Gulliver's Travels By Jonathon Swift example essay topic

A Book of Double Meanings How many books has a person read in which two different stories could be interrupted from it One such book is Gulliver's Travels by Jonathon Swift. This book has been read by many children as an adventure story and by most adults as a devastating satire of society. In the book, Gulliver's Travels, Swift criticizes the corruption of the English government, society, science, religion, and man in general. First, Gulliver travels to Lilliput, whose inhabitants are under the constant criticism of Swift. Swift uses the events within Lilliput to make severe criticisms of England between the reigns of Queen Anne and George the first.

The people of Lilliput are about six inches tall. Their size signifies that their motives, acts, and humanity are in the same, dwarfish. In this section, the royal palace is accidentally set on fire, containing the empress inside. Gulliver, instead of making his way across town to the ocean, squashing the people of Lilliput as he goes, he makes use of his urine to save the palace. While this vulgar episode was a display of bravery, it infuriated the emperor, causing revenge to be vowed on Gulliver. Rather than being happy that both the empress and the palace are no tin ruin, the littleness of the government and the people in general is displayed in this act.

Another display of the littleness is the fact that Gulliver is used as the Emperor's absolute weapon, but the emperor only uses him to conquer his world of two islands. This makes the emperor's ambition seem extremely low. Swift also criticizes the religious beliefs ofthe Lilliputians and England in the first story. In Lilliput, Ministers were chosen strictly on agility, or their ability to walk a tightrope or stick jumping. They were able to maintain their rank of minister as long as they could keep defeating these tasks. The political parties of the English government are represented by the conservative High Heels, whod epic the Tories, and the progressive Low Heels, or Whigs.

As indicated by their names, the distinguishing mark of the parties is the height of their heels. Within these two parties, Swift criticizes the English political parties, and the Prince of Wales. Swift also mocks the religion war that was going on in England, through the use of the war between Lilliput, and its nearest neighbor, Blefuscu. Swift uses the terms High Heels and Low Heels to compare the meaningless battles of the Whigs and Tories, such as the height of heels. Gulliver's first travel to Lilliput draws much mockery from the a uther, Swift. Gulliver's next travels find him in Brobdingnag and Laputa, in which Swiftsatarizes both the moral and physical corruption of man.

His voyage to Brobdingnag shows us the filthy mental and physical characteristics of man. Here, Gulliver is confronted with the Maids of Honour. The repulsive actions of revealing their private parts to Gulliver, reminds him of how the Lilliputians found his skin full of crater like pores, and stumps of hair growing from them. The odor of the immense creatures is offending, and it caused Gulliver to recall the fact that the Lilliputians were also offended of his body odor.

Gulliver's first owner in Brobdingnag represents the selfishness of man. Gulliver is constantly displayed in public and abused for the profit of the owner. When his owner finds out that Gulliver is weakening, he sells him immediately, at a high price in order to milk every last penny out of Gulliver. In the floating island of Laputa, Gulliver is confronted with the old age Struldbuggs, which look utterly hideous resulting from old age and the deterioration of their bodies. In this voyage Swift criticizes the Royal Society of England, in which he says is composed of useless philosophers, inventors, and scientists. The floating island signifies that the inhabitants are composed of the same airy constitution as the environment.

Projects done by such people are summed up by "the Universal Artist", who directs his followers to turn useful things into the exact opposite, which results in useless achievements. Some of the experiments held were: to create tangible air, wool-less sheep, and horses with stone hooves. The flying island itself expresses not only the desertion on the common earth of reality, but their conversion ofthe universe to a mechanism of living to a mechanical process. Brobdingnag and Laputaprove to be the recipient of many of Swift's satirizing comments. Finally, Gulliver travels to the land of the Houyhnhnms, where Swift uses the most of his sarcastic mockery. After he reaches land, Gulliver comes across a pack of Yahoos and is instantly appalled by them.

The Yahoos from the land of the Houyhnhnms are filthy, uncivilized creatures, who use their own dung as a weapon. After his first encounter with the Yahoos he quotes, "Upon the whole, I never beheld in all my travels so disagreeable and animal, or one against which I naturally conceived so strong an antipathy" (Swift, Text 215). This statement is at best ironic, because Gulliver never saw the resemblances between the Yahoos, and himself. In these descriptions, Swift criticizes both the moral and physical corruption of man Afterwards, he encounters the rational Houyhnhnms and he immediately realizes the common characteristics he has in common with the Yahoos.

He states, "my horror and astonishment are not to be described, when I observed, in this abdominal animal, a perfect human figure" (Swift, Text 220). Gulliver is amazed to see rational figures acting in such brutal figures, but he later realizes that they regarded him as the brutal beast. The Houyhnhnms compare Gulliver and the Yahoos and find many similarities between the two. The only difference was that Gulliver and mankind, had learned the benefits of clothing, and he, at times could be a rational creature. Swift portrays the Yahoos as savage animals with human characteristics, which is the biggest mockery of mankind in the whole book. The Yahoos were so greedy, that they would fight over enough food to feed an entire army of fifty soldiers, just to keep it to themselves.

They would poison their own bodies, by sucking a root, similar to alcohol, to reach a feeling of highness. The female population of the Yahoos are also given characteristics of the ladies of the royal stature. Their gestures of hiding behind bushes and trees, looking at the passing by males, gives the impression of a woman hiding her face behind a fan, while looking flirtatiously over her shoulder. The smell associated withthe female Yahoos, is similar to the perfume ladies wear to attract men. By the time Gulliver is returned to England, he becomes a complete antisocial, who is disgusted by the sight of his own wife and children. Gulliver's desire to become a Houyhnhnm gives the reader the impression that he is a pathetic man, who strives to become someone he can never be.

The land of the Houyhnhnms is indeed the most satirized place in Swift's whole book. Through Gulliver, Jonathan Swift travels to four different foreign countries, each representing a corrupt part of England. Gulliver, being gullible himself, believes everything he is told, which symbolizes the irony of the English system. Not only does Swift criticize the customs of each country, but he mocks the naive man who has the inability to figure out the double meaning of things. On Gulliver's first voyage, Swift criticizes the inhabitants of Lilliput. Brobdingnag and Laputa are the root of Swift's next string of mockery.

Swift ends his book with the brutalist of his sarcasm in Gulliver's last voyage to the land of the Houyhnhnms. Swift criticizes the corruption of these four countries, and focuses on the government, society, science, religion, and man.