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The Themes of Gulliver’s Travels

Abstract

Gulliver’s Travels is one of Jonathan Swift’s famous novels. In this novel the author portrays a man who hates the world he lives in. In this novel Swift depicts the adventures of Lemuel Gulliver on four strange and mysterious islands. Different islands have different customs. However most of them are better than his world. Through these adventures Gulliver becomes mature and changes a lot both physically

and mentally grow. With Gulliver changing his feelings about his real life Swift expresses

his satire. It‘s not only a fantasy but also an important satire in the world literature. With Gulliver’s travels, Swift expresses his satire of his society.

Key words: Jonathan Swift; Gulliver’s Travels; satire; adventures

Ⅰ. Introduction

A Jonathan Swift, an eminent Irish writer and satirist. He was productive to such an extent that a host of masterpieces sprang up in his age. He was born in a poor family in Dublin, Ireland. He grew up there in the care of his uncle. In 1686, 1692 and 1701 he got BA from Trinity College Dublin, a master's degree of Oxford, and a doctor degree in theology of Trinity College. Meanwhile, he became the secretary of Sir William, a clergy of Church of England and a country parson. (He is remembered for works like Gulliver’s Travels, A Journey to Stella, A Modest Proposal and The Battle of Books. Of all these, the book, Gulliver’s Travels, is the most prominent, and it is even dubbed as the twin of Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe.)(1)

B Gulliver is the narrator and protagonist of the story. He is a man who likes travelling, he is tired of along and bored. He has a good memory, be good at study and

survey. He has a special thinking that nature is kind and honest, and friendly. He is cleaver, brave. Greek rationalism was emphasized. He is a bold adventurer who visits a multitude of strange lands and undergoes the unnerving experiences. Although Gulliver shows courage throughout his voyage, he lacks basic quality of hero.

C The work purports to be a travel book, and describes the shipwrecked Gulliver's encounters with the inhabitants of four extraordinary places: Lilliput, Brobdingnag, Laputa, and the country of the Houyhnhnms. A consumately skillful blend of fantasy and realism makes Gulliver's Travels by turns hilarious, frightening, and profound.(2) In the book, there are four adventures. Firstly, he goes to Lilliput where people are tiny. Though they are tiny, they excel in many fields such as mathematics, construction, literature, arts and so on. Besides, they have many good customs that contribute to the good of the community or the nation opposed to those that promote individual rights or freedom. In Gulliver’s opinion, most of the customs are better than his world. Secondly, Gulliver goes to a land of giants called Brobdingnag. Here, Gulliver is much smaller than the local people. He discovers by a farmer who takes him to the court. The upper class, especially the queen likes him very much. But he feels boring about local people’s habits and their huge body. Finally, he leaves Brobdingnag when his cage is plucked up by an eagle and dropped into the sea. During his third adventure he goes to an isolated island called Laputa. People in here make the living by oppressing the people under it and obtain tax from them. People in the island are interested in studying meaningless things and hope to make impossible to possible. At last, Gulliver is tired of their life and theory and leaves the isolate island. On his fourth journey, Gulliver gets trapped in Houyhnhnms. The governor of the island is a group of horses. These horses are very smart and they are paragons of virtue and rationality. However, they are dull, simple, and lifeless. Besides they think they are excellent than the Yahoo. Their language is impoverished, their mating loveless, and their understanding of the complex play of social forces naive. In here, Gulliver is treated politely but the horses still consider him to be a Yahoo, or a relatively more advanced one at most. At last Gulliver has to leave this land even though he is very sad.

Ⅱ. The themes of Gulliver’s Travels

Through Gulliver’s journeys and his experiences the author reveals three themes to our readers.

First of all the theme is might versus right. In this novel the author poses the question of whether physical power or moral righteousness should be the governing factor in social life. During Gulliver’s travels he has the experience as a giant in Lilliput where people are very small and because of this advantage he becomes a hero in Lilliput in the war between Lilliput and Blefuscudian. On the contrary, he visits Brobdingnag as a miniature visitor and he is harassed by the hugeness of everything from insects to household pets. When he stays in the last island, he observes physical force used against others, as with the Houyhnhnms chaining up of the Yahoos.

But alongside the use of physical force, there are also many claims to power based of moral correctness. The cause of the war between Lilliput and Blefuscudian is the egg controversy. It is not only the difference of culture but also a religious and moral issue related to the proper interpretation of a passage in their holy book. In their eyes, this difference of opinion seems to justify. Meanwhile, in the last travel, the Houyhnhnms treat Yahoos badly because they have the sense of moral superiority. They think they are clearer, better behaved and more rational. In a word, the novel tends to show that claims to rule on the basis of moral righteousness are often just as arbitrary, and sometimes simply disguises for, simple physical subjugation. Finally, it is as hard to justify as the random use of physical force to dominate others.

Moreover, it is the individual versus society. Gulliver’s Travels explores the idea of utopia-an imaginary model of the ideal community. The idea of a utopia is an ancient one. For utopia, one of the main aspects he points out is the tendency to privilege the collective group over the individual. In Lilliput, the children are bring up by people together, he think this system enhances social fairness but the result in here is not exactly utopian, since Lilliput is torn by conspiracies, jealousies, and backstabbing. The other form of utopia is the Houyhnhnms. In their society, the parents of two females should exchange a child with a family of two males, so that the

male-to-female ratio is perfectly maintained. Indeed, they come closer to the utopian ideal than the Lilliput in their wisdom and rational simplicity. But they don’t have their own indistinct personalities and they don’t have a proper name. They are fully integrated with the community, and lack of individuality, they are in a sense the exact opposite of Gulliver, who has hardly any sense of belonging to his native society and exists only as an individual eternally wandering the seas. Besides, the place where he lives is different with Houyhnhnms and he feels lonely in his society. Although he never complains about his lonely feelings the embittered and antisocial misanthrope we see at the end of the novel is clearly a profoundly isolated individual. Therefore, Swift mocks the excesses of individualism in the portrait of a miserable and lonely Gulliver talking to his horses at home in England.

Lastly, it is the limits of human understanding. The idea that human are not meant to know everything and that all understanding has a limit is important in Gulliver’s Travels. This idea portrays perfectly on the Laputans who are disagreeable and self-centered. They are so sunk in private theorizing that they show contempt for those who are not. They are addicted to any knowledge including those unpractical. Comparing with Laputans, Brobdingnag and Houyhnhnmland are much more practical and rational, and they have the ability to live their lives in a wise and steady way. Though the latter knows shockingly little about the abstractions of political science, their limited knowledge would interfere with their happy life. In such contexts, it appears that living a happy and well-ordered life seems to be the very thing for which Swift thinks knowledge is useful.

In order to help to develop and inform the themes Swift uses motifs such excrement, foreign language and clothing. Each of them makes contribution to the themes. For excrement, it is trivial but it symbolizes everything about our human body and existence in general. It let us realize that human beings are not wholly spiritual creatures. With this the author suggests that the conditions of humans’ are not so good as we believe. In the novel Gulliver learns different languages including the neighing tone of the Houyhnhnms. He learns languages not only because he likes study, but he has to alive. Through language he can communicate with others, learn

their knowledge. Meanwhile, he can enrich himself. This motif supports the point that the individual versus society. The last motif-clothing is involved many times. During Gulliver’s travels he has different clothing in different island. This description reflects Gulliver’s naive on some degree and shows the limits of humans.

Throughout the change of Gulliver in the novel Swift wants to tell us that it is important to understand ourselves well. Because Gulliver can’t understand himself clearly so that he ends the novel in a thinly disguised state of self-hatred. Obviously, if we look too closely at ourselves we might not be able to carry on living happily.

These themes expose Swift’s satire on British and European society through its description of imaginary countries. Meanwhile, it reflects that the author wants to live in a harmonious and democratic society. Moreover, he hopes that the world can achieve peace and fairness someday in the future Ⅲ.Conclusion

The book, Gulliver’s travels, is rich in content and has a peculiar imagination. In the novel, Gulliver has four strange experiences and encounters, and each of them represents a corrupt part of England and focus on the government, society, science, religion and man.(3) The hero-Gulliver being gullible himself, believes everything he is told. (Although the author is a fictional show’s magical world of fairy tale, but it is based on the real life of British society. Because of the precise, delicate, aptly described, people feel it is a fictional illusion, it seems that all the facts are the truth.)(4) This novel reflects the author’s keen observation of the British capitalist system, reveals the darkness of the capitalist political system in the United Kingdom and reflects the ambition of the rulers to expand outwards. Through the novel Swift wants to warn readers not obsessed with the dreams that may be come true in the future. It has a far-reaching significance.

For me, I think the book, Gulliver’s travels, is filled with strange imagination and fairy color. The author reviews the status of his own country by outsiders. With spicy, sharp and profound irony the author expresses his ideas perfectly. To some extent the irony of the novel contains some of the pessimistic views of human nature and human

society. However, it hides the author’s dreams of a harmonious and democratic society.

Moreover what we can learn from Gulliver's unbelievable experience is that we should take a second look at our systems. All of us can’t deny that corruption is inevitable in today’s world because of people’s selfish nature. For another, from Gulliver we can learn that we should improve ourselves and adapt ourselves to surrounding environment which we are live in. we should believe that we can do everything well. Although we can’t chose when and where to live we could change ourselves. What’s more the government also should take some effective measures to improve the system of our society. I believe if our human beings work together our society will become much better and harmonious. Ⅳ.Some Reviews

Swift is rich with humor and moral meaning of the works to expose absurdity, irony, and through the character and narrative framework makes incredible event become a reality, even though the \"Robinson Crusoe\" is difficult to describe harsh and diverse in terms of its rival. - Scott (United Kingdom) Division(5)

I haven't read this book since I read it as a child, and it was amazing how much of it had stuck with me, and how vividly. There were sections (particularly in Brobdingnag) where I could almost recite word-for-word what was going to happen next.

Happily, like Alice in Wonderland, this is a book that aging very well. There was still the element of being just a plain old good travel story with strong images (particularly in the Lilliput and Brobdingnag sections) but there was also a wicked sense of satire that continues to be relevant and funny now more than three hundred years after the book was originally written.

The latter two sections of the book-- Laputa and the land of the Houyhnhnms-- are perhaps a little less vivid for being more pointed in their satirical content

(interestingly I have no memory of these sections from my childhood reading) but that in no way detracts from the value of the book. C. Gilbert \"frumiousb\" (Amsterdam, the Netherlans) (6)

Notes

The content from (1) to (6) is something I search from the internet.

Bibliography

Swift, Jonathan. Gulliver’s Travels, an Abridged Text, the Commercial Press.1980

http://wenku.baidu.com/view/2a6f70e9551810a6f5248661.html (1)

http://www.en8848.com.cn/soft/Fiction/Classic/4014.html (2) http://www.benkelunwen.cn/article/2009/0207/article_3804_3.html (3) http://www.doc88.com/p-133470576.html (4) http://baike.baidu.com/view/79427.htm#8 (5)

http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/125253788.html (6)

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