An Analysis Of Gulliver

’s Travels Essay, Research Paper

An Analysis of Gulliver’s Travels

When I first started reading the book I thought its only purpose was to talk

about the political system in England. But after some pages I found that there

could be a deeper message concealed, between the lines somewhere. The book is

divided into four minor novels. The first is about the Lilliputian’s the second

about Gulliver visits the giants, the third about the flying island and last

about Gullivers travels to the land of Houyhnhmland.

In the first book Gulliver gets shipwrecked and ends up on the island Lilliput

were some inhabitans of the island finds him and ties him to the ground. The

king hears of the news and sends the army to stop the giant from escaping.

Gulliver is then taken to the king’s castle were he is searched fore weapons or

other dangerous items. The Lilliputians are divided into two tribes. One is

holding Gulliver and the other lives on the second island which is separated

from the first by a canal (resembles of England and France) . Gulliver is at the

littlenders and the enemy is the bigenders which live on the island of Blefuscu.

Gulliver helps the Littlenders to defeat the bigenders. In this book Swift

emphasises the stupidity in the war between England and France and also every

war which starts over a stupid reason, he also points out the meaningless in

courtlife were they do nothing but waste the states money.

At he lilliputians he builds a raft which he uses to sail back to England. But

instead he finds himself shipwrecked and washed upon the shores of Brumbidang or

the giants land. there he was found by a farmer whom handed him over into his

daughters care. The farmer uses Gulliver for finical reasons and shows him up as

a side-showfreak at all the inns in the land. In the giants land there are no

classdeffirences this is something that probably Swift wanted to introduce to

the British system.

In this book Swift also attacks the British political and justice system with no

mercy, He also emphasises the meaningless of having an standing army in peace.

In the third book Gulliver gets picked up by men of the flying island of Laputa.

There everyone is striving to improve their environment in any way possible

everything from harvesting to building houses.

Gulliver visit the towns academy were he sees some scientists researching in

almost everything, inventing meaningless gadgets. In this third book Swift

expresses his opinions about the science which were achieving a much higher role

in society in those days, and he also wants us to strive backwards to the old

customs of life in the time of Aristoteles were science was not accepted by the

ordinary man.

In the fourth and finial book Gulliver meets the disgusting creatures called

yahoo’s. His first encounter almost cost him his life when the yahoo’s attacked

him. But the horses came to his rescue which scared them away. He is taken to

the horses home were he is feed. The right name for the horses is hoyhnhnm which

in their language means natures perfection, Gulliver uses the nature to feed him

self as making his own bread.

Later in the book he is questioned about his own society, here Swift’s uses the

horse as the worlds common sense while Gulliver represents the England. In this

book Swift also shoes what he thinks about the human race that were are not as

great and beautiful as we think but according to him lower then the animals.

There is a topic that runs through all the four novels, which is that the human

race often takes things for granted not considering that there could be some one

or something getting hurt, and also the injustice of the British law and

political system which existed in that time.