Guillivers Travels
Context
Jonathan Swift, son of the English lawyer Jonathan Swift the elder, was born in Dublin, Ireland, on November 30, 1667. He grew up there in the care of his uncle before attending Trinity College at the age of fourteen, where he stayed for seven years, graduating in 1688. In that year, he became the secretary of Sir William Temple, an English politician and member of the Whig party.Meanwhile, he had begun to write satires on the political and religious corruption surrounding him, working on A Tale of a Tub,which supports the position of the Anglican Church against its critics on the left and the right, and The Battle of the Books, which argues for the supremacy of the classics against modern thought and literature.
Summary
A
satire in literature refers to the practice of making fun of a
human weakness or character flaw. The use of satire is often inclusive of a
need or decision of correcting or bettering the character that is on the
receiving end of the satire. The general theme of Gulliver's
Travels is a satirical examination of human nature, man's potential for
depravity, and the dangers of the misuse of reason; he attacked the baseness of
humankind even as he suggested the greatest virtues of the human race; he also
attacked the folly of human learning and political systems even as he implied
the proper functions of art, science, and government.
After abandoning ship and swimming to an unknown shore, Gulliver hardly expected to find himself tied down by a society of people half a foot tall. The Lilputions had seen nothing like Gulliver before. Appropriately, they give him the title of Man-Mountain and grant him is freedom in exchange for his loyalty. Gulliver began to feel a sort of self-importance, being much larger than everyone else in Liliput. Swift creates Liliput to mirror the English court. The Liliputians and the Blefuscudians are enemies because one group wants to break the egg on the small end and the other wants to break it on the big end. Just like the English, the two miniscule societies are fighting over insignificant issues. When told to destroy the Blefuscudians fleet he instead picks up the men and brings them to the Liliputions to form a peace treaty. After saving the Liliputions from an attack , Gulliver's confidence was at an all-time high. Needless to say, being a colossus gave him rank and importance very flattering to his pride. The Liliputions consider Gullivers attempt of kindness as a form of treason and sentence him to have his eyes gouged out.
After nine months of living in Liliput, Gulliver has had enough and leaves right as the Liliputions are deciding how to execute him. Not long after getting home, Gulliver embarks on his next journey. He spends almost a year at sea before entering Brobdingnag, the land of the big people. The tables have turned, and Gulliver is scared out of his wits. To the Brobdingnagians, Gulliver is six inches tall and poses no threate. All though harmless, Gulliver is thought to be a freak of a creature. His glorious title of Man-Mountain has been denounced to an animal; his pride has turned into his foolishness.
- On his third voyage, Gulliver visits a series of islands devoted to abstract things like mathematics, abstract ideas, and magic.
Characters
Gulliver - The narrator and protagonist of the story. Although Lemuel Gulliver’s vivid and detailed style of narration makes it clear that he is intelligent and well educated, his perceptions are naïve and gullible. He has virtually no emotional life, or at least no awareness of it, and his comments are strictly factual.
The farmer - Gulliver’s first master in Brobdingnag. The farmer speaks to Gulliver, showing that he is willing to believe that the relatively tiny Gulliver may be as rational as he himself is, and treats him with gentleness.
Glumdalclitch - The farmer’s nine-year-old daughter, who is forty feet tall. Glumdalclitch becomes Gulliver’s friend and nursemaid, hanging him to sleep safely in her closet at night and teaching him the Brobdingnagian language by day. She is skilled at sewing and makes Gulliver several sets of new clothes, taking delight in dressing him. When the queen discovers that no one at court is suited to care for Gulliver, she invites Glumdalclitch to live at court as his sole babysitter, a function she performs with great seriousness and attentiveness.
The queen - The queen of Brobdingnag, who is so delighted by Gulliver’s beauty and charms that she agrees to buy him from the farmer for 1,000 pieces of gold. Gulliver appreciates her kindness after the hardships he suffers at the farmer’s and shows his usual fawning love for royalty by kissing the tip of her little finger when presented before her.
The king - The king of Brobdingnag, who, in contrast to the emperor of Lilliput, seems to be a true intellectual, well versed in political science among other disciplines.
Lord Munodi - A lord of Lagado, capital of the underdeveloped land beneath Laputa, who hosts Gulliver and gives him a tour of the country on Gulliver’s third voyage. Munodi is a rare example of practical-minded intelligence both in Lagado, where the applied sciences are wildly impractical, and in Laputa, where no one even considers practicality a virtue. .
Yahoos - Unkempt humanlike beasts who live in servitude to the Houyhnhnms. Yahoos seem to belong to various ethnic groups, since there are blond Yahoos as well as dark-haired and redheaded ones. The men are characterized by their hairy bodies, and the women by their low-hanging breasts. They are naked, filthy, and extremely primitive in their eating habits.
Houyhnhnms - Rational horses who maintain a simple, peaceful society governed by reason and truthfulness—they do not even have a word for “lie” in their language. Houyhnhnms are like ordinary horses, except that they are highly intelligent and deeply wise.
Gulliver’s Houyhnhnm master - The Houyhnhnm who first discovers Gulliver and takes him into his own home. Wary of Gulliver’s Yahoolike appearance at first, the master is hesitant to make contact with him, but Gulliver’s ability to mimic the Houyhnhnm’s own words persuades the master to protect Gulliver.
Don Pedro de Mendez - The Portuguese captain who takes Gulliver back to Europe after he is forced to leave the land of the Houyhnhnms. Don Pedro is naturally benevolent and generous, offering the half-crazed Gulliver his own best suit of clothes to replace the tatters he is wearing.
Brobdingnagians - Giants whom Gulliver meets on his second voyage. Brobdingnagians are basically a reasonable and kindly people governed by a sense of justice. Even the farmer who abuses Gulliver at the beginning is gentle with him, and politely takes the trouble to say good-bye to him upon leaving him.
Lilliputians and Blefuscudians - Two races of miniature people whom Gulliver meets on his first voyage. Lilliputians and Blefuscudians are prone to conspiracies and jealousies, and while they treat Gulliver well enough materially, they are quick to take advantage of him in political intrigues of various sorts.
Laputans - Absentminded intellectuals who live on the floating island of Laputa, encountered by Gulliver on his third voyage. The Laputans are parodies of theoreticians, who have scant regard for any practical results of their own research.
Mary Burton Gulliver - Gulliver’s wife, whose perfunctory mention in the first paragraphs of Gulliver’s Travels demonstrates how unsentimental and unemotional Gulliver is.
Richard Sympson - Gulliver’s cousin, self-proclaimed intimate friend, and the editor and publisher of Gulliver’s Travels. It was in Richard Sympson’s name that Jonathan Swift arranged for the publication of his narrative, thus somewhat mixing the fictional and actual worlds.
James Bates - An eminent London surgeon under whom Gulliver serves as an apprentice after graduating from Cambridge. Bates helps get Gulliver his first job as a ship’s surgeon and then offers to set up a practice with him.
Abraham Pannell - The commander of the ship on which Gulliver first sails, the Swallow. Traveling to the Levant, or the eastern Mediterranean, and beyond, Gulliver spends three and a half years on Pannell’s ship.
William Prichard - The master of the Antelope, the ship on which Gulliver embarks for the South Seas at the outset of his first journey, in 1699. When the Antelope sinks, Gulliver is washed ashore on Lilliput.
Flimnap - The Lord High Treasurer of Lilliput, who conceives a jealous hatred for Gulliver when he starts believing that his wife is having an affair with him. Flimnap is clearly paranoid, since the possibility of a love affair between Gulliver and a Lilliputian is wildly unlikely.
Reldresal - The Principal Secretary of Private Affairs in Lilliput, who explains to Gulliver the history of the political tensions between the two principal parties in the realm, the High-Heels and the Low-Heels.
Skyresh Bolgolam - The High Admiral of Lilliput, who is the only member of the administration to oppose Gulliver’s liberation. Gulliver imagines that Skyresh’s enmity is simply personal, though there is no apparent reason for such hostility.
Tramecksan - Also known as the High-Heels, a Lilliputian political group reminiscent of the British Tories. Tramecksan policies are said to be more agreeable to the ancient constitution of Lilliput, and while the High-Heels appear greater in number than the Low-Heels, their power is lesser.
Slamecksan - The Low-Heels, a Lilliputian political group reminiscent of the British Whigs. The king has ordained that all governmental administrators must be selected from this party, much to the resentment of the High-Heels of the realm.
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