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 in 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. These worlds are different ways that allow for Swift to mock the old European government. In our reading, we followed him to a land called Lilliput, and then later to a land known as Brobdingnab. Swift uses humor and knowledge to completely ridicule European politics in these two imaginative worlds. Although Swift wrote this novel to satirize politics in his time, we are able to understand the matters presented because of their over-abundance in today’s governmental world.
Political divisions have been taking place all through history, no matter where, or when. In the first book, Swift describes two types of Lilliputians, those who wear high heels, and those who don’t. In the text it describes how the high-heeled Lilliputians are very much in favor of absolutely no change in the constitution. And accordingly, the low-heeled favored change in the constitution. This type of situation is still going strong in America. We are blessed with two types of people as well, those who favor donkeys, and those who favor elephants. Now those elephant lovers go right along side those who wore the high heels in Lilliput. Both of the high heels and republicans had achieved dominance and wanted to preserve their position. They didn’t want anything to do with a change in their go...
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...any holes in the scheme that make it impossible to support a so-called perfect government.
Swift successfully completed his goal in completely and utterly belittling the political aspects of government in his day. He has proven to us that the government has gone unchanged (except for a few bills here and there) for some two hundred years or so. The same problems back then are still present now which causes for the same ideas as Swift. The reader is able to leave his or her seat after reading the novel and understand all of the little annoyances there were about the political scheme in society in those days and compare them to today’s world. After those comparisons, the reader finds that the problems are the same as they were in Swift’s time.
Works Cited
Swift, Jonathan. Gulliver’s Travels. New York: The new American Library Inc., 1983.
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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.
...llivers Travels not only excite the attention of the reader but they also leave the reader with a very pessimistic impression of the modern world. If Gulliver had left a description of a pile of soil instead of his urination procedure, the reader would perhaps view his work as boring, but not as comedic or repulsive. The tales would have lost their derogatory tone, their satirical edge, and their comedic nature had Swift not used such images.
Swift wants his readers to interpret his speaker as a kindhearted, sensible gentleman with a sincere concern for resolving problems for the Irish people. In the first eight paragraphs, the reader meets an affectionate man with precise insight into the predicament he will shortly address. By doing this, the speaker establishes himself up as someone who would not make an outrageous proposition. This makes his words even more effective.
...ture the attention of the audience by means of “political pamphleteering which is very popular during his time” (SparkNotes Editors). The language and style of his argument is probably why it is still popular till this day. By using satire, Swift makes his point by ridiculing the English people, the Irish politicians, and the wealthy. He starts his proposal by using emotional appeal and as it progresses, he uses ethos to demonstrate credibility and competence. To show the logical side of the proposal, he uses facts and figures. By applying these rhetorical appeals, Swift evidently makes his argument more effectual.
Therefore, before an analysis can continue, one has to make the assumption that this is strictly a fictional work and Swift had no intention of pursuing his proposal any further. One of the other voices that is present throughout the entire story is that of sarcasm. In order to understand this further, a reader has to comprehend that Swift, becoming infamous after Gullivers Travels, was a member of the upper-class. Right from the first paragraph, Swift attempts to fool his readers by the sarcasm of the dreary scene that Swift presents. For example, he mentions that it is a melancholy sight to see beggars and their children on the street.
Swift, Jonathan. Gulliver’s Travels. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Vol C. 9th ed. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New York: W. W. Norton, 2012. 2492-2633. Print.
He puts the main character, Lemuel Gulliver, through four distinct journeys, which all inadvertently reveal vices in human society. In Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, the theme of corruption is portrayed through the evils of politics, the deceitful nature of humanity, and the characters’ exploitation of pride. Throughout the novel, seizes and retentions of power are always accompanied by corrupt means. “He had heard, indeed, some curious Houyhnhnms observe, that in most herds there was a sort of ruling Yahoo (as among us there is generally some leading or principal stag in a park), who was always more deformed in body, and mischievous in disposition, than any of the rest; that this leader had usually a favourite as like himself as he could get, whose employment was to lick his master's feet and posteriors, and drive the female Yahoos to his kennel; for which he was This favourite is hated by the whole herd, and therefore, to protect himself, always keeps near the person of his leader,” (Swift 241). Some Yahoos observe that the Yahoos often pick terrible leaders who surround themselves with even worse subordinates to make them appear less abysmal.
The Writings of Jonathan Swift; Authoritative Texts, Backgrounds, Criticism. edited by Robert A. Greenberg and William Bowman Piper. Norton Critical Editions. New York: Norton, 1973.
... Jonathan Swift was not trying to plunge the country into cannibalism for profitable gains, but to show the readers that their society had lost the Godly love and care for each other that it was based on. Likewise, it expressed his contempt toward those who continually proposed illogical solutions that would never work. Jonathan Swift, a pamphleteer, which is the equivalent of the modern newspaper columnist today, wrote for political reasons, and shared his views in a way that caused people detest the current state of society. The way in which he presented his view forced them to see the truth of the matter. As one views the course of events that followed the publishing of the essay and the impact that it had, along with its consideration in his literary works as among his most drastic pieces, shows the importance of his political stand against the English hegemony.
Motivation has been widely accepted by both teachers and researchers as one of the key factors that influence
Lilliput, Brombdinag, and the land of Houyhnhnms are the most relevant satire in Gulliver’s travels. Jonathan Swift uses these places to “roast” the European society. Swift desires for Europeans to realize their flaws and develop them. Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels is a marvelous adaption of English society flawed.
Gulliver's Travels is a great novel written by Jonthan Swift. It is about voyages of Gulliver-main character-to different countries. Gulliver's Travels is a political allegory of England at Swift's time. the word allegory means a simple that can be objects, characters, figures or colors used to represent an abstract idea or concepts. Swift uses this novel to criticize the political condition of England at the 18th century and to make a satire of the royal court of George 1 . Gulliver's Travels has established itself as a classic for young people. Its appeal to young minds is due to the fact that it is, on the surface, an adventure story of strange wonderful lands. As a matter of fact, it is taken by the mature reader as an allegory work of England at Swift's time.
This passage is significant to the fact that while Gulliver is tremendously larger than the Lilliputians, he just lays where they have tied him up despite the fact that he could easily get out of his ‘constraints’. Lori Sue Goldstein says that, “In Gulliver's Travels, Swift enables us to see that we ...
In Gulliver’s Travel, a novel written by Jonathan Swift, there are many political themes and satirical descriptions of the English government. During Swift’s time, the early 1700s, the Tory government and the Whig government opposed each other. Hoping that they would appoint him to the Church of England, Swift joined the Tories, but he was not appointed to the position by the Queen. When Tory government was in trouble for treason with the French, the Whig government took over, and Swift left politics to publish Gulliver’s Travel to show the disagreements between the two parties and between the Protestant English and the Catholic French, who did not agree on religious values. Swift wrote Gulliver’s Travel also to show his idealized vision for the English society. In the novel, Swift criticizes the government as he narrates the adventures which Gulliver experiences at different islands with foreign and unique groups of people. In a way, Swift creates utopian societies at the Lillitupian Island and the Brobdingnag Island to exhibit the imperfection of government that existed in England. As Gulliver, Swift’s main character, interacts with these societies, he criticizes some of their customs and laws. He notices that these societies are not utopian from his perspective. Although there are many themes throughout Gulliver’s Travels, this paper will focus on part one and two examining the utopian societies Swift creates for Gulliver to experience through his interactions with the Lilliputians and Brobdingnagian people system of government.