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Analysis Of ' Gulliver 's Travels By Jonathan Swift

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Aldous Huxley once said, “There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception” (The Personal Path to Virtue 20). Perception is present in every aspect of society, for humans decipher receptive actions into comprehensible and consolidated views of the Earth around them. From art, to music, and even to literature, everyone has his or her own perception, one that can change and develop dependent upon everyone’s own vision. In the novel, Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift, the reader will find their perception of the themes and the characters in the book drastically different in the beginning of the story than at the end. When one first lays their hands on a copy of Gulliver’s Travels, the ideas and themes they would believe to be most obvious and important would include adventure, discovery and the development of civilization. They would simply formulate these ideas from the title and cover of the novel. However, as one reads the story and divulges into the deeper meaning of Gulliver and his travels, he or she will find that the limits of human understanding and the individual comparisons of nature versus society are much more present in the novel than are adventure and discovery. Change is the underlining focus of this story. From the themes to the actions of the characters and even to the motifs of the story, many facets of the story change from the first to the last page due to the overwhelming significance of adventures that

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