Swift, Jonathan - Gulliver's travels

Jonathan Swift

Was born in Dublin in 1667. In 1688 he left Ireland for England because there were political problems linked to the glorious revolution but after 6 years he returned to Ireland and became an Anglican priest and he began to write in opposition to the Whig administration. He had a pessimistic attitude and he did not share the optimism of his age. Was appointed Dean of St Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin and the last years of his life were marked by the decay of his mental faculties. His works are satirical, the most important is Gulliver’s Travels.
The satire is a literary composition in which human folly and vice are ridiculed.

Gulliver's travels

This work is divided in 4 books linked to 4 different settings. The hero and also the narrator is the ship’s surgeon Lemuel Gulliver (sia protagonista che narratore). He starts a voyage, but he shipwrecked. Swift provided illustrated maps of the places Gulliver visited. At the end of each book he manages to return to England.
-Book 1: Gulliver sails from Bristol and is ship-wrecked somewhere in the South Pacific on the shore of ‘Lilliput’. The ‘Lilliputians’, are small people that represent the meanness, cruel and thirsty for power. Gulliver gets king's favor and manages to return to England.
-Book 2: Gulliver sails for India and he finds himself in a country located in Alaska. The natives are giants who are wise and good people. He becomes the king’s pet, he is kept in a cage, but one day he is dropped in the middle of the Ocean by a huge bird and he was rescued by a ship who helped him to return to England.
-Book 3: Gulliver’s ship attacked by pirates. He finds himself on the flying island of ‘Laputa’. The abitants are immortal absent-minded astronomers, philosophers and scientists. Indeed, they have a “faulty knowledge”, being out of reality. The island drops Gulliver on Japan and he manages to return to England.
-Book 4: Gulliver’s last voyage to the utopian land, the island of horses endowed with reason that rules over the Yahoos, stupid and corrupt animals resembling human. Gulliver faces the cruel humanity of the Yahoos, he dislikes them and is ashamed of his similarity with them. He decides to stay with the horses forever, but the horses banish him because he is a Yahoo and so he leaves for England, where he joins his wife and children but cannot stand their “smell of humanity”. He goes to live in the stable with the animals that remind him the nobility of the horses.
-Gulliver is a middle aged, well educated and sensible man and he differs from the typical traveller. The people he meets during his voyages are civilized people. Gulliver is disgusted by everything at home because Europe is falling into a state of corruption. In fact in the first part, Gulliver believes in and support the world in which he lives but thanks to his voyage he completely changes his moral perspective and realizes that British institution are not the best. Also Gulliver is both an object of satire and an instrument of satire, used by the author.
-This work is a masterpiece of misanthropy because it is a reflection on the aberrations of human reason.
-This work is also a political allegory and we can understand through allusions to people and events during the reign of Queen Anne and George I (Swift’s time).