Many of the critics who have critiqued Jonathan
Swift's Gulliver's Travels have used the word extraneous more then once. Swift was viewed as an insane person who was
a failure in life. But this is far from
the truth. Swift wrote Gulliver's Travels,
a book that has been assigned to students for years, and it is written from
experience. Swift's experience with the
Tories and their conflicts with the Whigs caused him to write books that mock
religious beliefs, government, or people with views differing from his
own. In one of these books, Gulliver's
Travels, Swift criticizes the corruption of the English government, society,
science, religion, and man in general.
In Gulliver's first travel, in which he visited
Lilliput, Gulliver is faced with the minute people, called Lilliputians. Now while this is the premise for a fantasy
story, Swift uses the events within to make severe criticisms of England
between reigns of Queen Anne and George the first. The people of Lilliput are about six inches
tall, and there size signifies that their motives, acts, and humanity are in
the same, dwarfish (Long 276). In this
section, the royal palace is accidentally set on fire, containing the empress
inside. Instead of making his way across
town, to the ocean, squashing the people of Lilliput as he goes, Gulliver makes
use of his urine to save the palace.
While this vulgar episode was a display of bravery, it infuriated the
emperor, causing revenge to be vowed on Gulliver. Rather then be happy that both the emperor
and the palace are not in ruin, the littleness of the government and the
people in general
is displayed in this act. Another
display of this is the fact that Gulliver is used as the Emperor's absolute
weapon, but the emperor only uses him to conquer his world of two islands. This makes the emperor's ambition seem
extremely low (Bloom, Interpretations 84-5).
Swift
also criticizes the religious beliefs of the Lilliputians and England in the
first story. In Lilliput, Ministers were
chosen strictly on agility, or their ability to walk a tightrope or stick
jumping. They were able to maintain
their rank of minister as long as they could keep these defeating these tasks
(Swift, Writings 89).
The political parties of the English government
are represented by the conservative High Heels who depict the Tories, and the
progressive Low Heels, or Whigs. As per
their names, the distinguishing mark of the parties is the height of their
heels. Within these two parties, Swift
criticizes the English political parties, and the Prince of Wales (Brady
21). Swift also mocks the religion war
that was going on in England, through the use of the war between Lilliput, and
its nearest neighbor, Blefuscu. Swift's
use of the terms High Heels and Low Heels to compare the meaningless battles of
the Whigs and Tories, such as the height of heels (Swift, Writings 81).
With Gulliver's next travel, we find him in
Brobdingnag. His voyage shows us the
filthy mental and physical characteristics of man. Here, Gulliver is confronted with an adult
nurse. The nurse's repulsive action of
revealing her breasts to Gulliver. This
reminds him of how the Lilliputians found his skin full of crater like pores,
and stumps of hair growing from them.
The odor of the immense creatures is offending, and it caused Gulliver
to recall the fact that the Lilliputians were also offended of his body odor
(Bloom, Interpretations 27-8).
In Laputa, Gulliver is confronted with the old
age Struldbuggs, which look utterly hideous resulting from old age, and the
deterioration of their bodies. The
Yahoos from the land of Houyhnhnms are filthy, uncivilized creatures, who use
their own dung as a weapon. In these
descriptions, Swift criticizes both the moral and physical corruption of man
(Bloom, Critical Views 87).
Gulliver's first owner in Brobdingnag
represents the selfishness of man.
Gulliver is constantly displayed in public, abused for the profit of the
owner. When his owner finds out that
Gulliver is weakening, he sells him immediately, at a high price in order to
milk every last penny out of Gulliver.
Gulliver's third voyage, to the floating island
of Laputa is one of the most satirical of the whole book. In this voyage Swift criticizes the Royal
Society of England, in which he says is composed of useless philosophers,
inventors, and scientists. The floating
island signifies that the inhabitants are composed of the same airy
constitution as the environment (Long 276).
Projects done by such people are summed up by "the Universal
Artist," who directs his followers to turn useful things into the exact
opposite, which results in useless achievements. Some of the experiments held were to create
tangible air, wool-less sheep, and horses with stone hooves. The flying island itself expresses not only the
desertion on the common earth of reality but their conversion of the universe
to a mechanism and of living to a mechanical process (Bloom, Interpretations
53).
Finally, Gulliver travels to the land of the
Houyhnhnms. After he reaches land,
Gulliver comes across a pack of Yahoos and is instantly appalled by them. There he quotes, "Upon the whole, I
never beheld in all my travels so disagreeable and animal, or one against which
I naturally conceived so strong an antipathy" (Swift, Text 215). This statement is at best ironic, because
Gulliver never saw the resemblances between the Yahoos, and himself. Afterwards, he encounters the rational
Houyhnhnms and he immediately realizes the common characteristics he has in
common with the Yahoos. He states,
"my horror and astonishment are not to be described, when I observed, in
this abdominal animal, a perfect human figure" (Swift, Text 220).
Gulliver is amazed to see rational figures
acting in such brutal figures, but he later realizes that they regarded him as
the brutal beast. The Houyhnhnms compare
Gulliver and the Yahoos and find many similarities between the two. The only difference was that Gulliver, and
mankind, had learned the benefits of clothing, and he, at times could be a
rational creature.
Swift portrays the Yahoos as savage animals
with human characteristics, which is the biggest mockery of mankind in the
whole book. The Yahoos were so greedy,
that they would fight over enough food to feed an entire army of fifty
soldiers, just to keep it to themselves.
They would poison their own bodies, by sucking a root, similar to
alcohol, to reach a high. The female
population of the Yahoos are also given characteristics of the ladies of the
royal stature. Their gestures of hiding
behind bushes and trees, looking at the passing by males, gives the impression
of a woman hiding her face behind a fan, while looking flirtatiously over her
shoulder. The smell associated with the
female Yahoos, is similar to the perfume ladies wear to attract men (Brady 108). By the time Gulliver is returned to England,
he becomes a complete antisocial, who is disgusted by the sight of his own wife
and children. Gulliver's desire to
become a Houyhnhnm gives the reader the impression that he is a pathetic man,
who strives to become someone he can never be.
Through Gulliver, Jonathan Swift travels to
four different foreign countries, each representing a corrupt part of
England. Swift criticizes the corruption
of these parts, and focuses on the government, society, science, religion, and
man. Not only does swift criticize the customs of each country, he mocks the
naive man who has the inability to figure out the double meaning of
things. Gulliver, being gullible
himself, believes everything he is told, which symbolizes the irony of the
English system.
Works Cited
Harold, Bloom,
ed. Modern Critical Views, Jonathan
Swift. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1986.
Brady, Frank,
ed. Twentieth Century Interpretation of
Gulliver's Travels. Englewood Cliffs,
New Jersey: Prentice Hall, Inc., 1968.
Swift,
Jonathan. Gulliver's Travels, and other
Writings. New York: Bantam Books, Inc., 1962.
Harold, Bloom,
ed. Modern Critical Interpretations of
Gulliver's Travels. New York: Chelsea
House Publishers, 1986.
Long, William
J. "Jonathan Swift," English
Literature. Boston, Mass.: Ginn and
Company, 1964.
Swift,
Jonathan. Gulliver's Travels, An
Annotated Text with Critical Essays.
United States: W.W. Norton and
Company, Inc., 1961.
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