The Construction of Subjectivity through Desire in Gulliver’s Travels: A Deleuzian-Žižekian Perspective

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 PhD Candidate in English Language and Literature, Faculty of Language and Literature, University of Kurdistan, Sanandaj, Iran.

2 Assistant Professor of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Language and Literature, Velayat University, Iranshahr, Iran.

Abstract

Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels has long been read as a satire targeting the 18th-century British politics, scientific rationalism, and imperial ambition. But beneath its satirical surface, the novel grapples with deeper philosophical questions—about how desire is shaped, how subjectivity is produced, and how individuals are caught within the systems that define them. Although scholars have extensively explored the text from political and ethical perspectives, its engagement with the dynamics of desire has not been examined through the theories of Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, and Slavoj Žižek. This study brings those frameworks into conversation with Swift’s narrative, drawing on the concepts of desiring-machines, social-machines, the Body without Organs, and the desire of the Other. Through a close reading of Gulliver’s four voyages, the paper traces the dynamics of desire and Gulliver’s gradual alienation from the social structures, culminating in an ontological rupture—a rejection of the codes that once shaped his identity. Rather than upholding Enlightenment ideals, Swift offers a portrait of a subject unravelling under their weight. In this light, Gulliver’s Travels emerges not only as a political satire, but as a profound meditation on desire, control, and ontological rupture.

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References

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Critical Literary Studies
Volume 8, Issue 1 - Serial Number 15
October 2025
Pages 217-243

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  • Receive Date: 27 April 2025
  • Revise Date: 30 June 2025
  • Accept Date: 30 August 2025

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