Gulliver's travels door Jonathan Swift

I Facts Jonathan Swift
Gulliver´s Travels
Gulliver´s Travels, Penguin Classics, 1726 II First reaction I’ve chosen this book because I had seen the movie a couple of years ago and new that was based on a historical English work. I really liked the film and was wondering how all those fictional worlds would be described. That’s why I have chosen this book. I really liked the story and the narrative technique; the writer describes certain events, persons, landscapes, habits of creatures, etc., etc. very extensive even if it is the most simple thing. This makes it quite humorous and therefor nice to read. After I had read the book I was full of thoughts about the recent world society and realised that actually nothing has changed in the manner of kings ruling their countries and people having arguments about really small fatuousness’. III Getting into depth Summary

To write a proper summary about this novel I’ve divided it into 4 parts, just like the book. Part I
Gulliver has been shipwrecked on one of his travels to the east as a surgeon and is washed a shore in Lilliput. There he falls a sleep and awakens captivated and unable to move, he sees dozens of very small creatures wandering around and preparing to attack. The creatures who lived in Lilliput were only two thumbs tall, the entire kingdom was directly proportional to the inhabitants including flora and fauna. After Gulliver shows the inhabitants that he hasn´t any hostile intentions he is given a very warm reception. He studies the language, tells the emperor about his own country and the emperor tells him about Lilliput. He also tells the writer about the neighbour country Blefuscu and about the conflict which the two countries have. The conflict is rooted in the fact that the inhabitants of the two countries are bounded by laws to open their eggs on opposite ends. This results in two groups, the bigenders and the little-enders which always resent each other. After a certain period the writer offers the emperor to serve him in his wars. He prevents an invasion by steeling the entire fleet of Blefuscu; he simple wades into the harbour and takes the ships, after this remarkable and disarming action a few ambassadors from Blefuscu arrive to sue for peace. In the same chapter the author also succeeds in preventing the palace to burn to the ground by urinating over it after an accident in the Empress’s apartment. A few weeks later he is accused for high-treason against the Emperor and flees to Blefuscu. After a very short period in Blefuscu he leaves the country and sails back home. Part II
In part two Gulliver is left behind on an island inhabited by giants, they are as big as he was compared to the people in Lilliput. Just like in Lilliput the entire kingdom including flora and fauna was directly proportional to the size of her inhabitants. Gulliver is found by a farmer, this farmer makes lots of money by exploiting the writer. He shows him to the natives in pubs, theatres, etc., etc. After a few weeks of travelling trough the country Gulliver is exhausted and the farmer is afraid that he might die, thanks to a very fortunate event he is sold to the Queen of Brobdingnag (that was the name off the country). The daughter of the farmer is allowed to stay at the palace because she always took care of Gulliver and they were really fond of each other. Also in this country Gulliver talks to the king about England, about her wars, here political system, her nobles, about everything he is very proud off. At his astonishment the king isn´t impressed at all and asks many sharp questions about Englands wars in foreign countries, its manner of choosing people for high positions etc. etc. and is very critical about those aspects. After a lot of interesting conversations, exciting experiences with lethal animals (even a ordinary house sparrow can have lethal consequences because of its size) and a lot of descriptions of for example the way of raising kids he returns home; by accident he is thrown in sea by an eagle and fortunately intercepted by an English ship on its way home. Part III
In part three Gulliver begins his journey to the east but is intercepted by pirates and abandoned on a uninhabited rock-island. After one night he is picked up by people (of his own size) on a flying island. It is inhabited by very strange people, ´ their minds were so taken up by intense speculations, that they neither could speak nor attend to the discourses of others, without being roused by some external taction.` This is the reason why people in Laputa always keep somebody with them with a bladder of a pig on a stick, when people were taken by a thought while they ought to have a conversation the speaker was gently stroke on his mouth by the flapper also the right ear of him or her who is to speak was gently stroke by the bladder. The reason that these people were so often ´ wrapped up in cogitation `was that they were always thinking about mathematical or astrological problems. The people on Laputa and of Balnibari were very high developed concerning mathematics, astrology and music, the problem is that this are their only interests, other things like successful agriculture were beneath them. When Gulliver left the floating island and landed in Balnibari he saw the result of this: an awful poor country with dreaming people in the streets because they didn’t have flappers. Gulliver wanted to leave the country he left the capital city and went to a harbour to get to Luggnagg from where he could easily get to Japan. Unfortunately there was no boat in Maldonada (the harbour the writer went to) so he went on a short trip to Glubbdubdrib, this island was inhabited by wizards. The king was capable of a very special ability; he was able to call people who have died long ago en ask them whatever he wanted. He amused Gulliver by calling Ceasar, Hannibal etc. Gulliver only staid for 10 days on the island, he returned to Maldonada and went to Luggnagg. His reception there was very exceptional, when you have requested an audience of the king and you are allowed to visit him you have to lick the dust from in front of his seat. After Gulliver had done this and said the following sentence translated into English: ´ My tongue is in the mouth of my friend.` he began to have a conversation with the king while he was translated by an interpreter. Lugnagg is quite a normal country except for one thing: sometimes a baby is born with a bright red spot on its forehead (they are called Struldbruggs), this is the sign that the person will lead an immortal life. These babies are really rare and born in ordinary families. Unlike Gulliver´s fantasies about a immortal life that offers men the possibility to gain wisdom, money, knowledge, respect, etc., etc. an immortal life like the Struldbruggs doesn’t offer any of these possibilities. ´ When they came to fourscore years, which is reckoned the extremity of living in this country, they had not only all the follies and infirmities of other old men, but many more witch arose from the dreadful prospect of never dying.` Thanks to the presence of the Struldbruggs the mortal people in Lugnagg are not afraid of dying and don’t fancy an unnatural long life like people in Europe do. After his residence in Lugnagg he sailed to Japan and from there to the Netherlands from were he went home. Part IV
After 5 months at home Gulliver sets out as the Captain of a ship (he sails to Latin-America) unfortunately he is the victim of a mutiny and is abandoned on an unknown island. He travels up in the country and meets very strange creatures, yahoos, they are very hideous and show many similarities to humans. Gulliver immediately has a strong dislike against those creatures, when he is attacked by a whole group of them the yahoos are driven away by a horse, a Houyhnhnm. Houyhnhnms Land is inhabited by Houyhnhnms and Yahoos, the Houyhnhnms are horses which are very wise, intelligent and peace-loving. The Yahoos look like humans and even show similarities in their manner of behave, they are very mean, underhand and cowardly. Gulliver lives in Houyhnhnms Land for three years, learns the language of the Houyhnhnms and has many interesting conversations with a certain Houyhnhnm. This Houyhnhnm has, like all Houyhnhnms, all good traits of character which humans do not have and doesn’t have one single bad one for example: a Houyhnhnm doesn’t know how to lie. The Houyhnhnm shows Gulliver the similarities between the Yahoos and the race of man after Gulliver told him his usual story about England. The Houyhnhnm also gave evidence of his astonishment about how humans managed to overrule other creatures in our country. The Houyhnhnm says the following about our bad traits of character: ´ He seemed therefor confident, that instead of Reason, we were only possessed of some quality fitted to increase our natural vices; as the reflection from a troubled stream returns the image of an ill-shapen body, not only larger, but more distorted.` One day the Houyhnhnm comes to Gulliver and says that he has to leave the country or has to behave like the other Yahoos on the island. The writer returns to his homeland and has much problems with living among all those people who remembered him of the yahoos which he utterly disliked. He even has to get used to his own wife and kids again (as a matter of fact he had lived on the island for more than 3 years). Narrative technique
The story is written out off the I-perspective, it is also all in the past-tense. The writer explains everything until it´s absolutely clear to the reader by describing every detail of it and comparing it to things people in a realistic world do understand. This makes the story quite easy to understand, it´s also easier to imagine the different environments were the story takes place. The story takes place in many different countries which are all described in the summary. The told time is more than 16 years, the time it takes to read the book is of course shorter; approximately 11 hours. The only character which I will describe is Gulliver, the others are all in the summary, have a relatively small role in the entire story and most of all it would take to much time. Lemuel Gulliver: He is a very adventurous, intelligent Englishman who has a real passion in travelling all over the world. He is a surgeon so that’s how he has the possibility to travel so often, on his last journey he even is the captain of the ship. Gulliver is very critical to certain aspects in his country. The theme The main thought of the story is that the politicians in western countries don’t rule their countries like they should and that mankind is a specie which is far from perfect concerning it’s way of living with each other. Shorter; Theme: Political and social injustices in the society. Parts of the text which are very typical to this theme are the parts were the English society is compared to societies of countries Gulliver travelled to. There is no link between title and theme except that the travels refer to better countries in the world. Place in literary history First time of publishing: 1726 I only know about the writer is that he criticised his king and country by writing prose, that was also the main reason for him when he wrote Guliver´s Travels. In the time the book was written people were leaded by their minds, common sense was were it was all about. People were convinced that anything could be explained by using the critical, bright mind, the reason  Rationalism. People were very interested in new knowledge and were very interested in accounts of journeys with drawn maps etc. Under the influence of rationalism the more intelligent people became interested in news, facts and opinions. If you sort above facts into aspects which could have a positive influence on the popularity of Gulliver´s travels there are the following: - interest in stories about journeys - interest in opinions - the believe in the ratio

In Gulliver´s travels those aspects are put together in a unique, genius way without the reader missing the whole point of the book. Judgement The elements that had a very positive effect on me were those with hilarious descriptions of habits of people and the fact that I recognised the present situation in certain countries when I read those descriptions. Part of the text that appeals to me most is when is described how professors in Balnibarbi research the most unnecessary stupid things imaginable. Elements with a negative effect were certain parts in the text that were to long-winded, this made it a little boring sometimes. This book is comparable to a film based on the book, but it is at least 6 years ago when I saw it so I don’t remember enough to write down any important differences. Like I said I recognised the problem and after I had read the book I was really thinking about how to solve all those always-existing problems. So I really liked the theme. The use of language is off course very old-fashioned and I really had to read a few pages before I got used of it and could read almost as fast as in Dutch. My final Judgement is nevertheless that this book is a very educational, amusing way of doing your homework and I would strongly recommend it to anyone who ever feels a little troubled by the manner of politicians and other important people who are misbehaving in the worst way.