Skip to main content

Gulliver’s travels.

 Gulliver’s travels- Jonathan Swift.


 Plot Overview-
  • ·        Part 1 A Voyage to Lilliput-


This deals with Gulliver’s experiences in the land of the little people, who are no more than six-inches tall. It is on one level an absorbing tale of the adventures of the giant Gulliver among the midgets of Lilliput and on another level rich in England. It is above all a scathing satire on the moral pettiness of human as seem in the behavior of the Lilliputians. Human beings are filled with and importance and cannot view themselves and objectivity. Their pride and boastfulness are revealed as ridiculous when perceived from Gulliver’s great height.   As we saw that the people of Lilliput are more than six-inches tall. All their acts and motives are on the same dwarfish, petty quarrels of these dwarfs, we are supposed to see the littleness and humanity. The statesmen who obtain place and favor by cutting monkey capers the tight rope before their sovereign and the two great parties, the little-Indians and big-Indians, who plugs the country into civil-war over the momentous question of whether an egg should be broken on its big or on politics of Swift’s own days and generations. In society, also, we see that type of people who shows littleness in their nature and also shows the narrow mind. All their actions and aims in life are at low level. They never try to come out from it. Their narrow and they live their life.  They are always busy in petty things because they can’t think they can’t think to go ahead in life. This shows in trivial matters.

·       Part – II: - A Voyage to Brobdingnag.

In this voyage, the situation is reversed. Gulliver is now marooned and dwarfed in the land of giants who are over forty feet tall. He now becomes the midget he had laughed at in Lilliput, observed through the microscopic eyes of Gulliver, the Brobdingnagians are hideous in size and stature and Gulliver realizes that he must have been just as hideous to the little people in Lilliput. Here, Swift satirizes the physical grossness of the human and the grotesque ugliness of the human body. Gulliver is little more than an insect in Brobdingnag and at his best, an amusing toy.
When Gulliver tells about his own people, their ambitions and comes and conquests, the giants can only wonder that such great venom could exist in such little insects. Here, in the second part, Gulliver is alone among the giants. He is showed as insects among the Brobdingnagians because they think this way.   Here, Swift satires on the Brobdignagian’s unpleasant and unattractively large body. In a way, there are lots of people in society who are huge at status but their thinking shows their narrowness. Also he satires on the ugliness of the Brobdignagians. It shows that the thinking of that time of people who has very ugly motif in their life to fulfil their wishes. We can see this, Brobdignagians, type of people around us and also both we can see the physical grossness and ugliness in people. By this, we can know their aims of life. They just boast on their endeavor, conquest. This type of people believes that others are nothing before them. They show others inferior but in reality, their unattractivity and ugliness becomes them inferior.

·       Part – III: - A Voyage to Laputa.

              In this voyage, Swift satires on the Scientist and Philosophers of the age. The people of Laputa have extraordinary physical features- head turned at angle, one eye turned upward and the other inward. Through the people of Laputa, Swift ridicules the experiments of the royal society and allied institution of the time. The frightening emptiness and sterility of a purely scientific society is evident from this book. The philosophers who worked eight years to extract sunshine from cucumbers are typical of Swift’s satire treatment of all scientific problems. It is in this voyage hear of the struldbrugs, a ghastly race of the men who are doomed to live up on the earth after losing hope and the desire for life.
The picture is all the more terrible in view of the last years of Swift’s own life in which he was compelled to live on a burden to himself and his friends. In this third good, Gulliver’s journeys go through different people, culture, custom and rules. The strange thing of the people of Laputa regarding the physical structure of the body shows types of people at that time. Also Swift’s disliked the society of his time that’s why he satires on it. Here, cucumber is the typical of Swift’s satiric treatment of all scientific problems. This shows the ridiculous thing of scientific problems show that time of things.  There are different types of people who show different types of culture of swift’s time.

·       Part-IV:- A voyage to the country of the Houyhnhnms:-

 In this voyage, Gulliver narrates his experiences of his journey to the land of the Houyhnhnms and the yahoos. The horses are creatures governed by solely by reason, free from any emotions and passions, while the yahoos who physically resemble human beings are ruled purely by animal’s instincts.  Swift seems to indicate to us that the nature of the human is complex and defies definition unlike that of the yahoos and the Houyhnhnms. The book for all its harsh satire and anger, instructs human to see themselves with humility and honesty and it condemns pride ego and myopic self-esteem. It urges every person to use reason to be a good Christian. Swift here tries to say that we have to live our life in away in which we can show the humanity. Swift emphasized on the yahoos that despite of human being, they are unspeakable persons who show the brutality of that time. Also by the female yahoos Swift shows the lust in their nature this also a picture of his time. We have to live like a good Christian and try to avoid that all things which damages humanity.

Reference:-

     http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/gulliver/summary.html


           


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Palanquin Bearers.

Palanquin Bearers-  Sarojini Naidu. Summary. Palanquin bearers is a melodious poem. The poem describes the scene of a bride being carried on a palanquin. The poem generates images of royal wives being carried on a palanquin to their husbands house. The men who carried the palanquin felt that their job was special and did it with much happiness. The similies in the poem point to the fact that the men did not feel that their job was tiresome. Some examples of the same are, 'Softly, O softly we bear her along', 'She hangs like a star in the dew of our song' and 'Lightly, O lightly we glide and we sing'. Palanquin bearers is melodious and one of the most appealing poems of Sarojni Naidu. The poem describes the beauty of the bride while she is being carried in a palanquin. We are reminded of one of the ancient customs of carrying royal brides in India in decorated carriages to their husband’s home. Occasionally, the men of the royal families would trav...
2 comments
Read more

The Dance of the Eunuchs.

The Dance of the Eunuchs - Kamala Das. Summary- Included in the collection Summer in Calcutta(1965), 'Dance of the Eunuchs' is one of the most remarkable poems of Kamala Das. This is another autobiographical poem written in confessional style that symbolically portrays the poetess's personal melancholy in her own life.  'Dance of the Eunuchs' vividly conjures up the atmosphere of a hot, tortured, corrupt, sterile and barren world through vivid symbols and images. The dance of the eunuchs whose joyless life reflects the poet‘s fractured personality is a noticeable piece of autobiographical poetry. Kamala Das has vividly visualized the world of vacant ecstasy and sterility through numerous functional images and symbols in her poetry. In fact Eunuchs try to eke out a livelihood by dancing. Their dancing is mechanical and painful. The conditions and the climate are forbidding. The spectators are merciless. Even God seems to add their woes. The eunuchs...
Post a Comment
Read more

Bangle sellers

Bangle sellers - Sarojini Naidu Summary A group of bangle sellers is on its way to the temple fair to sell their bangles. One of them is the narrator of this poem. They are an impoverished and marginalized group of people whose income from the sales of their bangles is at the best of times uncertain and very meagre. However the bangles they sell are of religious and symbolic importance: no Indian widow is permitted to wear bangles.   Hence the wearing of bangles is considered to be very auspicious and of symbolic value bordering on the religious. What is of great significance in the poem is that the bangle seller does not say a word about his/her  poverty, nor does he/she  say anything about the profit that he/she intends to make by selling his/her bangles at the temple fair where he/she will certainly do roaring sales. On the contrary he/she only concentrates on  the human element of the product   Sarojini Naidu has foregrounded...
Post a Comment
Read more