Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Gulliver's Travels - A Satire

Gulliver's travels is a satire in many different types of ways.

Jonathan Swift depicts Gulliver going to four places, Liliput, Brobdingnag, Laputa, Houyhnhnm. Firstly, he shows how Gulliver's Travels can be a satire through the fight between Liliput and Blefuscu. In Lilliput, years ago, people once broke eggs on the big end. However, the present king's grandfather once cut himself breaking the egg in this manner, so the King at the time, the father of the present king's grandfather, issued an edict that all were to break the eggs on the small end. Some of the people resisted, and they found refuge in Blefuscu, therefore the two sides have been at war.
This represents the fight between England and France being unnecessary.

Next, the way Liliputians select people for public office are very different from that of any other nation. A man must "rope dance" to the best of his abilities if he wants to be chosen and the best "rope dancer" receives the higher office. Despite the fact that no nation of Europe in that time followed such a ridiculous practice, the chosen candidates were not chosen based on their skill, but how well they could line the right pockets with money. This is a satire of ridiculous practices in Europe.

Last but not least, Gulliver went to the land of the Houyhnhnms, which are horse-like creatures with the ability to reason. Yahoos also live in the land of Houyhnhnms. Gulliver realises that the only difference between man and the Yahoo is that the Yahoo was very dirty and did not wear any clothes. If not, a Yahoo would be human-like. This is a satire of the flaws of humans and therefore degrades them.

With all this examples, I can tell that Gulliver's travels is a satire in many ways.

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