Gulliver's Travels

Gulliver’s Travels

            Jonathan Swift was born in Dublin (Ireland) to an Anglo-Irish family in 1667. He belonged to a family which had literary connections and tradition. He joined Trinity College of Dublin University in 1682 and completed his B.A. in 1686. In 1690, he returned to Ireland   owing to his health problems. His great-great grandmother, Margaret (Godwin) Swift, was the sister of Francis Godwin, author of The Man in the Moone which influenced parts of Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. In 1701, he published political pamphlets A Discourse on the Contests and Dissentions in Athens and Rome. He published A Tale of a Tub. In 1711, in his political pamphlet “The Conduct of the Allies”, he attacked the Whig Government for its failure in ending the prolonged war with France. His most memorable works are- The Journal to Stella, Proposal for Universal Use of Irish Manufacture (1720), Drapier’s Letters (1724) and A Modest Proposal (1729). It was these years in the Ireland when he began writing his masterpiece, Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World in four parts, by Lemuel Gulliver, first a surgeon, and then a captain of several ships, better known as Gulliver’s Travels.

           Gulliver’s Travels is a masterpiece of an Irish writer Jonathan Swift. This novel is both a satire on human nature and a parody of the traveler's tales. In fact, this is a classic of English Literature because it can be seen as many things to many different people. The novel is divided in four parts. The Part-I describes about a voyage to Lilliput. The Part-II is about a voyage to Brobdingnag. The Part-III is deals with a voyage to Laputa, Balnibarbi, Glubbdubdrib, Luggnagg and Japan. The Part-IV is related to a voyage to the country of the Houyhnhnms. 

Part I-   A Voyage to Lilliput.

Lemuel Gulliver’s father had a small estate in Nottinghamshire; he was the third of five sons. He was sent to Emanuel College in Cambridge when he was fourteen years old. For four years he was bounded to be apprentice to Mr. James Bates, an eminent surgeon in London.  He served as a surgeon for three years for Captain Abraham Pannel commander. After the death of Lemuel Gulliver’s master Bates, he became sad. After consulting his wife and friends he again went to the sea. The last of the three voyages were not proving very fortunate. He grew weary of the sea, and intended to stay at home. After three years of expectations that things would mend, he accepted an advantageous offer from Captain William Prichard. They all set to sail from Bristol, May 4, 1699. Their voyage at first was prosperous, it was then when they were sailing to the East Indies; they were driven by a violent storm to the North-West of Van Diemen’s land. (Swift, 2012) He swims to a different place and when he wakes up, he finds himself in the island country of Lilliput; where the inhabitants were less than 6 inches tall. When he wakes he tries to move but he was unable to do so because he was stuck from his back. He notices that his arms and legs and even his long hairs all were tied down. Gulliver was unable to move his eyes left or right but he was able to feel something walking over his chest. He somehow turns his eyes down to see what was going on and he sees tiny, tiny human being, no bigger than the length of Gulliver’s finger. This tiny people had tiny, tiny bows along with tiny, tiny arrows and there were also forty more tiny people following them. They were the inhabitants of Swift’s made up island of Lilliput, they were the Lilliputians. On seeing them Gulliver yells in fright, and the Lilliputs jumped back on his roar. Gulliver somehow managed to tear the strings around his body but the strings tied to his hair were really hurt so he was still barely able to move his head. The frightened Lilliputians fire dozens of tiny arrows into his hands, face and body until he lies calmly. The Lilliputians then builds a stage to Gulliver’s side that is about a foot and a half tall, upon which a “Person of Quality” stood and gave a ten minutes speech in a language which Gulliver was unable to understand. Gulliver signals that he was hungry, so the people brought him baskets of meat and several loaves of bread, which he eats three at a time because they were so tiny to him. The Lilliputians brought him two barrels of drink, which he enjoyed even though they are smaller than half a pint together. He thought of crushing the small creatures with his hand but he doesn’t do so, because he doesn’t want to get pricked by bows and arrows. And he had given his “Promise of Honour” to behave in exchange for good treatment. After he had eaten, Gulliver signaled to the people to make way, he relieved himself by “making water”. He promptly felt asleep because his drink had a sleeping medicine in it. Once he felt asleep, the Lilliputians shifted Gulliver to the Capital. They used a large platform with twenty-two wheels pulled by dozens of four-and-a-half-inch horses, dragging Gulliver half a mile. After he wakes, he finds himself chained by his leg in the Capital, but he was able to move in a circle of about two yards in diameter. More than one thousand Lilliputians came out to see Gulliver. In the Capital he meets Lilliput’s Emperor and agrees to serve the Lilliputians, and is granted partial freedom in return. Gulliver prevents an invasion from Lilliput’s enemy, Belfuscu, by stealing enemy’s ship and is given a high title of honor. He makes enemies and friends in at court and learns details about Lilliputian society. After putting out a fire in the palace by urinating, he was accused of high treason for polluting the palace. He was sentenced to be blinded and starved. However, Gulliver escapes to Belfuscu, finds a boat, sails out to sea, and was picked up by an English ship. 

          
Part-II- Voyage to Brobdingnag

Two months after his return to England, Gulliver leaves on his second voyage. He lands in an unknown country to get water and is abandoned. A giant reaper picked him up (he is in the country of gigantic Brobdingnagians), and took him to a farmer, who wants him to be on exhibit as a freak. There he fights with a gigantic cat and other monstrous animals. The Queen of Brobdingnag buys Gulliver and sells him to the King.  The farmer’s daughter, who got befriended with Gulliver, is hired by the King as Gulliver’s guardian and nurse. Gulliver quarrels with the King’s dwarf, but describes England in detail to the King. Gulliver is carried around in a box and tours the kingdom. He fought with birds and animals and finds the King’s Maids of Honor who undresses before him, disgusting him with their huge size. Gulliver’s box was picked up by a gigantic eagle and dropped it into the sea; he was picked up by an English ship and returns to England.

     
 Part-III- Voyage to Laputa

After his return to England, Gulliver leaves on his third voyage. His ship got captured by pirates, who set him in a small boat adrift. He arrived in the flying island of Laputa, which flies over the continent of Balnibarbi. The people he met there are interested only in abstract speculations. Their King asks him only about the mathematics in England. He learns that the island kept flying by magnetism. While he was travelling to Balnibarbi, he was shown the academy of Laputa, where scholars devoted all their time for absurd inventions and ideas. He then goes to Glubbdubdrib, which is an island of magicians. The King was waited on by the ghosts, and he calls upon the ghosts of the historical characters at Gulliver’s request. He then goes to Luggnagg, where he finds the Struldbruggs who had eternal life but didn’t have eternal youth. After spending time in Japan, Gulliver returns to England.

       
 Part-IV- Voyage to the country of Houyhnhnms

On his fourth voyage, Gulliver is set on shore in an unknown land by the mutineers. That was the land of the Houyhnhnms who were intelligent, rational horses who kept repulsive animal -like human beings called Yahoos as their servants. There the horses were civilized like the human beings and also were clean. He describes Houyhnhnms as the people of perfected nature and emotional barrenness. A dapple-gray Houyhnhnm who became Gulliver’s master was unable to understand the frailties and emotions in Gulliver’s account of England. The Assembly got distressed at the idea of a partly rational Yahoo living with a Houyhnhnm, voted to expel Gulliver. He made a boat and was picked up by a Portuguese ship. On his return to England, Gulliver was so disgusted with the human beings that he refuses to associate with them, preferring the company of horses. He learns the language of Houyhnhnm and buys some horses and stays with them several hours a day speaking with the horses in his stable, in effect becoming insane; avoiding his family and his wife.