Gulliver’s travels: As an allegory

Siddharth G. Desai

Roll no. - 12

SEM - I

Paper no. - 4

Year - 2010-11

Topic: - Gulliver’s travels: As an allegory

Submitted to Miss Ruchira Dudhrejiya

Department of English,

Bhavnagar University.

                          “Gulliver’s travels” 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 political, social institution, religious controversies and on the manners and morals of the stage. This book is written in the form of travelogue. The hero and narrator and the protagonist character 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 person’s experiences in a different fantasy land.

            Before we see more about Gulliver’s Travels, Let’s see first of all about allegory and satire.

v What is an allegory?

            An allegory is a literary genre which is structured in such a way that its meaning could be read on two levels, and a secondary and more complex level. An allegory is defined as a narrative in which the characters, plot, setting and occasion, while making sense in themselves also signify a second layer of meaning where they point at another set of people, events and setting either from the writer’s mass, milieu or recent historical events. It is a figurative mode of representation where ideas are conveyed through symbolism and metaphor.

           

            In “Gulliver’s Travels”, Swift uses satire on highlight the allegorical elements in his tale. He has used allegory as a vehicle in an excellent way.

v What is a satire?

            Satire is a literary genre in which human vices, weaknesses, foibles and follies are held up to ridicule. Wit and humor are commonly used as instrument of satire.

            In “Gulliver’s Travels”, Swift uses satire as a vehicle to point out to the depraved state of human kind. Some critics have observed that Swift is a misanthropist because the paints human nature as a whole in a sordid and gloom light, almost as if there are no redeeming features to humanity.

           Swift seems to be holding up a mirror to society so that in viewing the gross magnification of its vices, humanity has a hope for the future.

          The allegory and satire, in a sense, are interwoven inextricably and deftly.

v Part- I: - A Voyage to Lilliput

          This deals with Gulliver’s experiences in the land of the little people, who are no more than six-inches tall. It is on one level an absorbing tale of the adventures of the giant Gulliver among the midgets of Lilliput and on another level rich in England. It is above all a scathing satire on the moral pettiness of human as seem in the behaviour of the Lilliputians. Human beings are filled with and importance and cannot view themselves and objectivity. Their pride and boastfulness are revealed as ridiculous when perceived from Gulliver’s great height.

          As we saw that the people of Lilliput are more than six-inches tall. All their acts and motives are on the same dwarfish, petty quarrels of these dwarfs, we are supposed to see the littleness and humanity. The statesmen who obtain place and favour by cutting monkey capers the tight rope before their sovereign and the two great parties, the little-endians and big-endians, who plugs the country into civil-war over the momentous question of whether an egg should be broken on its big or on politics of Swift’s own days and generations.

         

          In society, also, we see that type of people who shows littleness in their nature and also shows the narrow mind. All their actions and aims in life are at low level. They never try to come out from it. Their narrow and they live their life.

        

         They are always busy in petty things because they can’t think they can’t think to go ahead in life. This shows in trivial matters.

v Part – II: - A Voyage to Brobdingnag

          In this voyage, the situation is reversed. Gulliver is now marooned and dwarfed in the land of giants who are over forty feet tall. He now becomes the midget he had laughed at in Lilliput, observed through the microscopic eyes of Gulliver, the Brobdingnagians are hideous in size and stature and Gulliver realizes that he must have been just as hideous to the little people in Lilliput. Here, Swift satirizes the physical grossness of the human and the grotesque ugliness of the human body. Gulliver is little more than an insect in Brobdingnag and at his best, an amusing toy.

        When Gulliver tells about his own people, their ambitions and comes and conquests, the giants can only wonder that such great venom could exist in such little insects. Here, in the second part, Gulliver is alone among the giants. He is showed as insects among the Brobdingnagians because they think this way.

         Here, Swift satires on the Brobdignagian’s unpleasant and unattractively large body. In a way, there are lots of people in society who are huge at status but their thinking shows their narrowness.

          Also he satires on the ugliness of the Brobdignagians. It shows that the thinking of that time of people who has very ugly motif in their life to fulfil their wishes.

           We can see this, Brobdignagians, type of people around us and also both we can see the physical grossness and ugliness in people. By this, we can know their aims of life. They just boast on their endeavor, conquest.

            This type of people believes that others are nothing before them. They show others inferior but in reality, their unattractivity and ugliness becomes them inferior.

v Part – III: - A Voyage to Laputa, Balnibarbi, Language, Glubdubdrib, and Japan

                     In this voyage, Swift satires on the Scientist and Philosophers of the age. The people of Laputa have extraordinary physical features- head turned at angle, one eye turned upward and the other inward. Through the people of Laputa, Swift ridicules the experiments of the royal society and allied institution of the time.

                   The frightening emptiness and sterility of a purely scientific society is evident from this book. The philosophers who worked eight years to extract sunshine from cucumbers are typical of Swift’s satire treatment of all scientific problems. It is in this voyage hear of the struldbrugs, a ghastly race of the men who are doomed to live up on the earth after losing hope and the desire for life.

                  The picture is all the more terrible in view of the last years of Swift’s own life in which he was compelled to live on a burden to himself and his friends.

                 

                   In this third good, Gulliver’s journeys go through different people, culture, custom and rules. The strange thing of the people of Laputa regarding the physical structure of the body shows types of people at that time. Also Swift’s disliked the society of his time that’s why he satires on it.

                  Here, cucumber is the typical of Swift’s satiric treatment of all scientific problems. This shows the ridiculous thing of scientific problems show that time of things.

                  There are different types of people who show different types of culture of swift’s time.

v Part-IV:- A voyage to the country of the Houyhnhnms:-

              

                In this voyage, Gulliver narrates his experiences of his journey to the land of the Houyhnhnms and the yahoos. The horses are creatures governed by solely by reason, free from any emotions and passions, while the yahoos who physically resemble human beings are ruled purely by animal’s instincts.

                Swift seems to indicate to us that the nature of the human is complex and defies definition unlike that of the yahoos and the Houyhnhnms. The book for all its harsh satire and anger, instructs human to see themselves with humility and honesty and it condemns pride ego and myopic self-esteem. It urges every person to use reason to be a good Christian. Swift here tries to say that we have to live our life in away in which we can show the humanity.

              

                Swift emphasized on the yahoos that despite of human being, they are unspeakable persons who show the brutality of that time. Also by the female yahoos Swift shows the lust in their nature this also a picture of his time.

                

                We have to live like a good Christian and try to avoid that all things which damages humanity.

v Conclusion:- 

                    By these four voyages, Gulliver’s journey goes through different types of people, culture, customs, beliefs etc. they show the society of swift’s time. Like, how they cure narrow minded also interested in petty things and unattractive appearances and ugliness of humanity etc. All these, proof of that time of people’s way of thinking and living.