Gulliver's Travels
Jonathan Swift (1667) is one of the greatest satirists as
well as outstanding personalities in the field of classical writings. He is a
versatile genius for artistic presentation. Gulliver's Travels (1726) is
the masterpiece of satire through which he reveals his wits regarding the
follies and vices of the society. This study is an attempt to focus on
religion, society, human nature, as well as the political condition of the
contemporary England.
Gulliver’s
first adventure takes place in Lilliput. Gulliver gets shipwrecked and finds
himself tied down by a considerable number of little people called
Lilliputians. The Lilliputians stood only six inches high. During this time
Swift recognized that England was also small in stature but was dominant force
and had a great influence in Europe.
In the
Second voyage to the country of Brobdingnag, Gulliver found himself among the
giant-looking people where he thought himself as a Lilipution in contact with
some man-mountains. One of the giant-looking farmers took him to his house for
entertainment. Then Gulliver was sold to the Queen and he started leading a
respectful life in Royal Palace. One day Gulliver proposed him to produce the
secret formula of gunpower to king. The king became more furious when Gulliver
gave the King a historical account of their affairs during the last century. He
became fully astonished and commented that the British Empire was nothing but
only a heap of conspiracies, rebellion, murders, massacres, revolutions,
banishment, faction, hypocrisy, lust, malice and ambitions.
In the
third voyage to Laputa we find Gulliver describing a flying island where all
the men were speculative and absentminded without having any serious cause. The
king of Laputa was also the sole king of his other dominion below his flying
island. We were also a great colonizer who could easily destroy his dominion
below throwing stones if his subjects had been rebellious against his tyranny.
Swift had simply highlighted the relationship between the then England and
Ireland though the reference of Flying Island and the island below.
In the
fourth voyage to the country of the Houyhnhnms Swift did his bitterest satire
though his representation of human vices through the contemptible nature of the
Yahoos.
Finally, we can say, that the Gulliver’s Travels is famous
satirical novel that teaches us about political condition, social condition,
religion, science etc and their misuse. He has described many things about the
contemporary life in his book, Gulliver’s Travels. In this thesis paper, I
highlighted the political condition of the contemporary society and how Swift
satirizes their activities.
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