Course:
M.A (English)
Topic: Four Voyages of Gulliver’s Travels
Semester:
01
Roll
No. : 12
Paper
No.: 02
Paper
Name: Neo-Classical Literature
Submitted
to: Dr. Dilip Barad,
Smt.
S.B.Gardi
Department
of English,
Maharaja
Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University
Four
voyages of 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. (Swift, 2012)
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. (wikipedia)
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. (wikipedia)
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. (wikipedia)
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. (wikipedia)
Swift, J. (2012). In Gulliver's Travels.
Convent Publications.
wikipedia. (n.d.). Retrieved from
http://www.enotes.com/topics/gullivers-travels-jonathan-swift
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