Swift, Guliver's Travels

1. Jonathan Swift
(30 November 1667—
19 October 1745)

2. Life Introduction
 Jonathan Swift was an Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist,
political pamphleteer, poet and cleric who became Dean of
St. Patrick’s Cathedral.
 He was born in Dublin, Ireland, of an English family, which
had important connections but little wealth.
 Through the generosity of an uncle, he was educated at
Kilkenny Grammar School and then Trinity College in
Dublin.
 Between 1689 and 1699 he worked as a private secretary
to a distant kinship Sir William Temple, a retired diplomat.
 And there he also received a first-rate education in politics
through contact with Temple and many other well-known
politicians, learning much about the vice, hypocrisy,
intrigues, deception and corruption in the political world.
 Died of insanity after a three-year illness.

3. Literary connections
 His grandmother, Elizabeth (Dryden) Swift, was the niece
of Sir Erasmus Dryden, grandfather of the poet John
Dryden.
 The same grandmother's aunt, Katherine (Throckmorton)
Dryden, was a first cousin of Elizabeth, wife of Sir Walter
Raleigh.
 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.
 His uncle, Thomas Swift, married a daughter of the poet
and playwright Sir William Davenant, a godson of William
Shakespeare.

4. Swift’s Literary Position and Works
Literary Position
 Swift is one of the greatest masters of English prose.
 Swift is a master satirist. Even today, he is still regarded as a
national hero in Ireland.
Works:
 The Tale of Tub (1704)
 Battle of the Books (written in 1679, published in 1704)
 Gulliver’s Travels (1726), his greatest satiric work

5. Swift’s Concerns in his Works
 Moral attributes
Swift was a man of great moral integrity and social charm.
He had a deep hatred for all the rich oppressors and a deep
sympathy for all the poor and oppressed.
 Human nature
His understanding of human nature is profound. In his
opinion, human nature is seriously and permanently flawed.
To better human life, enlightenment is needed, but to
redress it is very hard. He intends not to condemn but to
reform and improve man nature and human institutions,
there is often an under or overtone of helplessness and
indignation.

6. Swift’s Artistic Features
 Satire
His satire is usually masked by an
outward gravity and an apparent
earnestness which renders his satire all
the more powerful.
 Simplicity and Directness
Swift is always most unsurpassed in the
writing style of simple, direct, precise
prose. He defined a good style as
“proper words in proper places.” Clear,
simple, concrete diction, uncomplicated
sentence structure, economic and
conciseness of language mark all his
writings—essays, poems and novels.

7. Introduction to Gulliver’s Travels
Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan’s best
fictional work, was published in
1726, under the title of Travels into
Several Remote Nations of the
World, by Samuel Gulliver. The
book contains four parts, each
dealing with one particular voyage
during which Gulliver meets with
extraordinary adventures on some
remote island after he has met with
shipwreck of piracy of some other
misfortune.

8. Themes and Genre
 A mix of Utopian fiction and the novel
 Fantastic tale of travels and adventures told in a realistic
way (realism and Robinson Crusoe)
 It shows Utopian worlds that expose, by contrast, the faults
of Western societies
 It is a satire of man’s vanities and irrationality
 It is a critique of society and its absurdities describing
imaginary worlds where the defects of the real world are
exaggerated

9. Plot and Interpretations
 It is a parody of a travel story of Lemuel Gulliver, a ship’s
surgeon, who makes voyages in several regions of the
world.
 Book I: Lilliput -> Land of tiny people, satire of the English
court and political life.
 Book II: reversal of the point of view, the land of Giants ,
satire of England and Western societies .
 Book III: the flying island of Laputa, satire of abstract
thinking and the Royal society.
 Book IV: the land of intelligent horses and human-like
beasts (Yahoos), Gulliver divided between the two
extremes of human potential (rationality-bestiality),
pessimism and disgust for humankind .

10. Voyage to Lilliput
The book begins with a short preamble in which Lemuel Gulliver gives
a brief outline of his life and history before his voyages. He enjoys
travelling, although it is that love of travel that is his downfall. During his
first voyage, Gulliver is washed ashore after a shipwreck and finds
himself a prisoner of a race of tiny people, who are inhabitants of the
island country of Lilliput. After giving assurances of his good behaviour,
he is given a residence in Lilliput and becomes a favourite of the court.
Gulliver assists the Lilliputians to subdue their neighbours, the
Blefuscudians, by stealing their fleet. However, he refuses to reduce
the island nation of Blefuscu to a province of Lilliput, displeasing the
King and the court. Gulliver is charged with treason for, among other
"crimes", "making water" in the capital (even though he was putting out
a fire and saving countless lives.) He is convicted and sentenced to be
blinded, but with the assistance of a kind friend, he escapes to
Blefuscu. Here he spots and retrieves an abandoned boat and sails out
to be rescued by a passing ship, which safely takes him back home.

11. Voyage to Brobdingnag
When the sailing ship Adventure is blown off course by storms and
forced to put into land for want of fresh water, Gulliver is abandoned by
his companions and found by a farmer who is 72 feet (22 m) tall. He
brings Gulliver home and his daughter cares for Gulliver. The farmer
treats him as a curiosity and exhibits him for money. Since Gulliver is
too small to use their huge chairs, beds, knives and forks, the queen
commissions a small house to be built for him. This is referred to as his
'travelling box'. Between small adventures such as fighting giant wasps
and being carried to the roof by a monkey, Gulliver discusses the state
of Europe with the King. The King is not happy with Gulliver's accounts
of Europe, especially upon learning of the use of guns and cannons. On
a trip to the seaside, his travelling box is seized by a giant eagle which
drops Gulliver and his box into the sea, where he is picked up by some
sailors, who return him to England.

12. Voyage to Laputa
After Gulliver's ship was attacked by pirates, he is marooned close to a
desolate rocky island near India. Fortunately, he is rescued by the
flying island of Laputa, a kingdom devoted to the arts
of music and mathematics but unable to use them for practical ends.
Gulliver tours Laputa as the guest of a low-ranking courtier and sees
the ruin brought about by the blind pursuit of science without practical
results. At the Grand Academy of Lagado, great resources and
manpower are employed on researching completely preposterous
schemes such as extracting sunbeams from cucumbers, softening
marble for use in pillows, learning how to mix paint by smell. Gulliver is
then taken to Balnibarbi to await a trader who can take him on
to Japan. While waiting for a passage, Gulliver takes a short side-trip to
the island of Glubbdubdrib, where he visits a magician's dwelling and
discusses history with the ghosts of historical figures. After reaching
Japan, Gulliver returns home, determined to stay there for the rest of
his days.

13. Voyage to the Country of the
Houyhnhnms
Despite his earlier intention of remaining at home, Gulliver returns to the sea as
the captain of a merchantman as he is bored with his employment as a surgeon.
His crew then mutiny, and after keeping him contained for some time resolve to
leave him on the first piece of land they come across and continue as pirates.
He is abandoned in a landing boat and shortly afterwards he meets a race of
horses who call themselves Houyhnhnms (which in their language means "the
perfection of nature"); they are the rulers, while the deformed creatures
called Yahoos are human beings in their base form. Gulliver becomes a member
of a horse's household, and comes to both admire and emulate the
Houyhnhnms and their lifestyle, rejecting his fellow humans as merely Yahoos
endowed. However, an Assembly of the Houyhnhnms rules that Gulliver, a
Yahoo with some semblance of reason, is a danger to their civilization, and
expels him. He is then rescued, against his will, by a Portuguese ship. He
returns to his home in England, but he is unable to reconcile himself to living
among 'Yahoos' and becomes a recluse, remaining in his house, largely
avoiding his family and his wife, and spending several hours a day speaking with
the horses in his stables; in effect becoming insane.

14. Gulliver's Travels has been adapted several
times for film, television and radio.
 Gulliver's Travels (1939): Max Fleischer's animated feature-length classic of Gulliver's
adventures in Lilliput. This was the first full-length animated cartoon after Disney's Snow
White and the Seven Dwarfs, and was intended mostly for children.
 The Three Worlds of Gulliver (1960): a loose adaptation starring Kerwin Matthews and
featuring stop motion effects by Ray Harryhausen.
 Case for a Rookie Hangman (1970): A satirical movie by the Czech Pavel Juráček,
based upon the third book, depicting indirectly the Communist Czechoslovakia, shelved
soon after its release.
 Gulliver's Travels (1977): Part live-action and part-animated. Stars Richard Harris.
 Gulliver's Travels (1996): Live-action, 2 part, TV miniseries with special effects starring
Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen, also featuring a variety of film stars in cameo roles.
Of all film versions, this one is the most faithful to the novel, although it still makes
significant changes.
 Crayola Kids Adventures: Tales of Gulliver's Travels (1997): Live-action Direct-to-video
film starring children with Adam Wylie as Gulliver.
 Jajantaram Mamantaram (2003): Live-action Indian children's film, starring Javed
Jaffrey.
 Gulliver's Travels (2010): Modernized, Live-action version of Gulliver's adventures in
Lilliput, starring Jack Black, also featuring Billy Connolly, James Corden, Amanda Peet,
Chris O'Dowd, Catherine Tate, Jason Segel, Emily Blunt and Olly Alexander.

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