Category: Gulliver’s Travels

The way a society runs heavily influences the thoughts and actions of the people who live there and will teach immigrants the differences between cultures. In Gulliver’s Travels, there are vast differences in the societies Gulliver visits, from the varied physical appearances of the inhabitants, to their laws and values. During his time abroad, Gulliver sees just how different societies are that he encounters and how they contrast with his homeland in England. In Gulliver’s Travels, the theme of each society is seen as Gulliver travels to the lands of the Houyhnhnms, Lilliputians, Brobdingnagians, and Laputians. In Gulliver’s Travels, the differences of each society is seen as Gulliver travels to the lands of the Houyhnhnms, Lilliputians, Brobdingnagians, and Laputians.

The land of the Houyhnhnms has the most civilized species, with the creatures resembling horses. The other species present here are the Yahoos, which are beast-like creatures that have the physical appearance of a human. “The ‘case of Yahoo’, — name of an imaginary race of brutish creatures in Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels”. Yahoos are human-like creatures that Gulliver encounters when he is traveling in the Country of the Houyhnhnms. These creatures are referred to as animals by Gulliver, although they resemble humans, because of their terrible behavior. Within this society, he views himself to be a part of the more civilized side, so he refuses to be around the Yahoos and chooses to be with the horses instead. “The land of the Houyhnhnms is presented as a utopia with decency, benevolence, and civility ruling every horse’s actions. Here, Gulliver finds no wars and no courts and passes his time in contemplation and light labor.

However, love of family is also unknown because the Houyhnhnms regard it as unnecessary, though marriage is regarded as rational, necessary purely to maintain the population”. This land he ended up in is seen as a utopia that is ruled properly and in an efficient manner, but this so called utopia leads the inhabitants struggling with facing no struggles as they have no need for courts or wars. However, they are so practical that they view love as unnecessary and all marriages are based on what is best to help their species survive. “In their marriages they are exactly careful to choose such colours as will not make any disagreeable mixture in the breed. Strength is chiefly valued in the male, and comeliness in the female, not upon the account of love, but to preserve the race from degenerating: for where a female happens to excel in strength, a consort is chosen in regard to comeliness.

Courtships, love, presents, jointures, settlements, have no place in their thoughts, or terms whereby to express them in their language”. Marriage within the country of the Houyhnhnms is seen solely for the purpose of maintaining the population, and their partners are determined by what traits they possess. This is quite different from the society that Gulliver comes from, where marriage occurs when the two partners share a mutual love for each other. The horses within this country live within a utopian society, where they have little to no problems, and they do not have issues with marriage or with the other horses. However, the lack of love is somewhat unsettling for Gulliver. The society that Gulliver discovered from arriving at this land is greatly different from his own homeland. It seems strange at first, due to the difference in the appearance of the species, but he comes to understand how this society functions and respects it.

He next arrives in Lilliput and discovers that its inhabitants are merely six inches tall and are humans. He learns that this society has strict regulations, and they keep their inhabitants under control by laws. “Gulliver is shipwrecked off the shore of Lilliput and captured by humans only six inches tall. Practical man that he is, he promises to obey their laws controlling him. He finds Lilliput, not unlike Europe, in a state of perpetual and petty disorder. Low-heelers and High-heelers squabble over politics much as do the Whigs and Tories of Swift’s day. Courtiers compete for distinctions by leaping over sticks and other such ridiculous games”.

Gulliver discovers that their way of life is similar to his in Europe. Swift uses these characters’ actions and their ridiculous actions to critique what he saw in the English government. “Lastly, That upon his solemn oath to observe all the above articles, the said Man-Mountain shall have a daily allowance of meat and drink sufficient for the support of 1728 of our subjects, with free access to our Royal Person, and other marks of favor” (Swift 50). Gulliver is given enough food and drink to support his health, under the condition that he follows the laws they have set for him specifically to restrict what he does and control him. The restrictions placed on him make him have to do many things, such as having to transport messengers, defend them from their enemies in war, assisting workers to lift heavy items, and be careful to not harm anyone or do something to them against their wishes. Under these restrictions he is able to receive his food and drink and live there peacefully. “Everything is kept to this scale except for their senseless warring and hypocrisy, which are out of all proportion to their size and therefore seem the more alarming; one, illogically perhaps, expects decent conduct from tiny people”.

The people in Lilliput are having battles with their neighbor Blefuscu over illogical reasons, and attempt to drag Gulliver into it because he is larger and would be able to protect them easily. The attitude these people have is contradicting to their size, because they are very small in comparison to Gulliver, yet act violent and illogically, and Gulliver, who is larger, believes more in peace rather than war and suggests that they try to make a peace treaty with their neighbor rather than war. Again, Swift is criticizing the English government for their petty arguments. Within this land, Gulliver proves to be more civilized and peaceful. As he learns about this society, he realizes how their country is led and the problems with it.

The land of Brobdingnag is very different than the Lilliput. Instead of Gulliver’s appearing to be a giant, he is much smaller than anything in this land. “Gulliver’s next voyage takes him to Brobdingnag, the opposite of Lilliput. Proportions are reversed. People stand as tall as steeples. Gulliver is a caged pet exhibited as a freak”. These people have a proper reason to treat him differently, because they have never seen a creature of his size have perfect anatomy or not be disfigured in any way because of how tiny they are. Gulliver’s presence is a strange experience. “Yet Brobdingnagian society is a utopia, based on useful studies of poetry and history, not on metaphysics, theology, and speculative science, as in Europe. The king rules a prosperous state not torn by strife. In Brobdingnag, a law cannot be written using more than twenty-two words, and to comment on laws is a capital crime”.

Brobdingnag is seen as a utopian society, with practical guidelines in place to prevent arguments and problems. Making it a crime to speak out against the laws prevents people from questioning the laws that are already in existence, so the people show less resistance toward them. “After much debate, they concluded unanimously that I was only relplum scalcath, which is interpreted literally, lusus naturae”. The great scholars within the country had no reasonable excuse for why Gulliver is able to live properly. They view him as a freak of nature since that is the only way he could be described as there was no part of him that was irrational besides his size. Gulliver’s size makes him seem odd to these people, and they cannot understand how he is able to survive. The Brobdingnagians are practical people, so it is even harder for them to understand how Gulliver is able to live.

Gulliver travels to Laputa, a new land which has a floating island above the mainland, and meets new types of people. He comes to realize that they are very focused on the fields of mathematics and music. “Gulliver travels to Laputa and encounters scientists and intellectuals whose work is, for the pragmatic parish priest in Swift, altogether too far removed from real life”. He learns that these people have very short attention spans and tend to mostly focus on mathematics and music. They do not tend to live normally, but focus fully on their studies. The people in this society are rather anti-social and do not see the value in spending time with others. “If any town should engage in rebellion or mutiny, fall into violent factions, or refuse to pay the usual tribute, the King hath two methods of reducing them to obedience.

The first and the mildest course is by keeping the island hovering over such a town, and the lands about it, whereby he can deprive them of the benefit of the sun and the rain, and consequently afflict the inhabitants with dearth and diseases. And if the crime deserves it, they are at the same time pelted from above with great stones, against which they have no defence but by creeping into cellars or caves”. The King possesses two cruel methods of punishing the estates below them if they dare to commit any crime against them. The King appears to be a tyrant to Gulliver because of this, since he attacks the people below him. “His experience in this land makes obvious just how dangerous are his rationalistic, scientific, and progressive views”. When he meets with this group of people, he realizes how impractical having only rationalistic, scientific, and progressive views can be, from seeing how the people on the Island act and treat each other. He understands that having radical versions of these views can turn out to be dangerous and would cause problems throughout society. The society of Laputa is shown to be focused entirely on music and astronomy, and the people of this land do not care for anything besides those two topics. Their population consists of educated elite, which is predominantly male. They are very intelligent but are incapable of using practical knowledge. Gulliver finds their views alarming, and they seem dangerous to the good of humankind.

In Gulliver’s Travels, the theme of society is seen as Gulliver travels to the lands of the Houyhnhnms, Lilliputians, Brobdingnagians, and Laputians. As he travels through these lands, he learns about different types of human qualities from the societies he experiences. Swift compares and contrasts the inhabitants of the lands with the people and government in England. As Gulliver travels to different places, he learns new things about the way people behave, what motivates human beings, and how different societies work.

We travel the world to expand our horizons and look beyond the both the physical and metaphorical borders of our own cultures. When we travel we gain new perspectives on other cultures and their ultimate impact on our very own understanding of the world. One prime example of a new perspective comes from Lemul Gulliver himself in Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. As a work of satire, Swift uses the protagonist, Gulliver, to criticize British society in the 18th century and realities of humanity. We can see the work of satire through that Gulliver’s own ego is criticized. Yet, through the journeys that Gulliver embarks in the land of Lilliput, Brobdingnag, and Houyhnhm, that the nature of his perspective on the pathway to the `right” way to live. Through this exposure, Gulliver’s perspectives on gender and reason develop through his final voyage and understanding about truth. Swift uses this lens about Gulliver’s narrow mindedness centered around gender to extend the satirization about the truth and reason.

Going from an educated man of English society to man unable to withstand the realities of humanity describing them with hatred, Lemuel Gulliver’s initial character greatly contrasts the final character in the final chapters read. After spending about a year living with the Houyhnhnms, they confront Gulliver with one of the most striking realizations between humanity and his version of the idealistic society. Stating the moment as, “The beast and I were brought close together, and by our countenances diligently compared both by master and servant, who thereupon repeated several times the word Yahoo. My horror and astonishment are not to be described, when I observed in this abominable animal, a perfect human figure: the face of it indeed was flat and broad, the nose depressed, the lips large and the mouth wide, but these differences are common to all savage nations.” Two things are going on in this passage: Gulliver approaches face to face with the reality that Yahoos represent a representation of humanity. The other is the question of how he must confront the loathsome idea of being intertwined with Yahoo culture. Gulliver transcends into a strong rejection of humanity, which represents the complete opposite of how he began in the journey to Lilliput, where he idealized the grandeur of a humanitarian utopia. While Gulliver will go on to adapt Houyhnhnm values, this passage serves more as a satirical analysis of reason. Although this creation of the Houyhnhnm utopia might seem idealistic in the eyes of Gulliver, their reason is inherently flawed and corrupt. The Houyhnhnms mistreat and abuse the Yahoos not differently than humanity mistreats other species, but by being blinded by Houyhnhm’s “reason” does not see the hypocrisy within this and instead uses reason as a method judgment.

Gulliver goes even further when he progresses to use gender to interpret his role within humanity, “My master told me, ‘there were some qualities remarkable in the Yahoos, who he had not observed me mention, or at least very slightly, in the accounts, I had given of humankind.’ He said, ‘those animals, like other brutes, had their females in common; but in this, they differed, that she Yahoo would admit the males while she was pregnant; and that he would quarrel and fight with the females, as fiercely as with each other; both which practices were such degrees of infamous brutality, as no other sensitive creature ever arrived at.”

In this passage, Gulliver continues the extension for his repulsion of humanity but now is specifically targeting one gender: woman. The Master Horse is grossed out because human women keep on having sexual intercourse while pregnant, thinking of the act as prosperous and possibly ‘inhuman.’ He is additionally grossed out at the idea that women and continues to compare women to animals by stating,’ like other brutes, had their females in common.’ In other words, that human women can sleep with multiple men, much as animals do. The women, in this case, are objectified, thus being reduced to their physical appearance and sexuality. However, this is contradictory to what Swift presents in his narrative of the utopia of the Houyhnhnms. The land practices equal access to education for both men and women. While the Houyhyms do teach their daughters to become better mothers, compared to the Lilliputian women taught to be better companions, there is still an underlying issue about the quality of access to education. Overall, Gulliver seems to imply that women are less capable than men by reducing them to their physical and sexual appearances to inherently become the “other”.

The theme of this concept of the “other” can be seen when Gulliver, “When I happened to behold the reflection of my own form in a lake or fountain, I turned away my face in horror and detestation of myself, and could better endure the sight of a common Yahoo than of my own person.Neither shall I disown, that in speaking I am apt to fall into the voice and manner of the Houyhnhnms, and hear myself ridiculed on that account, without the least mortification.” Gulliver inherently leaves his closested world to explore the power relations in the book. The power relations throughout Gulliver’s Travels discusses the imbalance between men and women, however when it becomes a power relation between humanity and the Houyhnhnms, Gulliver suddenly becomes the ‘other’. Coined by Simone de Beaviour when expressing the fundamental oppression of women by men on every level to become the “Other”, Gulliver essentially inherited the place of women in his relation to the Houyhnhnms. The Houyhnhms condescend Gulliver’s connections to humanity by also oppressing every action committed by them. Gulliver goes from hero to oppressed to realize the reason of truth relies on Gulliver rejecting all aspects of his humanity. He cannot seem to reason his way out of as he wants to have access to the concept of pure reason that the Houyhnhms possess. His reflection on the other hand showcases him, a different reality that the Houyhnhnms and him will never reach the same level as long as he is the other.

Laura Brown’s essay, however, does provide a third lense through which Swift satirize’s Gulliver’s view on women to dramatize the corruption of reason. Laura Brown describes such use as, “To say that Gulliver occupies the place of the woman at recurrent moments in the Travels is not to say that Gulliver is the same as a woman, but to suggest a systematic pattern of implication, which moves from the various forms of in- terchangeability that we have seen in Gulliver’s connection with the fashion doll and the Yahoos to a full incorporation like that offered by Gulliver’s relation to the cancerous breast and the maids of honour […]”. This quote in itself helps reinvent the argument made by Swift and Brown about the strong existing relation between gender and power. While at first look the female character in Travels might appear needless to say, unimportant, they tie Gulliver to a strong moment between the unachievable reason he seeks to avoid acting in the errors of humanity and assimilate into the “perfect” Houyhnhm utopia.

Regardless of Gulliver’s lack of sympathy for women and essentially himself in the quest to find a reason, Gulliver does find importance within Rochefoucauld’s maxim, “Self-love is the most cunning than the most cunning man in the world.”Although Gulliver, initially starts as a man of wisdom and knowledge sharing his experiences with the Lilliputians and Brobdingnags, he realizes the worrisome traits about humanity. As he deepens his journey, he comes to terms with the great disaster that humanity has caused. His realization about humanity and the Yahoos allow for Gulliver to realize he can save himself from humanity. The love for himself allows Gulliver’s permission to strip himself from his humane nature and adapt the Houyhnhnm quality of life. This same self-love that helps Gulliver find the truth behind “reason”, that he is one of the outliers amongst humanity who was able to witness all the atrocities and remove himself from such.

Overall, the transformation of Gulliver changes as he comes to numerous stages of truth within his journeys. He offers a new set of solutions to achieve the truth about his truth of reason. Whether this is a truth about humanity or a solution to escape humanity, it is without a doubt that Gulliver’s character has various moments throughout the book in which he uncovers himself trying to set a standard of reason. While Gulliver’s character encounters some obstacles along the way that allow him to reach this notion of reason, Whether we may argue with his understanding about reason to justify his actions, Gulliver showcases discover his character in a set of complex dialogues and plots.

What would one do if they suddenly found themselves on a strange island inhabited by people six inches tall? Would one rule them, or simply submit to them? This is the exact situation that Lemuel Gulliver in the novel ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ finds himself in. In part one of this novel, the difference between having physical power and moral power is apparent.

To begin with, in chapter one of ‘Gulliver’s Travels,’ Lemuel finds himself restrained to the ground, not being able to get up. When he struggles to break free many tiny arrows hit him in the face and hands. After this, he notices many people six inches tall and for some reason, they treat him with respect and even bring him food and water. Even after their kindness, he confesses that ‘He was often tempted, while they were passing backwards and forwards on his body, to seize forty or fifty of the first that came in his reach, and dash them against the ground’. The thing that stopped him from doing this horrible action is his morals. He knew that they saw him as being submissive and killing them now would have been an immoral thing to do. Another example of Lemuel’s moral power is when he convinced the ministry not to destroy and enslave Blefuscu, the enemies of the Lilliputians. He stated, ‘that he would never be an instrument of bringing a free and brave people into slavery’. Even though he knew he was going against the emperor and his wishes, that didn’t matter to him, he stayed true to his what he believed and even convinced the rest of the ministry not to destroy the people of Blefuscu. This decision, he made, could have had great consequences on his life, but that didn’t stop him from doing what he was right.

Unlike moral power, physical power is having great strength. Lemuel in this novel shows many feats of physical power over the inhabitants of both the Lilliputians and the people of Blefuscu. One example of his strength is when he was preparing to defeat a fleet of Blefuscus ships that were about to attack Liliput. Without explaining his plan to anone he began his work by obtaining the strongest cable they possessed. He states that the cable was about as thick as packthread and the bars of the length and size of a knitting–needle. He trebled the cable to make it stronger, and for the same reason he twisted three of the iron bars together, bending the extremities into a hook.

To the reader, this might not sound like a great feat of strength, but to the Lilliputians, it is almost unbelievable. Lemuel managed to twist and turn their strongest cable like it is nothing ad even made more. After this is when the reader can see his greatest achievement using his strength. He planned to swim to Belefuscudian territory and hook as many ships together with the strong cord that he made. He recalled that

he resolutely cut with his knife the cables that fastened the anchors, receiving about two hundred shots in his face and hands; then he took up the knotted end of the cables, to which his hooks were tied, and with great ease drew fifty of the enemy’s largest men of war after him. (Swift 57).

This accomplishment was so impressive to the people of Liliput, that they praised him for it. They did not expect Lemuel to do this deed for them. All they asked of him was to destroy the ships, but instead, he brought them back, which were indeed valuable to the emperor. This chapter shows the importance of being physically strong. If Lemuel hadn’t used his physical power, then the Blefuscudians would have destroyed lilliput and its people.

By now, the difference between having moral power and physical power should be clear. Even though Lemuel Gulliver showed both, the two could not be any more different. Moral power has to do more with the mind. It is the ability to stay true to one’s beliefs without caring for the consequences. Or as Jal Mehta and Christopher Winship put it, ‘Moral power is the degree to which an actor, by virtue of his or her perceived moral stature, is able to persuade others to adopt a particular belief or take a particular course of action'(pg. 2). Again Gulliver showed this when he spared the lives of two of the Lilliputians that shot him, he could have killed them easily for their wrongdoing but decided to spare them instead. Physical power, on the other hand, is having brute force, it is the ability to move something from one place to another. This again is shown when gulliver lifts the islanders like it is nothing, or when he rips out many trees to make a path. Swift in this novel, does an amazing job of showing both moral and physical power through Lemuel. Both are not easy to accomplish, but yet, Lemuel does them without a second thought.

In the novel “Gulliver’s Travels”, a man named Lemuel Gulliver finds himself on an island inhabited by many tiny people. Here one can see his struggles as he decides to submit under their rule and to even help them with their struggles. Jonathan Swift in this novel does an amazing job of showing the reader the difference between moral power and physical power through the main character.

Gulliver’s Travels is a book written by Jonathan Swift with an intriguing plot filled with characters that complement one another. This novel begins with the main character, Lemuel Gulliver, being described as an English surgeon. After his business failed, he decides to travel the seas on a voyage. Lemuel’s first journey begins after his ship wrecks and he wakes up as the only survivor in a place called Lilliput. He is tied up by six-inch tall people called Lilliputians while he is knocked out. They are considerably nice to Lemuel by feeding him almost all of their food but are not afraid to use their violence against him. Lemuel is taken to the Lilliputian’s emperor where he is asked to help defend their capital from their enemies, Blefuscu. He does a good job of defending them until he attempts to put out a fire in the capital with his urine and is sentenced to death for treason. Luckily, Lemuel escapes to Blefuscu where he finds a boat to repair and returns to England.

Lemuel doesn’t stay in England but for two months then sets out for his second voyage to a place called Brobdingnag. This new place is filled with giants where a worker in a field finds him and sells him to the queen as entertainment. During his time there, he teaches the king about the English government but is never rewarded for it. His unpleasant stay in Brobdingnag lasts two years and ends when an eagle picks his cage up during a trip to the beach. After the eagle drops him in the ocean, an English ship crew finds him and brings him back to his homeland.

Just a few weeks later, Lemuel sets sail again on a journey to the East Indies but ends up stranded on a deserted island after being attacked by pirates. The people of Laputa come down and take them to their city above the clouds. This place takes a different turn in the novel because the residents of this place are slightly insane. They are all philosophers who spend their days thinking about pointless things. After he grows bored with them, he goes to the country below Laputa named Balnibarbi. This place is filled with less educated people who wander around thinking. After becoming frustrated with the barely educated people there, he travels to the neighboring island of Glubbdubdrib. In this place, he meets the governor of Glubdugribb who gives Lemuel a gift to bring dead people back to life and talk to them. Here, he talks to the deceased people and finds out that he has been lied to about history. He also meets an immortal race called the Stuldbrugs who are desolate. After this, he begins his journey through Japan back to England.

Lemuel’s last voyage begins when he finds himself in a position as a captain of a new voyage. His crew ends up rebelling against him and leaving him behind and he washes up in the kooky land of Houyhnhnms which is inhabited by horse people called Houyhnhnmians. He lives in their clean and constructed society for several years but is constantly bothered by their neighboring civilization. These people were humans called Yahoos throughout. The Yahoos are beasts who contrast the Houyhnhnms with their dirty and unorganized lifestyle. Lemuel learns about the different cultures of people and how they live throughout all of this.

Gulliiver’s Travels is filled with interesting characters that work together to create a unique story. The main character of this novel is an English man named Lemuel Gulliver. He is a surgeon who is seeking an adventure and starts it by going on voyages. Through his exploration, he meets other characters in various places. Some of the most important include the Lilliputians and their emperor, The Brobdingnagians and their king, The Laputians and their king, the farmer, the queen of Brobdingnag, the Laputian men, the governor of Glubbdubdrib, the Houyhnhnms, and the Yahoos. The journey begins with the Lilliputians who are six-inch tall people who tie Lemuel up and use him in their battles. Their emperor is a rude man who ruled over the Lilliputians and sentenced Lemuel to death for putting a fire out of his capital with his urine. The Brobdingnagians were giants that Lemuel met on his second voyage out to sea. These people were very nice compared to the other civilizations he met in the story. The farmer was a Brobdingnagian man who took care of Lemuel and their king used him to learn about England’s monarch. Their queen is who bought Lemuel for her entertainment and accidentally let him escape. The men of Laputa were well-educated wanderers who could be considered as philosophers. Lemuel eventually got bored with them and found the governor of Glubdubdrib who gave him the powers to bring back the dead and communicate with them. The last place Lemuel visits is Houyhnhnms which is inhabited by horse people. These people are surprisingly very intelligent. The neighboring civilization of the Yahoos are beast-like humans who the Houyhnhnms respectively hate.

It is difficult to choose someone to be the second most important character in Gulliver’s Travels because Lemuel is the main character we follow throughout the book. Don Pedro de Mendez is also an extremely important character because he has symbolic importance in the book. In terms of the plot, he doesn’t do much since we only see him for a brief amount of time. We meet him at the end of the story when he helps Lemuel out and keeps him from going completely insane. Lemuel has gone through a lot through his journey. He has been tortured and almost murdered for years. Don Pedro is a Portuegese captain who finds Lemuel after he is kicked out of the city of Houyhnhnms and takes him back to Europe. He provides generosity to Lemuel by giving him new clothes and a safe ride back home.

Gulliver’s Travels can be related to my life in many ways. The point that stands out most is how I would personally love to travel the world and go on voyages like Lemuel. I think that I would have the time of my life exploring other countries and meeting people who don’t share the same culture as me. Although I want to travel, I don’t think I ever could because of how scary it seems. There are many countries you could never convince me to go to even though I would end up loving it there. I feel like it could be very dangerous to go to some countries in the world. This can relate to Lemuel because he was tortured and almost murdered in some of the places he went to. I would not like to be held captive in a foreign country for years like Lemuel Gulliver.

Some repeated themes of Gulliver’s Travels would be individual vs. society, the limits of human understanding, and power vs. ethics. The most important theme is individual vs. society. This is because the majority of the conflicts in this novel is between Lemuel and the community he is around. Throughout the story, he is met with the differences between the lands he travels to and his homeland. Following this, Lemuel also comes into conflict with how he doesn’t know everything he necessarily needs to know in life or about life. An example of this would be the people of Laputa, who spent their days contemplating theoretical ideas. Power vs. ethics is displayed by Lemuel not knowing if power should be chosen by ethics or not. Another way to describe this would be if physical strength should overpower morals. Lemuel struggles with this idea when he is met with the difficulty of trying to understand the ways different governments and societies are run.

Lemuel Gulliver is an extremely admirable character in this novel. This is because of his endurability, bravery, and curiosity. Throughout the book, Lemuel remains curious and ready to explore whatever is next in line. He deals with being harassed by all of the societies he goes through and then keeps going on his voyages. His bravery is also shown through this. He never seems too scared or feels like he can’t do something and doesn’t give up. His curiosity is most admirable because it is an important trait to have. Being curious makes you a better person and keeps you learning.

Throughout the novel, Lemuel changes many times. His shifts come with different societies he is in and how important he is. An example of this would be how in his first voyage he felt like a king because he was extremely helpful and the people needed him because he was a giant compared to him. In his second voyage though, he felt like a vermin because he was surrounded by giants and this time he was the small one. Lemuel’s changes in character differed between good and bad. They also affected how the audience views him and their opinion on him. Most of these changes were slight but at the end of the novel, we see a drastic change as he becomes miserable and defeated. At the beginning of this story, Lemuel was a man who was excited to explore the world but by the end, he just wanted to go home and end the torture.

Gulliver’s Travels is an amazing book filled with an intriguing plot and characters that fascinate the reader. In this novel, there are developments and introductions of many characters that compliment each other and make up the plot. I have found ways to relate this story to my personal life. There was also an interesting way that the main character changed throughout the story and it was overall a very interesting book.

Satire speaks differently

Gulliver’s travels is a story discusses the sociable cases and humanity by the satire of the situations and events. The story has been written in 1726 in United Kingdom by one of the greatest British writers and satires called Jonathan Swift. The satires used the satire to discuss many issues in England this times by some different travels and characters and uses a narrator called Lemuel Gulliver to express about his views and experience in English society by making a reflection on another states not from the real world. This paper argue the satire of Gulliver’s travels in Lilliput, Brobdingnag and Houyhnhnm.

First, when Gulliver’s travels has been written England was the most powerful country all over the world. It had a big army and navy. England used this options to conquer other countries in the world and British search for new areas to control them. In this time English people knew new civilizations in the world. From this sight Lilliputians consider as the first new civilization although it did not follow England before. Swift mentioned to the tall of Lilliputians is only six inches and that was pathetic for Gulliver, a person from the greatest country all over the world ‘England’ becomes a prisoner for Lilliputians. In this point swift asking about the pride of his country England. From the unity of Lilliputians a large number of small people can take a large man to the prison. The question is if the colonies of British can unit to do great things like that. In chapter three the king decided to give Gulliver some entertainment by showing him their tradition court.

The tradition is those who asks for an honourable positions have to compute with others competitors by walking to the middle of a string which has a highest by two and half feet. All competitors should jump as high as they can. Whoever has the highest jump he is the successful. Form Swift’s opinion the process of hiring the high level officials by this completion is totally similar to the system in England. I think he was making fun of the system of hiring officials in England and described the ambitious as a danger because jumping badly maybe lead to death. Also, in this chapter, Swift made a fun of the English armies when the army crossed under Gulliver’s legs. He wants to say that armies interested in the sight of impressive more than being impressive. In chapter four, Swift mocking form the war between England and France. It is similar conflict like the conflict between Lilliputians and Blefuscudians. Their conflict about how to break the egg off and that goes to the Protestants and Catholics in England and France. It is a religious war and the war for religions from Swift’s point of view like the conflict of how to break the egg off. In chapter five, Gulliver works as a fire engine to quench palace’s fire. But without water he urinated on the palace to controls the fire.

Swift wants to say that someone should urinate on the problems of society. That means the royalty can be stay for a bit of time and if the royal court could be damaged by fire. So, any royal or political power can be damaged also by any types of serious issue. And when it takes place someone tried to control on it by any cost. Gulliver proved this point when all people tried to control on fire with their tiny buckets and he released that the only way to quench the fire is urinating. Swift showing the funny part of royalty. Although Gulliver saved the royal palace but he made it in a dirty way. Most of time in the novel Swift used the satire to mocking something negative in the English society and that is happened when Gulliver tells anything wrong of a society. For example, in Lilliput lying is a crime and Swift wants to say that lying is worse more than any other crimes in British society. I see that goes to what Isabel Stanley said before about Swift when she said that:

‘Swift makes fun of events in England in the alien lands that Gulliver goes to. In all the courts visited by Gulliver, he sees the falsification of ministers and guardians corrupt or being dealt with in small conflicts’.

Second, after Gulliver escaped from Lilliput to Brobdingnag. He sold to the royal majesty and did some political conversations with the king of Brobdingnag. But the king did not consider Gulliver’s point of view as an important opinion because he is very small besides of the idea of getting the authority by gun is an unfavourable idea for the king. After some days of discussions about the governments in both countries England and Brobdingnag. The king describes the British Government when he said that:

“Race of little malignant insects like the infuriating Fermin that the Earth has suffered ever more.” The king said that after Gulliver tried to influence him by bragging at the history of United Kingdom. That is so clear and Gulliver proved that in his say:

‘He was so surprised by the historical narrative I gave to him about our affairs during the last century, and he protested. It was nothing but a pile of conspiracies, rebellions, killings, massacres, revolts, deportations and the worst effects that could be caused by greed, factions, hypocrisy, treachery, cruelty, anger, madness, hatred, hatred, lust and ambition’.

However, the gunpowder proves the power and represents the powerful achievements. But Brobdingnag’s king can see the negative effect of gunpowder and assumes that the positive sides can be washed away by the negative or bad side. Swift wants to implement that because someone can do this goal by gun but it will bring many damages.

Third, in this part Gulliver travels to a country called Houyhnhnm. In this country, he sees a group of human-like creatures but a shame called Yahoos. They live like cattle and the superior creature among them is named Houyhnhnms. In Houyhnhnm land Gulliver tries to make himself far away from Yahoos. On the other hand, when Gulliver went to Brobdingnag and explained the English society to the king. The king described the English people as despicable creatures that Gulliver tried to defend the sons of the whole. But this time there is something different. Gulliver explains some appalling aspects of human nature. Here Swift shows his readers the results of losing a lot of graces such as feeling, education, intelligence, express opinion, and consultation. Houyhnhnms always meet to discuss their issues and the writer mentioned to that when he said:

‘Big talk in the General Assembly of Houyhnhnms. How it was determined. Their learning process. Their buildings. The way that they are buried. Defects of their language ‘.

In these chapters Gulliver compared doctors to greedy people who would kill the patient once he was treated. I think he mentioned to that because Gulliver spent many years working as a surgeon before. Also, Gulliver told his boss about ways to deal with horses in English society and his boss could not believe that. The same thing in the English society no-one could not believe that there is a country where horses lead humans. In Houyhnhnm, horses have the virtue and intelligence about humans and Yahoos differ from them in appearance only but enjoy with the same ethics. Swift tries here to show a comparison between the best and the worst in human nature. Swift shows a similarity between both governments in England and Houyhnhnm. When the grey horse attends the big gathering I think that reflects the meritocracy system. And Houyhnhnms were discussed the issue of dispossessing Jews. This is exactly what happened in England when Swift’s time when the native people tried to exterminated the colonized people. But they had to rethink over and over in alternative ways of rearranging society.

Gulliver travelled to many countries such as Lilliput, Brobdingnag and Houyhnhnm. He mentioned to situations and events in essence carry certain messages in each state he went to it. Each time he become in a different culture and shows the bad and good aspects of each culture compared to the real world. So, Swift’s thoughts are absolutely true.

Works cited

1. Brackett, Virginia. “Gulliver’s Travels.” Encyclopaedia of the British Novel, 2-Volume Set, Second Edition, Facts on File, 2013. Bloom’s Literature, online.infobase.com/Auth/Index?aid=&itemid=&articleId=9826. [Accessed 10 Mar. 2019].
2. DeGategno, Paul J., and R. Jay Stubblefield. “Gulliver’s Travels.” Critical Companion to Jonathan Swift, Facts on File, 2006. Bloom’s Literature, online.infobase.com/Auth/Index?aid=&itemid=&articleId=18340. [Accessed 9 Mar. 2019].
3. Stanley, Isabel B. “Gulliver’s Travels.” Master plots II: Juvenile & Young Adult Fiction Series, Mar. 1991, pp. 1–2. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lfh&AN=103331JYF11649270000166&site=lrc-live. [Accessed 9 Mar. 2019].

Johnathan Swift is known as the greatest satiric writer in all of English literary history. Born m, without a father and his mom abandoning him to return to England, he was raised by his relatives. Swift’s childhood was impaired with Meniere’s disease which caused vertigo, nausea, and hearing loss. In 1688, Swift migrated to Leicester, England, after the Glorious Revolution struck Dublin where he was attending Trinity College. In England, he worked as a secretary for Sir William Temple, a former diplomat, where he familiarized himself with politically influential people. With the help of Sir William Temple, he was able to attend Oxford University and earn an M.A. degree. In the 1700s, Swift became a leading figure in Dublin’s society and politics. He would become a critic in order in order to attempt to help improve Ireland. During the same time, he began writing his own books usually under a pseudonym. He joined the Tories, a political group, in 1710 and began to write political pamphlets such as The Conduct of the Allies. In 1726, he created his most known book, Gulliver’s Travels under the name Lemuel Gulliver. In this book, he uses all his experience within the political world, especially between the Whigs and Tories, to discuss the condition of the world. Due to his understanding and contact with politics and religion, he is able to fully analyze and critique the practices that take place. In Gulliver’s Travels, Swift uses satire and examples to ridicule humanity by criticizing their governments, societal traditions, morality, and other human defects.

Swift criticizes human governments heavily in Part 1, where their events “mirror the events in England in Swift’s day. The petty Lilliputian emperor represents the worst kind of governor”(Themes 83). Swift uses real people and characteristics in order to mock governments. The Lilliputian emperor is a representation of the King of England, George I, as Swift believes that the rulings and procedures of George I are irrational. An example of this representation is shown when “the Emperor his father published an edict commanding all his subjects, upon great penalties, to break the smaller end of their eggs”(40-41). He uses the ridiculous law on breaking eggs to show the irrationality of the kings who hold the most power. Although the Lilliputians see this event as pertaining to religious matters, Swift uses Gulliver to show how unreasonable fights over legal acts seem to an outsider with no context. When an office is vacant in the Lilliputian kingdom, “five or six of those candidates petition the Emperor to entertain his majesty and the court with a dance on the rope, and whoever jumps the highest without falling, succeeds in the office”(28). This event shows Swift’s perception of the qualifications of the government officials by using the Lilliputians getting into the office for a reason that has no relevance to the job that they are attempting to receive. This event also shows the inefficiency of the king as he focuses on attributes that do not help improve the country. Swift uses the Yahoos to show that not only are government officials unqualified, but they are the most immoral of all people. Gulliver overhears “that in most herds there was a sort of ruling Yahoo…who was always more deformed in body and mischievous in disposition than any of the rest”(277). Swift implies that the powerful leaders of the world are the most brutish and cruel. He hints that to gain power and respect, one must be more immoral than the others. Swift uses satire to belittle the government implying that most officials are either unqualified and irrational or cruel and immoral.

Swift fears that technology can be addicting to some people causing loss of focus and practicality in those that are addicted. Swift warns about the dangers of technology and knowledge becoming so alluring for people that they lose focus on other important aspects of life. Swift uses the Laputians as a prime representation of addiction as they are “hyper intellectuals (they have departed the world as the soul leaves the body) who distastefully perform the minimal functions of physical life on their island floating in the air”(Horrell 59). Swift mocks the scientists with the Laputians as they forget to take care of their physical bodies but rather focus all of their efforts into their intellects and studies. Gulliver observes that he has “not seen a more clumsy, awkward, and unhandy people” in which they are “so slow and perplexed in their conceptions upon all other subjects, except those of mathematics and music”(166). The Laputan people are unbalanced as they may be superior in one or two subjects, but in all other subjects of life that are equally important are novices. Swift takes this example to the extreme as the Laputians can not stay concentrated without a helper to keep them undistracted at the task they are attempting. Additionally, because of their obsession, they become inhumane as they are “so abstracted and involved in speculation that [Gulliver] never met with such disagreeable companions”(177). Not only does an obsession with technology affects the people themselves, but it affects their relationships with other people as well. Their obsessions cause them to lose human characteristics. Although they gain technological intelligence, at the same time they lose their logic. That the Laputians live on a flying island is a representation of the isolation that they have created. Within this island, they are able to resist any outsider from coming aboard making them alienated from the outside world. However, people are usually attempting to leave the island as shown when a wife escapes her husband and would rather live in a poor hut as a slave. The wife leaves her children and rich life due to the confinement of the island The defects of technology are also shown within the Balnibarbians, the country that is terrorized by the Laputians with their technology. Although they may not have the exact same defects of technology as the Laputians, they are equally affected by it as they lose all logic when using or creating science. As Gulliver is visiting the academies of Balnibarbi, he observes that “none of these projects are yet brought to perfection, and in the meantime, the whole country lies miserably wasted, the houses in ruins, and the people without food or clothes”(182). The Balnibarians face a similar problem with technology as they lose logic. They lose focus on the more important matters within their country causing their land to be inhabitable as their country is in disarray. Swift uses this aspect to parody “the scientists of his day in order to make his point that science for its own sake is not a lofty ideal. Science and the ability to reason ought to be used for practical ends, he felt, to address and solve the many real-life problems”(Themes 85). The trips to Balnibarbi and Laputian are used to show the dangers of technology such as obsession, loss of focus, and neglect of other aspects if not used properly.

The most critical and abundant topic Swift’s satire is human nature as being instinctively immoral, cruel, and deceitful. Throughout the book, the journeys Gulliver endures are used to criticize the behavior and traits of humans as “It is the human condition, Swift felt, to sin: be deceitful, cruel, selfish, materialistic, vain, foolish, and otherwise flawed”(Themes 83). On his trip to Glubbdubdrib, the Governor allows Gulliver to choose any human in the past to converse and study. With this opportunity, he chooses to visit some of the most famous figures in history such as Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and Socrates. However, Gulliver is not satisfied as he discovers “how the world had been misled by prostitute writers, to ascribe the greatest exploits in war to cowards, the wisest councils to fool”(294). Gulliver’s discovery of the truth of history’s events shows the true nature of people to be fraudulent. He examines how history was mostly filled with corruption and cowardice. He finds cowards who are praised as heroes and leaders who are actually the most immoral of people as they prostituted their own wives and daughters. This discovery disappoints Gulliver because “history is supposed to teach us by example, and yet… the historical line of communal memory has been corrupted”(Rothstein 113). This aspect angers Gulliver since he admires and learns from the lessons of history only to discover that history is full of lies. While Gulliver was with the Giants in Brogdingham, he amazed the king with how he “would entertain such inhuman ideas, and in so familiar a manner as to appear wholly unmoved at all the scenes of blood and desolation”(135). This confrontation with the king shows the desensitization of people as they become comfortable with seeing gruesome weapons such as guns being used. In addition, Gulliver is unable to understand the reason for his offer’s declination as he is oblivious to his own apparent coldness and brutality. With the king’s severe rejection, Gulliver’s assumption “that he is doing the king a favor coexists in the reader’s mind with the shocking demonstration of what man’s inhumanity is capable of… and Swift is achieving a bitter yet comic irony in Gulliver’s naive unawareness and continued self-assurance”(Ross 78). With this conversation, Swift is able to show how cruel a man can be by using an example that is normal to the readers. Gulliver’s stay with Houyhnhnms shows the direct satire by Swift as it directly condemns the human race showing Gulliver’s hate for his own race slowly building up. The leader of the Houyhnhnms “seemed therefore confident, that instead of reason, we were only possessed of some quality fitted to increase our vices”(257). As Gulliver lives with the Yahoos, he realizes his behavior and defects of them are the same with humans. He discovers that Yahoos are the true form of men as brutish and unintelligent beings as they are constantly fighting each other. Swift uses some descriptions of human life to create a similarity between the two species. The Yahoos are extremely protective of certain colored stones that they are willing to fight over them. Swift is able to mock human’s obsession with money as being foolish and unreasonable. The more that he lives with the Houyhnhnms, the more he begins to act like a horse and hate humans. He sees the Houyhnhnms as the perfect beings of peace and reason, which is satirical as Swift describes the perfect being as not being human suggesting that Swift believes that humans are unable to be perfect. The entirety of Gulliver’s Travels contains satire within conversations and events that are used to show the deformities within humans that makes them imperfect beings.

The chastisement of humanity is shown throughout Gulliver’s Travels as Swift analyzes human defects, governments, and morality. Swift, being a former politician, uses many examples to mock real politicians in order to show the defects within human governments. Swift fears that the lure of technology is too tempting for scientists which will cause addiction and a loss of logic. The most powerful topic Swift touches upon is the human nature to be cruel and immoral. Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels is a representation and warning of the weakest and darkest aspects of human society as he tries to emphasize the issues that humans need to work on.

This extract of Gulliver’s travel novel by Swift appears at the end of the novel part IV chapter 5. The protagonist has already traveled in three different cultures. Here, he is with the Houyhnhnm’s society. He explains to his master the wars that occur in Europe and their motives of it. The author raises the issues of the absurdity of Human nature about the constant quarrels. Especially the reasons that push mankind to kill his neighbor. Why do Gulliver’s fellows kill each other? Gulliver’s arguments about humankind are getting into deeper water.

This essay will examine how Swift through Gulliver is depicting the absurd and paradoxical motives to kill and to subjugate others in this extract. The first concern shall be the paradoxical image given by Gulliver then I will discuss that the more we have reasons to subjugate each other more the vice of humankind increases.

Firstly, Swift is depicted as a quite pejorative image of his fellows through paradoxical motives. Gulliver is presenting his culture to another culture, that never heard of it and don’t understand what pushes men to kill each other. Through the innocent eyes of the Houyhnhnm, it highlights the absurdity of those motives. They are illustrated by events like the Revolution under the Prince of Orange or the war in France. Gulliver exposes the many reasons, mainly it is because of the difference of opinions that “has cost many millions of lives” in line 11, once again the absurdity of those motives is exposed. For a yes or a no, a prince can decide to kill a million of people. Swift uses those examples as a fertilizer for his satire giving the impression of the craziness of the situation occurring in Europe. Therefore, Gulliver has a hyperbolic vocabulary using strong words as “so furious”; “bloody” line 15, once again to highlight the brutal and senseless power used in war.

Furthermore, Gulliver is doing his best, trying to give reliable reasons to make war. Swift is using Gulliver to make a dramatic irony effect, as a puppet master, to make fun of all of his arguments. While his protagonist is trying to give valid motives to make war with tons of examples like “too strong (…) too weak” line 17 or even “the things which we have (…) have things we want” line 18, we understand that within all those reasons there is none which is really valid. Humans are not really searching for reliable motives to make war but only pretexts. For Gulliver, the Houyhnhnm are the perfect kind, and he identifies himself as one of them. But while he is trying to justify those terrible acts as torture, slavery, and killing, he is, in fact, digging himself deeper. Searching for justification for doing the unforgivable is a terrible process of Swift making fun and giving an impression of the absurd.

It leads us to another point through this extract which is, the more justifiable reasons gives to Gulliver the more sinful humankind appears. In fact, humans are compared to yahoos, which are known to be the more horrible creatures of the Houyhnhnm world. In fact since the beginning of the extract Gulliver is comparing his fellows with the “Yahoos”line 5, which is explicitly giving the impression of how dreadful the people of Europe are. Also at the end he compared a human to “a yahoo hired to kill” line 33, which is followed with a murderess comparison. Humankind would kill as many as they can their fellows “in cold blood” line 33, Swift once again is depicting a dreadful image of humankind.

Moreover, There is strong biblical imagery in this extract, which is the religion of the human not the Houyhnhnm. By using religious vocabulary, Swift is increasing the horrible image of humans, those words are only negative. That is to say more the humans are finding justifiable motives to do horrible acts more sinful he appears. In fact, Gulliver is giving many vices as synonyms of man. He gives the attribution of “proud” line 32 as an important vice that is pride which leads men to make war. Also he depicts them as greedy persons who quarrel to “have the things which we want” line 23, like children fighting for a toy. Swift gives an image of childish reasons to make such terrible acts. Also, he uses words as “famine” and “pestilence” line 25 as consequences of human actions. Also to give a barbarous view over human acts Swift uses anaphora in line 12 “ flesh be bread, or bread be flesh” to reinforce this impression on the reader.

Swift through the voice of Gulliver is depicting an atrocious image of men. Humankind is viewed as brutal, cruel and also sinful. Through the extract, the absurdity and paradoxical motives to make war and make odious acts to each other is explicitly shown to strengthen the satire and the acerbic criticism made by Swift about his fellows. Once again Gulliver is the puppet of his creator using him to show the senselessness of war. Even though, Gulliver will have an inglorious faith in the Houyhnhnm’s society because of his nature that is undeserving to stay with them.

Gulliver’s Travels, or Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships is a 1726 prose satire by the Irish writer and clergyman Jonathan Swift, satirizing both human nature and the ‘travelers’ tales’ literary subgenre. It is Swift’s first-rate recounted full-length work, and a classic of English literature. Swift claimed that he wrote Gulliver’s Travels ‘to vex the world as a replacement than divert it.

The e-book used to be an on-the-spot success. The English dramatist John Gay remarked ‘It is universally read, from the cabinet council to the nursery.’ In 2015, Robert McCrum launched his determination listing of one hundred top-notch novels of all time in which Gulliver’s Travels is listed as a satirical masterpiece’.

Jonathan Swift, the creator of Gulliver’s Travels, believed that the attribute of man which makes him high-quality and extended from restricted animals are his rationality and reason. Therefore, his element of view made him skeptical about the newfound scientific theories that delivered a radical alternative in man’s idea about his region in the cosmos. As the modern upgrades of science alongside the pseudoscientific hypothesis about man’s future had been changing the desires and thinking of have faith and had been seen thru way of the regular guys as the emanation of truth, Swift felt, such way of thinking of man was once as soon as rapidly as stripping him of human’s traits and hastening the dwindling of his intent and rationality. Swift violently opposed science and all abstracts inspecting so he voices his protest in the route of the modern-day scientists and science which to the pressured multitude used to be an extraordinary improvement then again to Swift used to be in truth a section of their delusion, Gulliver’s Travels is Swift’s most now no longer uncommon site. He makes use of his satire as his logical weapon. As he laughs at scientific enhancements and scientists, he portrays them as ludicrous characters in his satire. He in addition exposes the absurdity of the gap and illogical scientific notions and speculations. Swift now no longer be given as perfect with that the Age of Science used to be as short as the triumph by a splendid majority of his countrymen. To Swift, science and reason pick for limits and they pick the right measure of humanism they do no longer require absolute devotion.

Though Swift’s assault on science is direct, venomous, intensified, and adverse in Book III, his assault on modern scientists and the enhancements and interpretations can be marked in every and each and every Book I and II. In Book I, when Gulliver turns up his pocket in the past than the Lilliputian Emperor, the latter is amazed and compelled at the fluctuation and the dimension of these objects. Flabbergasted with the useful resource of way of the characteristic of Gulliver`s water, he requested the opinion of his realized man; then once more their interpretations have been vary of and a ways off and with the aid of no performance shut to the truth. Here Swift expresses the fissure between the scientific interpretations of a fluctuation of herbal phenomena and activities. In Book II, scientists as swiftly as rapidly as extended fall prey to the venom of Swift`s satire the neighborhood Gulliver with a comedian’s vein describe the incapacity of the Brobdingnagian scientists to classify the species of Gulliver and how they faster or later label him as a freak of nature. Here Swift suggests Aristotle`s criticism of scientists who, he opined, spent usually prolonged time on trivial issues and every and each and every and each time failing to get to the backside of the conundrum (riddle) of the occult, they normally misinterpret them and to come across a subterfuge to cowl their ignorance.

The 13 voyage opens sensationally. Gulliver, after his fundamental misfortunes at the fingers of pirates, is startled and the readers with him by way of seeming to be of the flying island of Laputa. Swift`s account of the action and navigation of the island is mainly in specific based definitely in reality on the heroics of William Gilberts De Magnete. Obviously, the human beings of Laputa have been scientifically greater most excellent than European scientists. The astronomers of Laputa had in addition made more prolonged discoveries than the European astronomers due to the truth of the superiority of Laputan telescopes. However, it is a large per risk that Swift is ideal right here making thrilling of the research and experiments of the Royal Society of England. The activity of one-of-a-kind scientists of the time in the opportunity of flying machines is ridiculed as a choice wrongly in the large share and complexity of this unique machine. But the structure of its employment as a coercive navy weapon is in elements of uncannily prophetic. Laputa can characteristic definitely be inside a confined distance of the terrestrial island Balnibarbi, in which the controlling magnetic impact is concentrated. Nonetheless, Laputans dominate the inhabitants of the mother or father’s island. When any Balnibarbi city suggests signs and symptoms and signs and symptoms and signs and signs and signs and signs and symptoms of revolt, the king of Laputa can barring troubles subdue it with the beneficial aid of way of conserving the island hovering over such a town and the lands about it, whereby he can deprive them of the accumulate of the image voltaic and as an end result afflict the inhabitants with loss of life and disease. Gulliver tells us that the city of Lindalino as swiftly as rebelled raised four towers of stone, set up loadstones and hope to entice Laputa when it descended, the king of Laputa, however, escaped the entice through using brushing aside his mission to crush the town.

Swift fills his readers’ questioning fall of reminiscence of scientific speculations with the description of the island. Then he proceeds to hyperlink these remembrances to Laputan terrorism and tyranny. In his description of the Laputans, Swift indulges his dislike for pure mathematicians. They are represented as hopelessly impractical and the sad penalties of their utilized arithmetic of filling clothes. The tailor’s mistake in calculation applies to Isaac Newton, a mathematical theorist who dabbled in politics. Newton suffered ridicule due to the truth a printer made a mistake in one of the figures used in computing (to calculate) the distance of the earth from the sun. Swift, however, had on the other hand some exclusive quarrel with Newton, Newton endorsed the scheme to debase Irish coinage that Swift believed used to be as quickly as immoral and callous. Newton used to be as short as an everyday mannequin for Swift, who believed that he included the essence of the immoral precise reasoning scientists. Swift additionally makes satirical use of Laputan anxiety about the fitness of photograph voltaic and comet theories. Many of his contemporaries had been so involved in astrology. Swift believed that they would possibly concern over a comet and now no longer phrase their wives-infidelity.

Swift now strikes Gulliver to Balnibarbi, the vicinity he massive in truth satirizes science and technological reasoning. In Balnibarbi, Swift discredits the king of Genius that is worried in the way things work barring questioning about the ends. In chapters 4, 5, and 6 he stigmatizes the morals of the engineers. All the tasks that Gulliver describes are parodies of undertakings severely gold appreciated through way of achievable of English scientists. To illustrate the engineering mentality, Swift has all his experimenters reversing a herbal technique of all the Balnibarbians, and the host of Gulliver in Lagoda, on my own, is obedient to the herbal process. Those who pay pastime to mission and scientific experimentations intend their land to enhance to be barren and desolate. Gulliver go to the academy of the projectors in London, the town of Balnibarbians is a tremendous one. Gulliver watches one man making an try to extract sunshine from a cucumber at the equal time as some one-of-a-kind is making an try to ward off human excrement to its genuine food. Some attempts to make gunpowder from ice and residences are constructed from roof to down and so on. All the responsibilities fail and Swift exposes them as pointless and useless. Each of the absurd initiatives that Gulliver opinions in this Book reverse a herbal process.

Gulliver`s time out at the neighboring island of Glubbdubdrib affords Swift with cloth for in addition satire on the intellects for following the event of Lucian who makes his high-priced hero educated dialog with the dead, which efficiently discredits the precautions of literary critics and historians. Towards the provide up of the book, we recognize Swift`s concept is that man is in no way to be exalted. Man truly can’t be aware on technological innovation, on archives or modern human studies. Man`s publications are poetry and historic philosophy.

Many authors in English literature use the novel’s setting as an important characteristic to the story. Setting means the time and place in which a story takes place. Two famous literary works mentioned in this course stand out when comparing their use of the setting. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen take place in various close small towns and cities in the English countryside. The women in this story rarely experience life outside of these towns, are reduced to socializing with the same few people within them and are bound to their maintained cultural norms and expectations. Because this story takes place primarily in the same location, the storyline and characters seem more limited. In Jonathan Swift’s novel, Gulliver’s Travels, the main character travels from England to many foreign lands, trying to understand new cultures and help them understand his. While the worlds Gulliver travels to are fiction, the objective of the story is to use Gulliver’s socialization with new people groups to compare and contrast culture with his native home in England. When comparing these two works of English literature, one can see the author’s use of the setting presumes the groundwork for the storyline, is used as a tool to influence the reader and can serve a symbolic purpose.

In these novels, both of the authors use location to further their stories and influence the reader. In Gulliver’s Travel, the entire plot revolves around the different settings of Gulliver’s journeys. Each trip results in him drawing new conclusions about his English culture and the human race in areas such as morality and leadership. For example, in part 2 chapter 5, Gulliver reflects on “how vain an attempt it is for a man to endeavor to do himself honor among those who are out of all degree of equality or comparison with him,” and sees “the moral of [his] own behavior very frequent in England,” once he returns home (Swift 152 part 2 chapter 5). The story furthers with each of the four trips, allowing Gulliver to continue narrating his adventures and comparing his early 1700s English culture to those of which he interacts. Jonathan Swift uses the four locations and their cultures to influence the reader into questioning their own society, just like Gulliver does. In Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen uses the setting to confine the characters to a narrow location. In the late 1700s or early 1800’s England, the Bennet sisters experience little-to-no life outside of their small community. Even in their uneventful world, however, they still face very relevantly, real-life problems just like other people around the world. In order to be seen as accomplished, women in this time were supposed to “have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages, to deserve the word,” (Austen 71). The psychological drama and social constructs are just as equally impactful in a small community when compared to the rest of the world. A woman in this time period faced more cultural suppression than a man, thus the author’s use of setting helps influence the reader and their emotional appeal to the characters.

The location of a novel does not always serve as a kind of symbolic purpose, but in Gulliver’s Travels, Gulliver’s experiences are meant to invoke a realization about humankind in the reader. The first group he encounters is the Lilliputians, which are a prideful group of tiny people who use Gulliver as a kind of weapon to defeat their enemies. Gulliver is naïve and unable to address the flaws of these small peoples, but this particular setting is ultimately used to prompt the reader into drawing a comparison to our own prideful human race. The next setting is a land filled with giants, Brobdingnag, where Gulliver finds that normal physical human imperfections are much more grotesque when magnified to their size. This setting is used to symbolize humankind completely exposed under a watchful eye. The third location is Laputa and Balnibarbi, used by Swift to address the Enlightenment period and the new forms of knowledge being used in the 18th century. The people of these lands use theoretical knowledge instead of Gulliver’s more traditional preferences which he feels improve human life more effectively. Lastly, the final setting Gulliver reaches before returning home to England is an unknown land where he finds two kinds of creatures: the Houyhnhnms, an intelligent horse-like animal, and the Yahoos, a very unintelligent type of human. He begins to appreciate the Houyhnhnms and all their wisdom, but the Master Horse tells Gulliver that he “was convinced (as he afterward told [Gulliver]) that [he] must be a Yahoo, but [his] teachableness, civility and cleanliness, astonished him; which were qualities altogether opposite to those animals,’” (Swift). He is then banished, but this experience symbolizes the lack of rational existence the Yahoos maintain when compared to the ideal lifestyle of the Houyhnhnms and how Gulliver relates to them because of his physical appearance.

In Pride and Prejudice, there is no explicit symbolism behind the setting. There are time-period-related sensitivities used by the author in the setting, but no specific symbolic meaning. While Gulliver’s Travel consists of many symbolic connections to the location, a novel, like Pride and Prejudice, might not have setting-related themes. Some books take place in primarily one location like Pride and Prejudice, and others in many locations like Gulliver’s Travels. The setting is a tool used to provide space for the author to lay the groundwork for the storyline, influence the reader, or attach a symbolic purpose or meaning. In conclusion, using examples from the text helps the reader draw these ideas out from English literature like Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels.

Works Cited

1. Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 2003. Print.
2. Swift, Jonathan. Gulliver’s Travels. New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 2003. Print.

For the second part of my Independent studies across the study weeks 11-17, I covered the option for Chapter six regarding ‘Topics covered in Gulliver’s Travels’. Further to this, I looked at two of the sub-headings ‘Swift, Gulliver’s Travels and travel writing’ also, ‘Swift, Gulliver’s Travels and colonial discourse’. From my cursory reading of Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, I found the character to lend a sense of false authority to the structure of the plot that is wholly believable. Firstly, every scene is related to the reader in the first person, namely through Gulliver, with Swift using this form of narrative, we could be persuaded that this is a reliable source of information. Also, as a surgeon Gulliver supplies his reasons for such extensive travel that helps to give further depth to the character while engaging with the reader emotively regarding his background ‘having few friends, my business began to fail’ (Swift, 1726, p.18).

Part of Swift’s clever satire comes from the fact that as a trusted surgeon, Gulliver’s stories could have been perceived as real arising from the subtle details supplied by himself. The travels themselves feel part diary or journal as he dates important encounters, the first voyage started ‘from Bristol May 4th 1699’ (p. 19). He also informs the reader of navigational coordinates, where possible, that help to give authenticity to the account. This possibly allows the reader to try to chart Gulliver’s journey across his fictional lands while following his course while also using the maps contained. However, Paul Hunter suggests in Gulliver’s Travels and the later writings that Swift, along with many other writers of his day were ‘authors who had never left home and whose facts were often wildly inaccurate’ (Hunter, 2003).

This observation led by Hunter adds to the overall idea of Gulliver’s Travels as a satire that uses Gulliver’s many journeys as a frame allowing him to apply critical comparisons through the use of allegorical representation. A prime example of this could be through the conversation with the master of the Houyhnhnm to embody the social/political climate that was prevalent at his time of writing, ‘whatever share of reason the Yahoos pretend to, the Houyhnhnms are your masters’ (p. 286). Within this statement, there may well have been an attempt by Swift to directly attack the superiority of the white-led European colonial attitudes of the day by the replacement of horses as the overriding dominant species. With the added inclusion of the subservient Yahoo race seen to replicant any non-European race as Gulliver himself grossly declares similarities with their genetic make-up as ‘common to all savage nations’ (p. 273).

It would also be possible to find similarities between Swift’s Gulliver and the character Ismail from Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. Both writers take the reader on a journey of discovery into locations that are unknown or possibly dangerous through their first-person viewpoints. Interestingly, both authors have the lead characters introduce themselves with an explanation as to why they need to document their journey, therefore sharing the experience with the reader ‘and nothing particular to interest me on shore’ (Melville, 1851, p. 93). Similarly, both authors use a maritime theme to give their respective stories a background that openly suggests adventure through adversity while engaging in travel to their destinations. Both accounts are filled with strange occurrences that are thrilling yet somehow believable due to the sheer amount of minute detail that both authors use. Melville openly detailed about whale hunting and the industry that fed out of New York and New England at that time adding believable creditability to what is a fictional travel story.

Throughout Gulliver’s journey’s across strange and unconventional lands he responds positively to the variety of native languages that are inherent to each of the Islands he lands on. On reflection, it feels as though Gulliver desires to embrace and understand each of the alien dialects as he comes to fully realize through open communication comes greater understanding. This overriding sentiment appears to be problematic with each arrival back to Britain as he appears to struggle with assimilating back into his own native culture ‘I could not endure my wife or children in my presence’ (p. 346). Through his travels, he fully immerses himself with the complexities of everyday life, in strange lands, a total contrast to the colonial idea of how the English language was used when it came into contact with foreign cultures, therefore, ridiculing the expansion of English as a domineering colonial language.

It is interesting how Swift took aspects of colonialism and used his fictional lands and all sorted characters to disseminate what he saw as the social and racial inequalities that were occurring at his time of writing. The king of the Brobdingnagians is openly representative of the British upper-class aristocracy as he looks down on Gulliver when he verbally attacks Gulliver ‘I cannot but conclude the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of little odious vermin’ (p. 154).

However, Gulliver is self-critical of the Laputans due to the Islanders being similar to Europeans not only on a physical level but from the use of their rather simplistic language that Gulliver discounts as a form of communication similar to English and is demonstrative towards it as he sees in it the most unappealing characteristics of his native language. From this realization, Gulliver learns that a person could over time become estranged from the English language and culture when journeying away from Britain on a long voyage.

William Golding wrote in his sea trilogy to the ends of the Earth about an extensive fictional sea voyage made between Britain and Australia during the early 1800s. Throughout his series of three interconnecting novels, he also alludes to colonial ideas behind social class while applied to the confines of an old frigate. Just as Gulliver is forced to endure encounters in strange lands due to accidents at sea, the passengers on board the Britannia are confined and are forced to re-examine themselves as the social order, onboard, starts to break down exposing to the reader flaws in the rigid British class system. Just as Swift used satire to highlight faults through his observations of Britain, Golding focuses our attention to the minute details on board the Britannia through the first-person narrative of Edmund Talbot’s journal. Just like Gulliver, Talbot shows us directly the differences that allow society to be critiqued such as the segregation of the passengers based on their social class. But also the hierocracy within the officer class through the observations of Summers as he brazenly declares ‘Class is the British language’ (Golding, 1980, p. 131) when Talbot jokingly chides him about his own lower social standing leading to his officer status.

This rather blunt comment is typical of the blinkered attitude that was propagated alongside the growth and spread of the British colonial system prompting writers like Swift to explore through his satirical writing. What is most interesting from reading Gulliver’s Travels as Clement Hawes informs us is how we may perceive Gulliver Travels as ‘a narrative in which Gulliver, the English narrator is himself colonized’ (Hawes, 1991). The reader may positively relate to this statement when consideration is given as to how Gulliver arrives at each of his destinations, on a ship which cleverly mirrors how slaves were transported across the Atlantic. Through his various journeys, he becomes more and more disenchanted with his life back home in Britain and he appears to embrace the lifestyles of those he meets. From this assumption we can see how Swift mirrors aspects of colonialism through Gulliver’s experiences, the exception being when he encounters the Laputans whom Gulliver rejects due to their being blinkered to the world around them. It may be possible that Swift was directly satirizing the British academics through the use of the Laputans who were seen to be ‘abstracted and involved in speculation’ (p. 205). This may also be seen as an attack against the upper classes whom Swift could have ridiculed due to their unconcern with matters that sustain life.

What we can correctly perceive from Hawes statement is how Swift reverses the qualities behind colonialism throughout the novel allowing Gulliver to experience a type of reverse psychology, this is brought to the fore while travelling to the lands of the Houyhnhnm. He positively views the horse-like race as intelligent and through their Utopian society, he realizes all of mankind’s faults from the lack of the Houyhnhnm’s ability to commit or comprehend these faults. Ultimately, it is Gulliver’s hatred of the captive Yahoo’s that is most shocking due to how he is reminded of his homeland through their unkempt appearance but also how the captives are treated like slaves ‘an odious animal for which I had so utter a hatred and contempt’ (p. 282). This is probably Swift’s most direct attack on colonialism arising from his thoughts regarding slavery as being the most prominent evil that was rapidly occurring during Swift’s lifetime.