Gulliver's Travels: Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World.

Gulliver is the first-person narrator of the novel, with the book presented as his truthful memoirs. As a narrator, Gulliver’s reliability is difficult to definitively determine. He is often insistent on the consistency of his moral virtue; he maintains that he is honest, noble, and respectful of tradition. He is also modest, though at times the way he embellishes his virtue sometimes contradicts this assertion. Importantly, Gulliver is also of a middle-class background. He is not a member of any form of nobility nor part of any elite circle. Despite his professed honesty, however, the tales that he recounts are full of incredible adventures that create humorous contrasts with his self-presentation as an honest, humble, and pragmatic man.

At the start of his travels, Gulliver is idealistic, almost to a fault. He recognizes some of the shortcomings of humankind, while still believing in their inherent worth and virtue. Gradually, however, Gulliver starts to view humanity in a new and far more critical light. Dazzled by the virtue of the Houyhnhnms, Gulliver launches a tirade against all of human civilization in the final book. All of his initial virtue and hopeful optimism is entirely destroyed and replaced with a cynicism that he never subsequently breaks away from.