Exploring the Ways Jonathan Swift Satirises England of the 1720's
In this essay, I will be considering some of the ways Jonathan Swift
satirises the English society. I will be focusing on the effect of his
book 'Gullivers Travels' both when it was written and on a modern day
audience.
Gullivers Travels was published in 1726. Jonathan Swift caused a huge
riot because of the way he wrote the book. Satire is making a mockery
of people or a group of people in a sarcastic way. Satire uses a
variety of techniques used in satire, including a lot of toilet
humour.
In Gullivers Travels, the aspects of English Society that are
satirised are the monarchy, upper classes, the suspicious nature of
the English, and lastly the government. Swift was already angry with
the Queen, so what better way to take out his anger than criticising
the English society in a sarcastic and amusing way.
Travel wirintg was very popular back in the 1700's. There was
countless books being published about men and their adventures around
the world. Other than Swift, two trael writers who wrote in the 1700's
were Laurence Sterne and Tobias Smollet. However, they managed to
write in such a way that the English society was not satirised at all.
Swift found these books boring. He felt that the lists were too long
and that much of the writing was written in too much detail. He
thought that all that detail wasn't needed. He satirises this in
Gullivers Travels by copying it. However, when he did copy it, he
added so much detail that it was obvious that he was mocking the way
which travel writers back then wrote.
In 1700, Queen Anne was on the throne. The Lilliputi...
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...and a syllable. After about two hours the
court retired …" This quote tells the reader that Gulliver thought
that the emperor was ranting on about nothing at all for two hours.
This is satirical because he says how people with high authority are
allowed to talk about absolutely nothing, and how nobody does anything
about it had doesn't ask for them to explain.
At the time when Jonathan Swift was writing Gulliver's Travels,
Englandhad been involved in war with which lasted from 1702-1713. This
war was known as The War of The Spanish Succession. It was also known
as Queen Anne's war. The trigger of the war was when King Louis XIV
wan to put his grandson on the English throne when the Spanish king
died. Spaintook this as an insult and the English didn't want this
Francealready had a big population compared to England.
Jonathan Swift wrote his book Gulliver’s Travels in the first half of the 1720’s. At the time he was writing much more of the “new world” had been explored and colonized, giving Swift with the ability to create a traveller to poke fun at and critique the men who had previously made themselves out to be heroes by creating a fiction often more believable than the supposed truths. Gulliver’s admiration for other societies resembles that of Hythloday and his experience in Utopia. Both of these book show how writers back in Europe wished the explorers would have been more earnest in their descriptions of societies in the new world. Swift especially used his book to comment on the current state of Europe and its politics in the new world.
A person who dislikes human and avoids human society is called misanthrope. According to some, Swift is misanthrope.
In this message by Jonathan Swift, he comes up with a brilliant idea to boost the economy and eliminate the burden of feeding hungry mouths of the poor Irish folk’s children, by selling and cooking their children like live stock. The author presents the argument with a simple, easy and cost efficient solution to the underlying problem. Swift ultimately presents that eating the Irish’s babies would solve the poor catholic Irish parent’s problem and would also be beneficial to the public as well. The author also collected data about how many children could to be sold by their weight and price, and the projected consumption patterns. ----Add more!!maybe?
Although Jonathan Swift and Oliver Goldsmith have two distinct writing styles, their passion for literature, their desire for a better world, and the underlying topic of their work are all strikingly similar. The lives of these two famous authors also resemble each other’s, starting in poverty, living through life’s hardships, and ending in success. Swift and Goldsmith were two of the most famous authors of the 18th century. I believe if Swift and Goldsmith had met, they would have made great friends. For the reason that, along with their passions, their lives were bursting with challenges. Both were born in poverty and underwent numerous challenges, including the death of loved ones and the loss of purpose in life. In addition, Jonathan Swift
A “Modest Proposal” is written by a man who had been exiled from England and forced to live among Irish citizens for many years during which he observed major problems in Ireland that needed a solution. The writer of this piece is Jonathan Swift, and in his proposal, “The Modest Proposal,” Swift purpose is to offer a possible solution to the growing problem of the homeless and poverty stricken women and children on the streets of Ireland. Swift adopts a caring tone in order to make his proposal sound reasonable to his audience, trying to convince them that he truly cares about the problems facing Ireland’s poor and that making the children of the poor readily available to the rich for entertainment and as a source of food would solve both the economic and social problems facing Ireland.
Past the political satire and laughable motifs in the book Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift, the purpose of this story is to show everything ignoble and tactless of the human species in general and that humans are truly disgusting. Also exploring the idea of a utopia. Swift uses the literary device of political satire to show how childish and ignorant human acts were. This is because during Swift's time in the eighteenth century, Britain was modernizing at this time. The reader follows the four narrative travels of the main character, Lemuel Gulliver. Each of the four voyages Gulliver has traveled to, is a different society that portrays one of the main ideals of the eighteenth century in Britain. The four places Gulliver has traveled to were Lilliput; being Gulliver's first voyage, Brobdingnag; his second voyage, Laputa; the third voyage, and lastly to the land of the Houyhnhms; being his last voyage and afterwards traveling back home to England. The experience from being exposed to these four societies has had a huge impact on how Gulliver now sees humans.
In “A Modest Proposal” several forms of satire are demonstrated throughout the story. Satire is defined as the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose or criticize people’s stupidity or vices. (Google) In "A Modest Proposal" Swift uses parody which is a form of satire. Parody is primarily making fun of something to create a humorous feel for it. In “A Modest Proposal,” Swift uses parody to make fun of the people and children of Ireland, expressing the children as delicious food to be eaten.
Gulliver’s Travels: Satirical Patterns. Jonathan Swift wrote a novel in 1776 called Gulliver’s Travels. This novel, along with all of his other writing, followed a satirical pattern. Because of Swift’s vast knowledge of politics, he was capable of creating a masterpiece completely ridiculing the government found in England. In Gulliver’s Travels, Swift brings us, the readers, to join him on journeys to worlds of complete nonsense.
Jonathan Swift's story, Gulliver's Travels, is a very clever story. It recounts the fictitious journey of a fictitious man named Lemuel Gulliver, and his travels to the fantasy lands of Lilliput, Brobdinag, Laputa, and Houyhnhmn land. When one first reads his accounts in each of these lands, one may believe that they are reading humorous accounts of fairy-tale-like lands that are intended to amuse children. When one reads this story in the light of it being a satire, the stories are still humorous, but one realizes that Swift was making a public statement about the affairs of England and of the human race as a whole.
Satire in Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift Jonathan Swift, in his book, “Gulliver’s Travels” used satire to indirectly make fun of politicians, scientists, philosophers, and human in general, because back in those days these were the people who were mostly in charge of everything. In the introduction of Gulliver’s travels, Robert Demaria Jr, Henry Noble MacCracken Professor of English at Vassar College, states, “Gulliver’s travels treat all the standard topics of classical satire. Like Juvenal’s tenth satire, it makes fun of vanity of the most common of human whishes: money, power, fame, long life, learning (especially without effort), beauty, and so on” (xii). Politicians were trying to have all the power and be the in charge of the whole “It is worth noticing that Gulliver never Mentions that he finds some Lilliputians’ tradition ridiculous. Nor does he point out the similarities between what he sees and what happens in England.
Lemuel Gulliver recounts his findings over four of his most impactful voyages in Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. In Gulliver’s Travels, Gulliver gives his own candid account of all significant characters encountered and manages to fall into almost every influential person’s favor. Swift tactically shapes Gulliver’s encounters with characters from varying backgrounds to compare the behavior of the esteemed nobility with the behavior of commoners. Swift has Gulliver alter his demeanor based on his present surroundings to appeal to those around him and maintain his pride. By doing so, Swift intended to didactically explain his contempt for nobility, his misanthropy, and the dangers of pride.
Gulliver's Travels reflects characters to the reader in numerous inventively nauseating ways. Quick uses his imaginative revamping of every day life to make the meanest, most clever, dirtiest tirade of the whole eighteenth century. Throughout this novel, Swift utilizes amazing misrepresentation and parody to make a figurative association between the distinctive societies experienced on Lemuel Gulliver's excursions and about his own particular society, reprimanding his general public's traditions.
Gulliver's Travels was written during an era of change known as the Reformation Period. The way this book is written suggests some of the political themes from that time period, including the well-known satire. These themes are displayed throughout Gulliver's Travels, and even sometimes reflect upon today's society.
Gulliver's Travels is one of the most beloved satires of all time (Forster 11). Yet, careful analysis shows it to be very complex with not one definite interpretation. A very surface reading may leave one feeling that the point of the book is "don't be Yahoo." This is the message that David Ward feels Gulliver the character is giving and says that it is no more complex than Orwell's, "four legs good, two legs bad." But this grows out of the fact of Gulliver's nature. A synthesis of the opinions of the writers I read paints Gulliver as an average man of average courage, honesty, compassion, and intellect, a typical Englishman. But there is nothing typical about Gulliver's Travels.
Many people contemplate telling the truth due to the consequences, but Johnathan Swift has found an original idea and expressed it by writing Gulliver 's Travels. It was a story based on satire and was meant to ridicule the way his country operated. Each part was an original installment meant to criticize the way his country operated in the form of education, politics, science, etc. Swift shamed his government and the politicians involved in the process of running the country, which they did in the most beneficial way for themselves rather than their own people. He uses the conflicts in the countries he visited to discuss the number of problems with England. This book was meant to educate the people of all of the dishonesty their leaders have shown and will continue to show unless there is an intervention. Swift 's comments on the British society are accurate and most definitely helped lift the ignorance of the world to this day.