Swift's Purpose: More, Herodotus, and Mirrors

For, indeed, while I was in that Prince's country [Brobdingang], I could never endure to look in a glass after mine Eyes had becme accustomed to such prodigious Objects; because the Comparison gave me so despicable a Conceit of my self.

--Part II, ChapterVII, 5th paragraph from the end

I find the question of Swift's purpose with this work to be a really interesting one.

• First, although he provides some mention of the structure of the socities he visits (especially cf. Ch. VI, re: education of the Lilliputans), but in the third paragraph of I.IV, he says he will reserve details of Lilliputan society for a "greater Work," stating that the "chief Design at present being only to relate such Events... during [his] Residence" there. This is in concord with his response to the Captain's suggestion that he write on his journeys at the end of II.VII: that he (Swift) could do little more than to write of "common Events." To what extent can we look at his descriptions of Lilliputan and Brobdingnagian society in the same terms as we looked at other utopias, such as More's or Plato's?


• Swift also seems interested in subtly appraising his home country.
  

  I cannot but conclude the Bulk of your Natives, to be the most pernicious Race of little odious Vermin that Nature ever suffered to crawl upon the Surface of the Earth.

  --Part II, Chapter VI, very end

  
  This further reminds me of More, as they share criticisms such as that of precedent law. But Swift's criticism of England is more prevalent, from the jokes about the ladies' askance way of writing to the big-endian reference to party differences and so on. Does Swift's critique of England drive this work as a primary motivating force?
  


• With regard to the first quote of this post, I think that a primary function of this work is similar to that of Herodotus, in the sense that the stories from his travels suggest humility with respect to one's own country. In Lilliput the party difficulties seemed petty and their mighty fleets were playthings; in Brobdingnag his own country was made to seem as diminutive. Gulliver sees humanity from afar and from close up, and neither view is particularly stellar. Would it be accurate to propose that this work's purpose is to encourage the reader to look on his or her own society with a new lens?

P.S. I forgot Milton in the poll! It's okay, he wouldn't have won anyway.