Swift's Gulliver's Travels - Essay Example

Swifts Gulliver’s travels: Myriad life experiences are gained when Gulliver is first shipwrecked and made a prisoner by the Lilliputians. Even as a prisoner, he is the most powerful being in that place. Sometime later, he begins to be seen as a trustworthy person but escapes again after gaining disapproval of the emperor. What Swift actually wants the readers to perceive through this tale is that a great number of small persons or weak nations can overcome a large person as in the story or a powerful nation if they get together and become resourceful enough.

Gulliver coming from the most powerful nation in the world at that time was held a prisoner by only 6inches tall Lilliputians by which Swift aims to explain why English people should consider the pride of their own country and reassess if the colonies controlled by them could get powerful enough one day to overthrow the English kingdom. At the time Gulliver’s Travels was written, search for new lands to control thrived in England and in this process the English people used to come across many new civilizations, an example of which is given in the travels by Swift in the form of Lilliputians.

This voyage to Lilliput can also be seen as a conflict between opposing ideas and characters through which Swift wants to explain the obstacles experienced by the English at that time when meeting new people in their lands. According to another idea, “the effect of reducing the scale of life in Lilliput is to strip human affairs of their self-imposed grandeur” (Eddy, cited in Galloway, 1994). In contrast to Lilliput, everything about Brobdingnag appears to be gigantic and much more powerful than Gulliver himself.

He realizes that even the grass is about 20ft tall there and each step taken by the giants who live there is about 10yards long in contrast to Lilliputians. Overcome by despair and fright, he begins to think of himself as a Lilliputian would if surrounded by normal humans. There too, Gulliver is taken to the court where he is bought by the queen. Later he shares his views about English politics with the king which appear humorous to him and make him remark that English people are well below the Brobdingnagians in context of wisdom and power.

The king dismisses the English people as members of a low society through which Swift aims to explain the general ignorance of other nations in the world at that time which refused to embrace modernity. The trip to this island called Brobdingnag helps Gulliver to meet very big people after meeting very small people in Lilliput. This stark change of scale develops much tension and drama both for Gulliver and the characters he come across during his voyages. He is disgusted by the differences of the world as are the inhabitants of Lilliput and Brobdingnag after seeing him.

This change of scale also helps Gulliver understand a lot of things which he could not understand while he was in Lilliput. He comes to know how exactly does it feel to be powerless and how the Lilliputians must have felt upon coming across him. Sift aims to show this is how a member of a weak nation would feel upon arriving in England (Cantor & Kissel, 2007). References:Cantor, R, & Kissel, A. (2007, August 21). Gullivers Travels Study Guide: Summary and Analysis of Part II, “A Voyage to Brobdingnag.

” Retrieved from http://www.gradesaver.com/gullivers-travels/study-guide/section4/Galloway, S. (1994). Swifts Moral Satire in Gullivers Travels. Retrieved from http://www.cyberpat.com/shirlsite/essays/gulliv.html