section of the book. Gulliver tells of a time when he saw some deformed beggars with big lice. He also mentions that many nobles wanted to see him, although he believes it was because he was so close to the king. This suggests a clear divide between the beggars and the king and nobles. That indicates that the king, like Louis the XVI, doesn't really take notice of the economic state of his people.