We've spent a lot of time in this guide talking about Swift the satirist and hater: his criticisms of the hypocrisy and favoritism of King George I and his court, his disgust with learning for no practical purpose, and so on. But what we haven't remarked on so much is that Gulliver's Travels does show evidence of moral alternatives to replace the corruption Swift sees in contemporary English society. Swift is resolutely anti-war; he also appears to despise luxury and greed. But the thing that most seems to guarantee a virtuous society for him is "friendship and benevolence" (4.8.10). He mentions that the Brobdingnagians have a remarkably disciplined army because all of the soldiers are fighting under leaders they know from their hometowns. This kind of personal loyalty inspires men to more genuine, direct heroism and justice than abstract fights for a cause.
In The Call of the Wild, loyalty is rare, but strong, when it exists. It is forged by the extremities of circumstance (Thornton saved Buck from death) and repaid with similar intensity (Buck saves Thornton repeatedly). The big question in this novel is whether Buck has greater loyalty to the wild and his own feral nature or to the man that has saved his life. Buck is unable to commit to his life in the wild until Thornton dies, perhaps suggesting that his love and loyalty for the man are stronger than his ancestral urges.
Lemuel Gulliver is a married surgeon from Nottinghamshire, England, who has a taste for traveling. He heads out on a fateful voyage to the South Seas when he gets caught in a storm and washed up on an island. This island, Lilliput, has a population of tiny people about 6 inches tall. They capture Gulliver as he sleeps and carry him to their capital city, where they keep him chained inside a large abandoned temple outside the city walls.