Gulliver’s Travel

INTRODUCTION
Gulliver's Travels, is considered one of the most important works JONANTHAN
SWIFT in the history of world literature. Gulliver's Travels depicts one man's
journeys to several strange and unusual lands. The general theme of Gulliver's
Travels is a satirical examination of human nature, man's potential for depravity,
and the dangers of the misuse of reason. Throughout the volume Swift attacked the
baseness of humankind even as he suggested the greatest virtues of the human
race; he also attacked the folly of human learning and political systems even as he
implied the proper functions of art, science, and government. Each of the four
voyages in Gulliver's Travels serves as a vehicle for Swift to expose and excoriate
some aspect of human folly.
Background
Gulliver's Travels is the fictional account of four extraordinary voyages made by
Lemuel Gulliver, a physician who signs on to serve as a ship's surgeon when he is
unable to provide his family with a sufficient income in London.
Part I: A Voyage to Lilliput (May 4, 1699 — April 13, 1702)
After being shipwrecked Gulliver first arrives at Lilliput, an island whose
inhabitants are just six inches tall and where the pettiness of the political system is
mirrored in the diminutive size of its citizens. Gulliver is referred to as the
"ManMountain" by the Lilliputians. After giving assurances of his good behaviour,
he is given a residence in Lilliput and becomes a favourite of the court. From there,
the book follows Gulliver's observations on the Court of Lilliput, which is intended
to satirize the court of George I. Gulliver assists the Lilliputians in a nonsensical
war with the neighboring island of Blefuscudians. Later by some conspiracy,
Gulliver is charged with treason and sentenced to be blinded. With the assistance
of a kind friend, Gulliver escapes to Blefuscu, where he spots and retrieves an
abandoned boat and sails out to be rescued by a passing ship which safely takes
him back home.
In this voyage, we read allegorical satire of the political events of the early
eighteenth century, a commentary on the moral state of England, a general satire
on the pettiness of human desires for wealth and power, and a depiction of the
effects of unwarranted pride and self-promotion. The war with the tiny neighboring
island of Blefuscu represents England's rivalry with France.
Part II: A Voyage to Brobdingnag (June 20, 1702 — June 3, 1706)
The second voyage takes him to Brobdingnag. Where he abandoned by his
companions and found by a farmer who is 72 feet tall. He brings Gulliver home
and his daughter cares for Gulliver. Gulliver's comparatively tiny size now makes
him wholly dependent on the protection and solicitude of others, and he is
imperiled by dangerous encounters with huge rats and a curious toddler. Gulliver,
however, incurs the disdain of the kindly and virtuous Brobdingnagian rulers when
his gunpowder display, intended to impress his hosts as an exemplary product of
European civilization, proves disastrous. An address Gulliver delivers to the
Brobdingnagians describing English political practices of the day is also met with
much scorn. Housed in a miniature box, Gulliver abruptly departs Brobdingnag
when a giant eagle flies off with him and drops him in the ocean where he is
picked up by some sailors, who return him to England.
During this voyage we come to know that how perspective and viewpoint alter
one's condition and claims to power in society. The imperfect, yet highly moral
Brobdingnagians represent, according to many critics, Swift's conception of ethical
rulers.
Part III: A Voyage to Laputa etc (August 5, 1706 — April 16, 1710)
He soon embarks on his third voyage to the flying island of Laputa, a mysterious
land inhabited by scientists, magicians, and sorcerers who engage in abstract
theorizing and conduct ill-advised experiments based on flawed calculations. Here
Gulliver also visits Glubbdubdrib where it is possible to summon the dead and to
converse with such figures as Aristotle and Julius Caesar. He also travels to
Luggnagg, where he encounters the Struldbrugs, a group of people who are given
immortality, yet are condemned to live out their eternal existence trapped in feeble
and decrepit bodies. There is a scathing attack upon science in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries and reveals Swift's thorough acquaintance with the
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, the leading publication of the
scientific community of his day. The third voyage unequivocally manifests Swift's
contempt and disdain for abstract theory and ideology that is not of practical
service to humans.
Part IV: A Voyage to Houyhnhnms September 7, 1710 – July 2, 1715
His forth journey takes him to the land of the Houyhnhnms, who are a superior
race of intelligent horses. Here he comes to understand that the horses are the
rulers and the deformed creatures are human beings in their base form. Soon he
comes to both admire and emulate the Houyhnhnms and their lifestyle, rejecting
humans as merely Yahoos endowed with some semblance of reason which they
only use to exacerbate and add to the vices Nature gave them. However, an
Assembly of the Houyhnhnms rules that Gulliver, a Yahoo with some semblance
of reason, is a danger to their civilization and he is expelled. He is then rescued,
against his will, by a Portuguese ship and returns to his home in England.
However, he is unable to reconcile himself to living among Yahoos; he becomes a
recluse (loner), remaining in his house, largely avoiding his family and his wife,
and spending several hours a day speaking with the horses in his stables. The land
of the Houyhnhnms that reveals Swift's ultimate satiric object— man's inability to
come to terms with his true nature. In particular, the Houyhnhnms are interpreted
as symbols and examples of a human order that, although unattainable, deserves to
remain an ideal, while the Yahoos are found to be the representatives of the depths
of humanity's potential fall if that ideal is abandoned.