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Finished Reading: Gulliver’s Travels
How do you view people you do not know? Jonathan Swift’s “Gulliver’s Travels” is a lesson on perspective, addressing the way we view ourselves and others.
“Gulliver’s Travels,” or “Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships” was published in 1726 as satire prose. Part 1 “A Voyage to
Lilliput” is most well known, the most detailed and perhaps the most humorous, but as the story progresses, satire slowly sours. Gulliver finds some measure of fault with everyone he encounters. By the end of all his adventures, the reader wonders if Gulliver/Swift likes anyone at all, including his wife and children.
Liliputian political parties call themselves the Tramecksan and Slamecksan; that is, the High Heels and the Low Heels (as indicated by the rise of their shoes). No one knew where the Emperor stood because he wore one of each. The war between Lilliput and Blefuscu erupted over a disagreement on how to break an egg.
Gulliver was strongly encouraged to swear peace with Lilliput and in return he “would be used with all kindness.” Despite his heroism toward his hosts, including capturing the Blefuscu fleet, Gulliver was sentenced to death by poison, fire, firing squad and starvation for extinguishing the palace fire by urinating to save the life of the Empress (bodily excrement is a recurring theme throughout) and for failing to destroy their enemies. His sentence was reduced to blinding on account of the inconvenience of disposing of his body. Gulliver escapes, and finding a boat, eventually returns home.
The second adventure lands Gulliver in Brobdingnag, a land of giants just off the northwestern coast of North America. Gulliver reports his giant hosts’ lifestyle that render the story unfavorable for children. Gulliver attempts to win the King’s favor by offering his services and protection by manufacturing gunpowder and guns but the offer was dismissed as inhuman. How could such a small man entertain ideas of this kind of bloodshed? After two years, Gulliver leaves the land by means of a strange accident, is rescued at sea and returned home.
Part 3 describes his voyage to the flying island of LAPUTA (where people are so intelligent they live sideways, and are no good to anyone), BALNIBARBI (the poverty-stricken continent below LAPUTA, where they try to convert human excrement back into original food) LUGGNAGG (an island of immortals who suffer the maladies of old age), GLUBBDUBDRIB (an island of magicians and conjurors) AND JAPAN (mentioned mostly in passing).
Part 4 concludes Gulliver’s adventures in the land of the rational horses, the Houyhnhnms, and their human-beats, the Yahoos.
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