Guilliver’s travels

Many authors write books about events, their lives and their environment, and their corrupt
government. One satirical author who wrote a novel about living in a corrupt society is
Jonathan Swift who wrote Gulliver’s Travels. The places the protagonist had visited reflected
on the author’s English government. The life of the author will be shown similar to this book
because of the way he lived. Jonathan Swift was well educated and graduated from Trinity
College in Dublin in English literature. He not only had a life in literature but also had a life
in politics. This experience helped him write many satirical essays and novels against England
and Ireland. His first political job was to work for the remarkable statesman, Sir William
Temple from 1689 to 1699. During that time, he also became a minister for the church of
England in 1694. After Sir William Temple died in 1699, Swift became a pastor of a small
Protestant parish in Laracor, Ireland. He was ordained in 1694. His skill as a writer was greatly
appreciated within the church and was well known in Dublin. If one were to divide Swift’s
career into “periods,” the years 1710-14 would naturally fall into the “Middle Period.”(Cook,
V) In 1710, he became a powerful supporter of the Tory government in England. Through
many of Swift’s articles and pamphlets in defense, he became one of the most effective public
relations men any English administration ever had. The Tories saw how good Swift’s
literature was and hired him as an editor for their journal, The Examiner. His political power
ended when a new government came to power.
This was the Whig party. The Tory government and the Whig party were against each other
and shared different views like the republicans and democrats in the U.S. The last stage of
Swift’s life shows him transformed from an English into a Irish favorite, and this almost in
spite of himself.(Swift, XIV) He was betrayed and exiled to Ireland by his friends. The
unbearable lifestyle he endured while living in Ireland forced him to write his brilliant satirical
essay, A Modest Proposal. This essay suggested that the people of Ireland should use their
children for a cash crop. In the book Gulliver’s Travels, the author reflects his life on the main
character to Prove a point, mankind are savages. All that was necessary was that he take on a
deliberate persona in the form some self-deceived enthusiast. (Cook, pg.92) The protagonist
of the story Lemieux Gulliver, went on many voyages and left his wife and child back in
England for months at a time. The first voyage he went on in the book was to Lilliput. All of
the places he went to were by accident. It was either he was shipwrecked or his boat was taken
over by pirates. In Lilliput, he fell asleep ashore and woke up tied down by the barbaric
Lilliputians. These natives are only three inches high and look exactly like humans but
smaller. Swift satirizes our b*stial selves and use them as these Lilllputians. These Lilliputians
are pure evil and very corrupt. Their government system is similar to ours. Their leader is an
Emperor who has all but some power over their country. He also has advisors who seem to
influence the Emperor in all his decisions even if he did not agree. This system is similar to
our government and congress having equal power to the president. In order for a person to
gain a seat in congress or hold a certain political position in our society, they have to be elected
by the people. In Lilliput, the people gain their political power in the strangest and silliest
way. The emperor holds a stick out in front of the person and in order for the person to get
the highest position possible, they must be able to jump over or crawl under the stick
depending how the emperor positions it. The emperor may raise the stick and lower it for
whomever he wants. He may pick favorites and make it easier for them to get over the stick.
The Lilliputians were in the middle of a civil war with a neighboring island called Blefescu.
The war was caused due to a misunderstanding in the past. The Lilliputian and Blefescudian
ancestors were eating breakfast and they broke their eggs on different ends. They got into an
argument about which end is better to break and split up. The Lilliputians called themselves
the Big Enders and the Blefescudians called themselves the Little Enders. Gulliver’s stay was
short because they did not trust him and was plotting against his life. He then fled to Blefescu,
which was an enemy of the Lilliputians. They soon rejected him and he started on his journey
home. The second place Gulliver arrives is Brobdingnag. These natives are about ten stories
high and looked like humans because of their facial features. The farmer that found Gulliver
brought him to the queen. The Brobdingnagian government is similar to the communistic
government. In this society, there is no currency because everyone gets the same amount of
food and luxuries.

The queen explained how her government was based on equality and Gulliver explained on
how his government was based on conquering other and in constant war with other countries
with simple problems that can be solved with talking it out. The queen heard of his horrid
government and was appalled at what he was saying. The Brobdingnagian society is not
similar because it is morally advanced, but they have all of our incomplete values. The queen
eventually exiles him and he leaves for England. Unfortunately he never makes it to England
but gets his ship taken over by pirates. He is given a small boat and is left to die. Some natives
of a flying island called Laputa picked up Gulliver. The natives of this island were very
peculiar. The elders would stare at the sun and think deep thoughts. They would ask questions
like, “How’s the sun?”. They were usually in so much of deep thought that they would be
unconscious. There is a man always following them and tapping them trying to bring them
back to reality. Swift is satirizing the scientists with their wild theories and unproven facts.
There were many of these people around his time that made many theories that turned out to
be false. The last place Gulliver went to was The Land of the Houynhnms. The natives of this
island were horses. They ruled the island and all of the other inhabitants on it. The other
inhabitants were Yahoos. These yahoos were humans who were uncivilized and were
supposed to satirize our b*stial sides of us. The Houynhnms had the reasoning and language
of our human race. They did not know what love was, so they did not know what was jealousy,
rage, anger, insanity, and many other emotions that love may harvest. The Houynhnms and
the Yahoos were being satirized because those two species put together were called the H.
sapiens species. Given man’s instinctive corrupt nature and the downward drift it fostered,
social change of almost any sort was apt to be worse. (Cook,120) Gulliver was accepted in to
the Houynhnm society even though he resembled a yahoo. He learned to speak their language
and learned their ways. As Gulliver explains to his Houyhnhnm master about England, noble
families in England nearly always die out after three generations, “unless the wives take care
to provide a healthy father among her neighbors, or domesticks, in order to improve and
continue the Breed.” (Cook,124) He was eventually ostracized from them because he was a
threat to them for being a yahoo. Eventually, Gulliver returned home and shared his stories
with every one. They marked him as mad and he lived the rest of is days in an insane asylum.
Many authors like Jonathan Swift reflect their lives in their books. This book was a good
example in my opinion of an author reflecting his life and his society which may be fair or
corrupt. All authors should reflect their lives in their books so that the reader will know more
about them.