gulliver’s travels :- comparison between i & iv voyages

Hitesh Galthariya

Class :- M.A. SEM 1

Roll no :- 10Topic :- Gulliver’s Travels :Comparison

between I & IV Voyages

Paper No :- 2Enrollment No :- PG14101011

Year :- 2014-2015

Submitted :- S.B.Gardi English department M.K. Bhavnagar University.

E-Mail :- hiteshgalthariya26@gmail.com

Gulliver's TravelsIntroduction

Gulliver’s Travels is the most famous of all the works of Swift. The germs of this book has been traced to the celebrated Scriblerus Club which came into existence in the last months of Queen Anne’s reign, when Swift joined with Arbuthnot, pope, Gay, and a few other writers in a scheme to ridicule all false tastes in learning. This literary group was strongly Tory in character and functioned as a kind of counter balance to the whig circle which had grown up about Addison and Steele.

Jonathan Swift

Genre, Setting, and Mood

• Genre: Gulliver’s Travels is an obvious satire piece.• Setting: The setting of Gulliver’s Travels is mainly in

England, but also in the fictious countries of Liliput, Brobdingnag, Laputa, and the country of the Houyhnhnms. in the past, during the 18th Century.

• Mood: The mood is adventurous, emotionally affecting, and also I think ignorant at the same time.

Gulliver's Travels Four Voyages

A voyage to Lilliput A voyage to Brobdingnag

A voyage to Laputa A voyage to the country of

Houyhnhnms

Comparison between I & IV Voyages

• A voyage to Lilliput • A voyage to the country of Houyhnhnms

A voyage to Lilliput• The first part tells about his experience in Lilliput,

where the inhabitants are only six inches tall), twelve times smaller than the normal human beings. The emperor believed himself to be the delight and terror of the universe, but it appeared quite absurd to Gulliver whowas twelve times as tall as he. In his account of the two parties in the country, distinguished by the use of high and low heels, Swift satirizes the Tories and the Whigs in England.Religious disputes were laughed at in an account of a problem which divided the Lilliputians: “ Should eggs be broken at the big end or the little end?”

In the voyage to Lilliput, religious and political divisions are humorously burlesqued. The folly of political and religious fanatics is exposed with reference to the constant quarrels between the High- Heels and the Low- Heels, and between the Big-endians and the Little- endians, in which the blood of thousands of people has been shed. Besides reflections of a general nature, the voyage to Lilliput contains particular allusions to the royal court and the politics of England.

A voyage to Houyhnhnms

• The last part is a most interesting account of his discoveries in the Houyhnhnm land, where horses are endowed with reason and all good and admirable qualities, and are the governing class.

• Contrary to the Houyhnhnms, the Yahoos possess every conceivable evil. They are malicious, spiteful, envious, unclean and greedy. Gulliver admires the life and ways of the horses, as much as he is disgusted with the Yahoos, whose relations remind him of those existing in English society to such a degree that he shudders at the prospect of returning to his native.

• This voyage exhibits mankind in a light too degraded for contemplation, and the satire is too exaggerated. However, if the picture of the Yahoos is disgusting, that is exactly what the author intended. But the author has failed to make the portrayal of the Houyhnhnms to be very attractive or inviting as he aimed at doing. The representation of the Houyhnhnms is cold and insipid. These beings have their virtues, but these virtues are all negative. The Houyhnhnms are devoid of all those tender passions and affections without which life becomes a burden.