Gullivers Travels Essay example

     Jonathan Swift is one of the best known satirists in the history of literature. When one reads his works, especially something like Gulliver’s Travels, it is easy for one to spot the misanthropic themes, which emerge within his characterization. Lamuel Gulliver is an excellent protagonist: a keen observer, and a good representative of his native England, but one who loses faith in mankind as his story progresses. He ends up in remote areas of the world all by accidents in his voyages. In each trip, he is shipwrecked and mysteriously arrives to lands never before seen by men. This forms an interesting rhythm in the novel: as Gulliver is given more and more responsibility, he tends to be less

In Gullivers' Travel, Gulliver constantly lives in a state of fear from the immense size of all objects surrounding him yet he eventually overcomes this fear as the story progress. At the beginning of this excerpt, Gulliver is saved from shipwreck by a 72ft. farmer and his daughter Glumdalclitch. As the story progresses Gulliver and Glumdalclitch develop a liking for one another and build a very special relationship.

Swift was a neoclassical writer who wrote to enlighten people. He wanted people to look at the world that exits beyond them selves and discover virtue. Through his work Gulliver’s Travels Jonathan Swift demonstrates to the reader the importance of virtue. I this story the main character am Gulliver; a world traveler who takes a journey to different lands. Each place that Gulliver lands has different ideals that are the foundation of their society. Their views on life are completely new to Gulliver.

    During the eighteenth century there was an incredible upheaval of commercialization in London, England.  As a result, English society underwent significant, "changes in attitude and thought", in an attempt to obtain the dignity and splendor of royalty and the upper class (McKendrick,2).  As a result, English society held themselves in very high regards, feeling that they were the elite society of mankind.  In his novel, Gulliver's Travels, Jonathan Swift satirizes this English society in many ways.  In the novel, Swift uses metaphors to reveal his disapproval of English society.  Through graphic representations of the body and it's functions, Swift reveals to the reader that grandeur is

Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift is a story about a man named Gulliver who travels to many different islands in his quest to get home. His first encounter is with the Lilliputians on their island of Lilliput. The Lilliputians seemed rational and reasonable at first, but in reality they are not rational at all. They are revealed to be irrational because they have a corrupt court, wierd laws, and blatant discrimination.

The first part involves Lilliput, a land made up of tiny people known as the Lilliputians who are an embodiment of England and its people of that time. They symbolize the English and are based upon Swift’s assessment of his contemporaries. Their miniature size debunks the English’s inflated sense of self. They also have a morally debased political culture just as the English and they have an unquenchable lust for power. How these characteristics are satirised can be seen through Gulliver’s experience and interaction with his surroundings.

The last part of the book has Gulliver facing an extreme different point of view that changes Gulliver into a mental state to which he may not recover. He encounter to cultures, the Houyhnhums and the Yahoos. The Houyhnhums are very intelligent horses that live like ordinary humans, and the Yahoos are humans that act like dumb monkeys that are only useful for manual labor, and have almost no intellect. To Gulliver he is not like the Yahoos but to the Houyhnhums people he looks like them but he is smarter. The whole idea of Gulliver looking like a Yahoo starts to roll around in Gulliver’s head and he starts to lose his mind. He changes his mind about what he looks like and believes that he must never congregate with people that look like them, for example, human beings from England and everywhere

Although only slightly factual in historical setting, the legends of Robin Hood have captivated the imaginations of young and old alike through the charming stories concerning the characters of Sherwood Forest.

At first Gulliver’s travels comes off as a fantasy/adventure, but in actuality it’s a satirical commentary on society in Johnathan Swift. It starts off with Gulliver talking about himself. Later he gets shipwrecked and ends up in Lilliput, where the people are 6 inches tall. At first they think Gulliver is an enemy, but then realize he is no threat. He is taken to the palace and housed in a cursed temple. Gulliver is amazed at how silly the government’s rules are, for example to gain entry to the court the candidates must petition to the emperor. After the emperor gets 5 or 6 petitions he sets up a competition in which the candidates must do the Dance on the Rope, whoever jumps the highest without falling gets the job. The Lilliputians

The movie version of this story portrays Gulliver as a travel that has been gone for eight consecutive years and had been searching for his way home the entire time. He merely falls into unfortunate circumstances that prevent this return. In the book, however, it is less clear that Gulliver desires to be home at all. He very rarely speaks of his family and seems to have little emotion at being reunited with them after each journey or when he leaves them again. The movie's alternate portrayal of Gulliver seems incongruent with the added scene. Instead, this extra scene would appear to make more sense if the character of Gulliver was depicted as he was in the book.

With Gulliver's next travel, we find him in Brobdingnag. His voyage showed us the filthily mental and physical characteristics of man. Here, Gulliver was confronted with an adult nurse who repulsively revealed her breasts to Gulliver. This reminded him of how the Lilliputians found his skin full of craterlike pores and stumps of

These people take all of his possessions for inspection, for they are in awe and fear of his great size. They feed him, and soon untie him but still keep him in confinement. While in his confinement, he is visited by the emperor who likes Gulliver. Gulliver learns there language and the customs of the people of Lilliput. In this book Swift, by describing the ludicrous system that Lilliput's government fashions in, is satirizing the English system of governing. He uses parallels that seem absurd at first glance but make more senses when looked at carefully.

By the end of the book, it is clear to Gulliver that the people of England are exactly like the yahoos. He is disgusted by this idea and when he returns home, he can hardly be around his family. He also despises the thought that he brought more humans into the world. Gulliver had so much pride in who he thought he was that when he realizes he is completely wrong, he has a strong desire to become more like the horses because he views them as the ideal being. Gulliver goes from the idea that England could do nothing wrong to the idea that the horses could do nothing wrong. Jonathan Swift is criticizing human pride through the way Gulliver’s pride causes him to be blind to reality.

It was written under the pen-name Lemuel Gulliver, Swift told stories of a series of expeditions to strange new worlds. More than simple fantasy writing, Swift’s novel was a heavy and intricate satire on politics, religion and other vices. The real stroke of genius that Swift managed with Gulliver’s Travels was its universality; and thus a book written in 1726 is still read in 2016. Comic elements were deliberately used and aimed quite directly at established power structures, but the elements of fantasy written into the story is capable to attract

The novel, Gulliver’s Travels, is just that, a novel about the main character, Gulliver who goes on many journeys. The part of this book that brings out the reader’s interest is Gulliver’s character and the ways his character changes as the story progresses. He begins as a naïve Englishman and by the end of the book he has a strong hatred for the human race. Gulliver shows that his adventures have taught him that a simple life, one without the complexities and weaknesses of human society, may be best, but the simple life he longed for should not have been the route he took.