Critical analysis of Gulliver's Travels

Topic: Critical analysis of Gulliver’s Travels

Paper: 2

Paper name: The Neo-Classical Literature

Name: Bhatt Urvi P.

Roll no.: 35

Class: sem-1

Year: 2013-14

Submitted to: MKBU

Que.: Critical Analysis of Gulliver’s Travels.

Ans.: ●       Introduction:

          Swift came of an English family which settled Dublin of Ireland. He was born in Dublin on the 30^th November, 1667. He was left in the care of an uncle of his by his mother who returned to England. His uncle gave him the best education available in Ireland. At college, swift was often at war with the authorities, and he was not of a very studious turn of mind, but he got success in getting his degree in 1685. He was dominated by pessimism. He is the master of the concrete world, he knows how to utilize the concrete world. The concrete facts of experience as well as the ideas, the sentiments, and the shades of meaning find expression in the most simple vigorous and straight forward prose. A great variety of tone is achieved. The language is flexible to the theme. Gulliver’s Travels is the famous of all the works of swift. The full title of swift’s famous work is:

          “Travels into Several Remote of the world in four parts by Lemuel Gulliver, First a surgeon, and then a captain of several ships.”

          Gulliver’s Travel’s was the culmination of swift’s literary achievement his magnum opus. It was begun in 1720 and finally published in 1726. It is at once a delightful, fantastic story of adventure for children, a political allegory and a serious satire on human nature, on contemporary politics, social institutions, religious controversies and on the manners and morals of the age. The book is written in the form of a travelogue. The hero and narrator of the story is Lemuel Gulliver, an English Physician who opts to travel as a ship’s surgeon when he is unable to take care of his family on his meager income. Gulliver is endowed with a keen, almost journalistic sense of reportage, and a desire to travel. The book is made up of four parts, each dealing with the persona’s experiences in a different fantasy land.

          The travelogue, a popular genre of writing in the eighteenth century, chronicles the experiences and adventures of a traveler. It is generally written from the first person point of view giving immediacy to the experiences narrated. It is also a literary genre which the author manipulates to suit his purposes in the text. Gulliver’s Travels is a fictional travelogue containing factual elements related to travel by sea.

          The term ‘utopia’ has come to be synonymous with an ideal world or an ideal society. ‘Dystopia’ was conceived of as the opposite of utopia and obviously describing an unpleasant, nightmarish world.

          Gulliver’s Travels can be read from the perspective of Utopian / dystopian fiction as Lemuel Gulliver journeys from one imaginary island community to another. He examines the social and political structures in Lilliput, Brobdingnag, Laputa and in the land of the Houyhnhnms. It serves swift’s satirical purpose that the communities are far from idea and given to excesses of every kind. The land of the Houyhnhnms seems almost utopian but here again, swift exposes a world where Reason prevails in its perfection but is devoid of individuality of personal identity and therefore leaves much to be desired.

          Characters are central to the plot of any story, and especially longer fiction. They are influenced by the events in the story just as the events are structured by characters. Characterization is defined as the art of creating characters which seem close to real life and have a role to play in the development of the novel.

          A ‘Flat character’ is often a type, a static, two - dimensional character, without much individuality, or even development. A ‘round character’ on the other hand is dynamic, three - dimensional and exhibits a certain degree of complexity.

          It is a little difficult to talk of Gulliver as a full-fledged character in Gulliver’s Travels. He is closer to being Swift’s mouthpiece or the ‘persona’ refers to a first person narrator, the ‘I’ of the narrative. It is Gulliver who narrates his experiences throughout the four parts of the novel.

          Gulliver informs the reader that after each voyage he found his wife and children in good health. He does not give us any other details concerning his personal life in England. Gulliver’s disgust with England and its government extends to the entire human race it is in part-IV that the reader is convinced that Gulliver is Swift’s mouthpiece.

          At the end of the novel, it is difficult to say if Gulliver is an eighteenth century allegorical figure or a rounded and complex character. His growth and development in the course of the narrative is restricted to the change in his attitude towards his fellow human beings although he arrives at some kind of self-awareness towards the end of the text, the awareness being that he is a yahoo. Gulliver might also be an allegorical representation of humanity in general.

●       Four Voyages in Brief:

          The book is divided into four parts which describes Gulliver’s Voyage to different countries.

PART-I     :         Describes Gulliver’s voyage to a country
          known as Lilliput and his experiences in
          that country.

PART-II    :         Describes his voyage to Brobdingnay and
          his experience.

PART-III  :         Deals with his voyage to some countries
          like Laputa, Balnibarbi, Glubdubrib,
          Luggnagg, and Japan.

PART-IV  :         Tells about his voyage to the country of
          Houyhnhnms and the yahoos.

●       The Voyage to Lilliput in Part-I:

          In this part, religious and political divisions are humorously mingled. The foolish is exposed with the help of quarrels between the High-Heels and the Low-Heels and between the Big-Endians and the Little-Endians. Where blood of thousands of people has been shed. When the emperor’s heels are described as lower than those of anybody else at the court, the reference is to the preference shown by king George-I to the Whigs. Many other illusions may also be traced. In addition to all this, some of Gulliver’s remarks on the institutions of Lilliput serve as useful comments upon the legal policy of his own country, England, for instance, when he mentions that the Lilliputians treated fraud as a great crime then stealing and alludes to their policy in rewarding merits as well as punishing vice.

●       The Voyage to Brobdingnag in Part-II:

          In this part of the novel, swift shows us the people of immense stature. These people are gifted with a sound and cool judgement, look at the principles and politics of Europe. Here, satire has general nature. Some particular references to political events: and no circumstances are mentioned. Which are not applicable to all places, while Lilliput was a land inhabited by pigmies or dwarfs, Brobdingnag is the land of giants or of persons of an immense stature.

●       The Voyage to Laputa in Part-III:

          In this part, the abuses of science are the aim of satire. Swift’s target here are the projects – who leaving their common sense behind them, wander into the vast regions of speculative philosophy. It is noticeable here that the satire is not aimed at true science but its hazards.

●       The Voyage to the land of the Houyhnhnms and the yahoos in Part-IV:

          In this part the satire is intense. This voyage represents mankind in a satire is too exaggerated. The author succeeded in portraying the disgusting yahoos. The Houyhnhnms are devoid of all those tender passions and affections without which life become a burden. The Houyhnhnms do not appeal to us as models of perfection.

          Every satirist is a reformer, as satire always aims at correcting human follies and human vices. Swift had focused attention upon the follies and vices of all mankind of his time. Being pessimist Gulliver could not boar the vices in mankind. With the help of fictional illusion he decided to expose the vices of mankind without leaving a single vice untouched. He presents almost all the vices prevailing in the mankind satirically. Gulliver’s Travels is a great satirical masterpiece up to today.

          Gulliver’s Travels is one of the greatest works of satire which is in the form of Travel book. On one hand it’s just a comic book or travelogue for children but on the other hand it satirizes human vices. In those days this book became very popular. People enjoyed his adventurous journey to different lands. Swift’s real purpose, however, in writing the novel seems to rebuke mankind for its follies, absurdities and evil ways.

●       Swift – a master of satire:

          A satire many roughly and briefly be defined as a humorous or witty exposure. A satire can be defined as a means by which the author can expose the reality of individuals communities, or all mankind by employing irony, mockery, ridicule, sarcasm, and even invective as the weapon’s of attack. Swift uses all the above means to succeed in satirizing. He uses irony in double way. He is a master or corrosive as well as comic satire. His comic satire makes us laugh. Corrosive satire is serious and creates hatred. This corrosive type of satire is fully developed in book-IV of Gulliver’s Travels. The first part is rich in comic fictional illusion.

●       Satire used for Moral Purpose:

          Satire of all types always aims to reform. Swift aims at amending a correcting his readers but he is doubtful whether he would reach his goal or not. Swift in his ‘Letter to Alexander Pope’ wrote that his purpose in writing, the book was to vox the world rather than divert it! Actually he desired to shock his readers into a realization of their faults and failings. According to swift “man is not a ‘rational animal’ though man is certainly capable of becoming rational.” In this way one can say that the author’s object in writing the book is to make people realize their irrationality and to encourage them to develop their rational faculty and guide by it. Thus, it can be said that swift had a moral or ethical aim in writing this fiction.

●       The satire full of Allegories:

          In an allegory a person or institution is not attacked directly but they are attacked indirectly. ‘Animal Farm’ of George Orwell is one of the best examples of effective writing. In this book in part-I the character of Flimnap, the Treasurer in Lilliput, is a satirical portrayal of Sir Robert Walpole who was the Prime Minister of England from 1715 to 1716 and again from 1721 to 1742. Dancing on a tightly tied rope allegorized Walpole’s skill in parliamentary tactics and political intrigue. Same way, Reldresal represents Lord Carteret who was appointed by Walpole to the office of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Further ‘One of the king’s cushions’ talks about of king’s George’s mistresses who helped to restore Walpole to favor after his full in 1717. The conflict between High-Heels and Law-Heels represents the conflict between the two main parties of England i.e. Whig and Tory. The quarrel between Big-Endians and the Little-Endians symbolizes the quarrels between the Roman Catholics and the Protestants. The incidents of extinguishing a fire in queen’s apartment and the queens reaction is an example of Queen Anne’s description of annoyance with swift for writing ‘A Tale of a Tube’, another book which attacked religious abuses but the queen misinterpreted it as an attack on religion. The pigmies of Lilliput and the giants of Brobdingnag depict human beings. First reduced to a small scale, as if seen through a magnifying glass. Symbols of animals are given in part-IV. In this part, yahoos symbolize mankind without any good qualities, while the Houyhnhnms [the horses] show human beings with their good qualities. They were perfect and had no bad qualities at all.

●       Conclusion:

          Gulliver’s Travels has been an outstanding book by the author. This novel interweaves many aspects. It is political Allegory as it deals with many political allegories. It is the novel Adventurous novel. The novel deals with travel. From beginning to end it is travelogue. The novel depicts funny or comic elements and thus can be called comic novel. The novel satirizes on human vices so it can be called satirical work of art. It short, the novel is quiet successful in presenting what the author wanted. A reader can enjoy the novel reading even from any one angle.