Being the brief recounting of my experiences inside the mind of Lemuel Gulliver
Some, upon hearing the words Gulliver’s Travels, immediately think of the Lilliputions. But in reading the actual book, I learned that the Lilliputions are the least of the matter—no pun intended, of course. In fact, only a portion of the book is devoted to those worthies, the rest being well occupied with Brobingnagians, Laputions, Houyhnhnms, and, most prevalent, the Yahoos.
The entire book is a none-too-subtle satire on England, royalty, and the human race in general—all offset by a main character who hotly defends all three in the face of the ridicule he finds in every type of creatures above mentioned. Jonathan Swift devotes whole chapters to the harsh mockery of lawyers and wars, kings and government, and then turns around and says this:
“…it is now some comfort to reflect, that in what I said of my countrymen, I extenuated their faults as much as I durst before so strict an examiner, and upon every article gave as favorable a turn as the matter would bear. For, indeed, who is there alive that will not be swayed by his bias and partiality to the place of his birth?”*
Jonathan Swift was not swayed, for one. His well-known acidic tongue has lashed its imprint into literature and our minds alike, with nary an apology to be found, nor a barb blunted. And though other satirists, such as Jane Austen and Charles Dickens, have dipped their brilliant pens into the darkly comic ink of mockery, it should be said that Swift chose instead a paintbrush, and painted his fresco all across the old ideas of propriety and sovereignty, until only the caricature is visible.
For those of you who have not read Gulliver’s Travels, here is a brief summary:
Gulliver is a ship surgeon who is skilled with languages, courageous, and possesses an insatiable desire to explore. The first of his adventures is when he, sole survivor of a shipwreck, washes up on a foreign shore—Lilliput, where every person is one twelfth his size. One thing leads to another (I needn’t give away too much) and he leaves, returning to England and his wife and family. His next adventure is when, having returned to sea, he is left accidentally on the shore of yet another foreign land, by his reckonings off the western coast of America. Here, he finds a race of humans—if they may be called that—called Brobdingnagians, and they are twelve times Gulliver’s size, and much kinder and more understanding than the Lilliputions. In this manner he arrives in and leaves multifarious strange countries, always at last returning to his wife and family. No race of creatures affected him as much as the noble but dispassionate Houyhnhnms, who reside happily on their island, free of lies, lawlessness follies, and any other vices that lead them away from Reason—and if on the way, some special attachments to children, spouses and life itself are laid aside, then what does that matter? This last encounter so changes Gulliver that afterwards, even being near other humans makes him ill.
This mock-travelogue, though written in 1726, holds true to this day. Though some descriptions of the countries grow lengthy, it is a fairly quick and witty history of not only the characters, but the follies of humankind.
* Jonathon Swift, Gulliver’s Travels, Penguin Classics: 1985 p. 306
Some, upon hearing the words Gulliver’s Travels, immediately think of the Lilliputions. But in reading the actual book, I learned that the Lilliputions are the least of the matter—no pun intended, of course. In fact, only a portion of the book is devoted to those worthies, the rest being well occupied with Brobingnagians, Laputions, Houyhnhnms, and, most prevalent, the Yahoos.
The entire book is a none-too-subtle satire on England, royalty, and the human race in general—all offset by a main character who hotly defends all three in the face of the ridicule he finds in every type of creatures above mentioned. Jonathan Swift devotes whole chapters to the harsh mockery of lawyers and wars, kings and government, and then turns around and says this:
“…it is now some comfort to reflect, that in what I said of my countrymen, I extenuated their faults as much as I durst before so strict an examiner, and upon every article gave as favorable a turn as the matter would bear. For, indeed, who is there alive that will not be swayed by his bias and partiality to the place of his birth?”*
Jonathan Swift was not swayed, for one. His well-known acidic tongue has lashed its imprint into literature and our minds alike, with nary an apology to be found, nor a barb blunted. And though other satirists, such as Jane Austen and Charles Dickens, have dipped their brilliant pens into the darkly comic ink of mockery, it should be said that Swift chose instead a paintbrush, and painted his fresco all across the old ideas of propriety and sovereignty, until only the caricature is visible.
For those of you who have not read Gulliver’s Travels, here is a brief summary:
Gulliver is a ship surgeon who is skilled with languages, courageous, and possesses an insatiable desire to explore. The first of his adventures is when he, sole survivor of a shipwreck, washes up on a foreign shore—Lilliput, where every person is one twelfth his size. One thing leads to another (I needn’t give away too much) and he leaves, returning to England and his wife and family. His next adventure is when, having returned to sea, he is left accidentally on the shore of yet another foreign land, by his reckonings off the western coast of America. Here, he finds a race of humans—if they may be called that—called Brobdingnagians, and they are twelve times Gulliver’s size, and much kinder and more understanding than the Lilliputions. In this manner he arrives in and leaves multifarious strange countries, always at last returning to his wife and family. No race of creatures affected him as much as the noble but dispassionate Houyhnhnms, who reside happily on their island, free of lies, lawlessness follies, and any other vices that lead them away from Reason—and if on the way, some special attachments to children, spouses and life itself are laid aside, then what does that matter? This last encounter so changes Gulliver that afterwards, even being near other humans makes him ill.
This mock-travelogue, though written in 1726, holds true to this day. Though some descriptions of the countries grow lengthy, it is a fairly quick and witty history of not only the characters, but the follies of humankind.
* Jonathon Swift, Gulliver’s Travels, Penguin Classics: 1985 p. 306