Untitled Essay, Research Paper

Gulliver’s Travels

As a seemingly wise and educated man, throughout the novel Gulliver’s Tarvels,

the narrator cleverly gains the reader’s respect as a thinking and observant

individual. With this position in mind, the comments and ideas that Gulliver

inflicts upon those reading about his journeys certainly have their own identity

as they coincide with his beliefs and statements on the state of humanity

and civilization in particular. Everywhere Gulliver goes, he seems to comment

on the good and bad points of the people he encounters. Sometimes, he finds

a civilization that he can find virtues within, but he also encounters peoples

and places which truly diusgust him in their manner of operation and civility.

Overall, Swift gives Gulliver a generally negative and cynical attitude towards

the manner in which his current day English counterparts behaved cleverly

disguised in the subtext of his encounters with other nations that either

contrasted the way they lived, or mirrored unflatteringly his contemporaries

lifestyles.

In Gulliver’s first voyage to Lilliput, his role as the town giant not only

put into perspective the selfishness and unrelenting need for power of the

human race, but also opened his eyes to the untrusting and ungrateful nature

of those aforementioned. When he first arrived in their land, the Lilliputians

opted to tie him up, giving him no freedom, which he luckily did not object

to. Then, once they had developed a somewhat symbiotic realationship with

him, Gulliver was basically forced to abide to their whims and fancies, and

ultimately to be their tool in war. At any time, Gulliver could have escaped

their grasp, but instead, he opted to stay and observe and oblige to their

customs. He was a very agreeable guest. He did tricks for them, he saved

their princess from her burning castle, he defeated their mortal enemies,

and all he was rewarded with was their spite and mistrust. From the start,

no matter how cordial and well-behaved he was, there was little trust bestopwed

upon him by the people that bound him to their home. Also, Gulliver explains

the rediculous manner in which one becomes accredited in their society. “For

as to that infamous practice of acquiring great Employment by dancing on

the Ropes, or Badges of Favor and Distinction by leaping over sticks, and

creeping under them; the reader is to observe, that they were first introduced

by the Grand father or the Emperor now reigning; and grew to the present

Height, by the gradual increase of Party and Faction.” This rediculous means

of self-validation seems strickingly similar to some of the methods with

which people will resort to in our societies, where personal achievment and

values are secondary to their outward appearance, ability to impress, and

skills totally unnessesary to the job described. Gulliver’s description of

their government, way of life, and logic patterns reflected either his grievances

with or his innability to comprehend the manner in which many decisions,

traditions, and wyas of living developed in our own society. He also, though,

pointed out some redeeming values which he found in their way of living such

as their innability to accept fraud, and their total separation of purity

of smut, through reward and punishment. When it came down to it though, the

Lilliputian’s lack of trust towards their giant helper ruined their chances

of him staying, and Gulliver was forced to leave. He found their hospiatlity

to be great, but only at a severe stress to their own resources. At this

point, some very strong assertions have been made about humanity, but we

must go farther into the story to draw any real conclusions.

Although there wasn’t much said in this section of the book, the second voyage

to Brobdignag put Gulliver in a very compromising situation which made him

simply the pawn of social commentary by Swift. The people of Brobdignag treated

Gulliver in an almost rediculous manner. They put him in a cage like we do

with rodents, and were truly simple in their ideas. “The Learning of this

People is very defective; consiting only in Morality, History, Poetry, and

Mathematicks; wherin they must be allowed to excel. But, the last of these

is wholly applied to what may be useful in Life; to the Improvement of

Agriculture and all Mechanical arts; so that among us it would be little

esteemed. And as to ideas, Entitites, Abstractions ands Transcendentals,

I could never drive the least Conception into their heads.” This situation

made Gulliver see a people totally preoccupied with their own ideas, and

showed their ignorance of possibly better ideas simply becvause they refused

to acknowledge the possible validity of a little man’s ideas. It is this

attribute of human thought patterns that many times allows us to miss the

fine details in life, overlooking them as trivial.

When venturing in Laputa, Gulliver was thougholy disgusted by the adamant

ways of the inhabitants there. Their obsession with the very specifics of

their life not only put Gulliver off, but made him realize the follies of

all those like them. Their oblivion to the obvious tendencies life engulfs

made a great impression on him, seeing their wives totally confounded by

the male inhabitants fetish with the workings that they had managed to contrive

somehow. Not only did these people behave strangely, but their odd manner

of acting had affected their outward appearance, transforming them into

convuluted, wretched creatures. Their focus on Mathematicks and Musick were

not viewed as unattractive traits, but their narrow-mindedness, and absense

of thought on other subjects alarmed him, as he saw the reprocutions of such

a lifestyle. In Balnibari, the people there also had a very distorted manner

of living. Their beurocratic, innefficient machine of experiments, improvements,

and theories appalled Gulliver as he saw the degradation in society that

occured as a result of it. Both of these lands, although on somewhat opposite

ends of the spectrum belonged to the same family of false maxims to live

by. Both systems showcased many of the problems our own societies can face.

If we ignore problems we have, that can make us worse, but if we try to fix

every imperfection, no matter how rediculous-seeming, we would be totally

engulfed by the process.

In Gulliver’s last voyage to the land of the Houyhnhnms, there was by far

the most demonstrative of comparisons to our society, or should I say, contrasts.

When he met those people, animals that we know as horses, he was shocked

by their wisdom, sensibility, and kindness. On the other hand, the Yahoos,

most closely related to humans as we know them were vile, uneducated,

badly-behaved creatures. This reversal of roles demonstrated the shotty treatment

we have for lower creatures, even though they have many traits that could

be described as positive that we easily overlook. When Gulliver returns to

England, he is disgusted not only by the sight, smell, and actions of the

people there, but he cant even stand his own family. It is this fact that

clearly shows how aweful and pitiful the human race would seem if one had

the opporotunity to step back and take an honest, unobstructed view of it.

Throuighout Guliver’s Travels, Swift uses anecdotes told through Gulliver’s

eyes to demonstrate the vices and virtues associated with the way we live.

No matter where he was, he was able to see enviable aspects of their society,

and to demean the parts of their life that were silly, illogical, and offensive.

From each experience he grasped a stronger understanding of what it meant

to run a government, how Power and prestige could corrupt, and how false

logic could corrup a community. Not only a powerful social commentary, Gulliver’s

Travels teaches us an important lesson about what we must k