One could write page after page analyzing Swift's use of satire in Gulliver's Travels. Specifically, some of his targets are religious schisms, politicians, a hawkish war mentality, and gambling. In general, he targets political, social, and economic institutions. Even more broadly, he is ridiculing human vice and folly. Swift's methods of achieving this satire are numerous. He mixes obvious parallels between his fictional world and his European world with more disguised parallels (in description of the big-endian issue and the channel that separates Lilliput from Blefuscu), for instance. He also uses much verbal irony, as when he contradicts the evidence contained in the work itself by describing England as, "...the seat of virtue, piety, honor and truth,..." Swift's targets and methods might be two places to start when analyzing his satire in Gulliver's Travels.
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