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At first Gulliver’s travels comes off as a fantasy/adventure, but in
actuality it’s a satirical commentary on society in Johnathan Swift. It starts
off with Gulliver talking about himself. Later he gets shipwrecked and ends up
in Lilliput, where the people are 6 inches tall. At first they think Gulliver is
an enemy, but then realize he is no threat. He is taken to the palace and housed
in a cursed temple. Gulliver is amazed at how silly the government’s rules are,
for example to gain entry to the court the candidates must petition to the
emperor. After the emperor gets 5 or 6 petitions he sets up a competition in
which the candidates must do the Dance on the Rope, whoever jumps the highest
without falling gets the job. The Lilliputians employ Gulliver to help in their
war against Blefuscudians, but he refuses and that is the beginning of his
downfall. He then gets transported to Brobdingnag, where the people are 60 ft.
tall. At first they think Gulliver is an animal of some sort, but when they
realize he can communicate they house him with a farmer. This place is very
different than Lilliput, the king is appalled when Gulliver tells him about
England, and asks why the people are so vicious and mean. However Gulliver feels
like a freak there, and one day while he was out with the king and queen, an
eagle swoops down and carries him off to drop him in the sea. Some sailors then
rescue him. But yet again there is a shipwreck, and he finds himself in a world
inhabited by Houyhnhnms, a creature that looks like a horse, yet has an amazing
intellect. The Houyhnhnms are amazed that Gulliver is intelligent and take him
in. Later Gulliver realizes why they are amazed; the only humans in that land
are savage and stupid. Swift”s writing style reflects what he thinks of the
characters or actions, without telling the reader outright. Also keep in mind
that this is a social commentary, in a satirical view, of the times that Swift
lived in. The Lilliputians are supposed to symbolize the Whigs, and Swift thinks
of them as stupid and power-hungry. He demonstrates this when they search
Gulliver for weapons. In Swift’s time the Whigs searched the Tories for evidence
of their connections with England. He also makes fun of the thinking at the
time; the Lilliputians were discriminated against whether they wore either high
heels or low heels, and the ones that tried to remain neutral worse one high
heel and one low heel. At the end of the book Swift demonstrates his thought on
humans, when all the humans were savage and stupid, while the animals were
brilliant. I believe that Swift demonstrates all his points very well. The
reader is transported to the story, yet unlike most books, Swift doesn’t tell
the reader exactly what to think, he insinuates it but lets the reader come to
his own conclusions.
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