Another look at Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels Mr. Cleon M. McLean A.P. English Ontario...

Another look at Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels

Mr. Cleon M. McLean

A.P. English

Ontario High School

Vocabulary to Know

censure infallibly prostrating

civility morose recapitulate

conjecture panegyric retinue

dexterity perfidiousness schism

diminutive pernicious solicitation

Satire: Laughter as Weapon

• Satire—a literary technique in which behaviors or institutions are ridiculed for the purpose of improving society. Satire is set apart from other forms of social and political protest because of its application of humor.

A Historical Perspective

• Satire began with the ancient Greeks, but came into its own in ancient Rome, where the “fathers” of satire, Horace and Juvenal, had their names given to the two basic types of satire:• Horatian satire: is playfully amusing and seeks to

correct vice or foolishness with gentile laughter and understanding. E.g., Alexander Pope’s “A Rape of the Lock”

• Juvenal satire: provokes a darker kind of laughter. It is often bitter and criticizes corruption or incompetence with scorn and outrage. E.g., Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels

The author in his own words

• Swift once said, “I have ever hated all nations, professions, and communities, and all my love is towards individuals…But principally I hate and detest that animal called man.” Swift’s misanthropy, or hatred of mankind, may have grown from his religious conviction. He saw humans as fallen victims of original sin, not the rational creatures in which many Enlightenment thinkers believe.

Interesting Epitaph

• Swift died in 1745 from a mental disease we now called vertigo (Meniere’s disease). Interesting to note, he left his remaining fortune to go towards the building of a mental hospital.

• Translated from Latin, Swift’s epitaph reads:Here lies the body ofJonathan Swift, D.D.., Dead of this Cathedral.He has gone where fierce indignationcan lacerate his heart no more.Go, traveler, and imitate if you canA man who was an undauntedChampion of liberty.

Socratic Seminar Questions

• One of Swift’s purposes for writing Gulliver’s Travels was “to vex [i.e., make angry] the world rather than divert it”.

1. How is Swift’s purpose overshadowed in Gulliver’s Travels?


2. What aspects of human nature does Swift satirize through Gulliver’s behavior?

Hint: Think about hilarious portraits of pride, arrogance, dullness, and depravity


3. What effect is produced when Gulliver quotes the Lilliputian language?

4. Why do the politicians dance on the rope for the king?

5. Research the real status the following three honors during the 18th century:

blue—the Order of the Garterred—the Order of the Bathgreen—the Order of the Thistle


6. “These Articles…after they were read, I was demanded to swear to the performance of them; first in the manner of my country, and afterwards in the method prescribed by their [Lilliputian] laws; which was to hold my right foot in my left hand, to place the middle finger of my right hand on the crown of my head, and my thumb on the tip of my ear” (Swift 20).

• Why does Swift create such a ridiculous ritual?

• Possible answer: Swift is satirizing the meaningless or absurd ceremonies of state business


7. Gulliver’s articles of freedom begin with a tribute to the “most mighty Emperor of Lilliput.” What is ironic about Swift’s description of the king in this preamble?

8. How does the above irony contribute to the satire on the Lilliputians?

Clarifications

• The Low-Heels (Slamecksan) are the party in the Emperor’s favor and therefore have more power than the more numerous High-Heels (Tramecksan). The Little-Endians open their eggs at the small end, in accord with Lilliputian law. Big-Endians are a dissenting faction of Lilliputians who open their eggs at the larger end. They are supported by the government of Blefuscu, i.e., France .

• The “High-Heel” party correspond to the Tory Party, which promoted the “High-Church,” i.e., Catholic, aspects of Anglicanism; while the “Low-Heel” party correspond to the Whig Party, which promoted the “Low-Church,” i.e., Protestant aspects.

Clarifications

• “…our histories tell us, there have been six rebellions raised on that [egg war] account; wherein one emperor lost his life, and another his crown” (Swift 26). The dispute over the egg-breaking corresponds to the conflict between Roman Catholics and Protestants in 17th century England. The “emperor” who lost his life in the conflict was King Charles I; the one who lost his crown was James II, who fled into exile.

• His Imperial Majesty—i.e., George II• Blefuscu—an imaginary country that represents France,

Britian’s main political rival at the time

Jacob Talamantes

• Because Gulliver is a “man-mountain” and the Lilliputian society is minuscule, Swift focuses on how the individual (modern man) affects (or acts upon) society, rather than how society affects (or acts upon) the individual.


12. How does Gulliver appear to regard his own story's publication--what effect, if any, does he expect it will have on readers?

13. What first led Gulliver to follow the course of life he did--that of an adventurer and traveler? Do his motives change as time passes?

14. What are your impressions of the Lilliputians at the beginning? How do they change as the book progresses?

15. How does being a giant change Gulliver’s attitude toward himself?


16. How does Swift present the Lilliputian Emperor? (Swift is satirizing England's King George) Flimnap? Bolgolam?

17. Why are the Lilliputians at war? What is Swift saying about war? About nationalism?

18. How does Gulliver treat the Lilliputians during his first weeks on the island? What does this tell you about Gulliver?

19. How does Gulliver describe the physical appearance of the Lilliputians? Do their physical characteristics compliment their personality?

20. What ideas about religion are satirized? What ideas about government are satirized?


1. What is the first clue that Gulliver has landed in another fantasy world?

2. What familiar features of human society does Swift include in his initial description of Brobdingnag?

3. How is Gulliver made to look ridiculous when he first presents himself to the farmer?


4. How is Gulliver the object of Swift’s satire in his response to the king’s unflattering description of the English?

5. What is it about Brobdingnagians that make Gulliver feel horror?

6. How does Gulliver’s perception of himself and his country change according to his environment?

Jacob Chavez & Natalie Zamora

• “Human creatures are observed to be more savage and cruel in proportion to their bulk” (56).

• “This [reaction from the King of Brob.] made me [Gulliver] reflect how vain an attempt it is for a man to endeavor doing himself honor amongst those who are out of all degree of equality or comparison with him” (56).


7. In what sense is Gulliver diminished in more than size when he meets up with the giant Brobdingnagians? What does the king, for example, think of him? And what does Gulliver come to think of himself?

8. How does the King react to Gulliver's description of his native Britain? Is the King's realm similar to or very different from what Gulliver has described of his own country? About what English invention does Gulliver inform the King? How does the King react to this information?

9. What information about Brobdingnag learning and culture does Gulliver relate?

10. How does the Brobdingnag’s attitude toward language differ from that of the Lilliputians?

11. How does Gulliver function as a foil to both the Lilliputians and to the Brobdingnagians? What is Swift saying with their different sizes?


11. Gulliver has many vexing encounters with animals and insects in Brobdingnag. How does setting Gulliver in contest with animals affect out sense of his character?


“Above all, he [the Brobdingnagian king] was amazed to hear me talk of a mercenary standing army in the midst of peace, and among a free people. He said if we were governed by our own consent in the persons of our representatives, he could not imagine of whom we were afraid, or against whom we were to fight…”

12. How does Swift use his fantasy world above to deliver his satire on England’s interest in war?


13. What message is Swift sending through the Brobdingnagian king?

14. Does the reader’s opinion of Gulliver change by the king’s bitter criticism?

15. In general, how do the Brobdingnagians treat Gulliver?

16. What impresses you the most about Gulliver’s adventures in Brobdingnag?


• Is Gulliver changing (dynamic character) as the story progresses? Is he learning from his misadventures?

• I have said that Gulliver represents modern (18th century) man under a microscope. Is Gulliver an everyman figure, or does he have an idiosyncratic persona of his own?


• Allegory—def. a narrative in which the agents and actions are contrived by the author to make sense on the literal level, and, at the same time, to communicate a second, correlated level. In sustained allegory of ideas, the central device is the personification of abstract entities such as vice, virtues, and state of mind.

1. What is allegorical about the floating island of Laputa? Hint: think of the relation between government and the people

2. Why does Gulliver keep traveling despite of his series of misadventures?

3. In Laputa, power is exerted not through size, but through technology. Does this imply that Swift was a Luddite? Why or why not?


4.Unlike Gulliver’s first two wayward voyages, his mischance arrival on Laputa et al. uncovers absurdity not in terms of size, but in excessive rationalism. Which institutions are satirized in Gulliver’s third voyage? Why?

Socratic Seminar Question

• Scattered among the standard narrative style of most of Gulliver's travels are legal documents and reports, such as the inventory of Gulliver's possessions and the list of obligations presented to him by the Lilliputians. A good example is at the beginning of Part II, Chapter I, where Gulliver uses complicated nautical jargon. The effect is so overdone that, instead of coming off as a demonstration of Gulliver's in-depth knowledge of sailing, the passage works as a satire of sailing language and, more generally, of any kind of specialist jargon. A similar passage occurs in Part III, Chapter III, where Gulliver's painstaking description of the geometry of Laputa serves as a satire of philosophical jargon.

• Why would Swift dispense Juvenal satire on specialist jargon? (hint: think of Swift’s conservative posturing on the English language, and the absurdity—genesis in redundancy, malapropism and neologism from polysyllabic words—brought upon the language by specialists)


• What is gained by playing on the word “gullible” to create “Gulliver,” and then presenting Gulliver’s Travels as a plausible journalistic chronicle of misadventures, albeit satiric?


• How is Gulliver’s Travels not entirely one of the following:• A children’s storybook• A proto-science fiction novel• A meta-fiction (this type of work self-

consciously and systematically uses devices of fiction. It draws attention to its status as an artifact in posing questions between reality and fiction via irony and self-reflection)


• Some novels and plays seem to advocate changes in social or political attitudes or in traditions. Choose such a novel or play and note briefly the particular attitudes or traditions that the author apparently wishes to modify. Then analyze the techniques the author uses to influence the reader’s or audience’s views. Avoid plot summary.[1]

•[1] 1987 AP English Literature & Composition Examination Free Response prompt


• According to Gulliver’s most recent misadventure, which premise is more saliently promoted:

1. Man is inherently corrupt2. Man becomes corrupt (esp. through the

mediums of institutions)

Consider: Gulliver finds a friend in each of his mischance adventures.


1. Gulliver is consumed with concern about what others think of him and his countrymen. Give examples of this concern and explain its effects on his actions and themes of the novel

2. What comments does Swift (not Gulliver) make about religion?

3. Explain the uses of vice and virtue in Gulliver’s Travels and “A Modest Proposal”

4. How is irony used in Gulliver’s Travels?

Analyzing

• Thesis—a premise, argument, or proposition. E.g., love is an ideal thing.

• Antithesis—a counter to the premise, argument, or proposition. E.g., Marriage is a real thing.

• Synthesis—a blending of the thesis and antithesis, or conclusion reached from an exploration of the thesis and antithesis. E.g., A loving marriage is sublime.

Another look at Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels Mr. Cleon M. McLean A.P. English Ontario...

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