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    Gulliver's Travels Study Guide

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    Chae
    Gulliver's Travels is a 1726 satire written by Jonathan Swift that uses the journey format to scrutinize and parody aspects of human society. The protagonist, Lemuel Gulliver, embarks on four voyages where he encounters societies like the tiny Lilliputians or the intelligent horses that help examine English culture. When published, the novel was controversial for how it presented humanity, especially the English. While edited against Swift's wishes, the complete version critiques politics and ideas through comedy that has appealed to people of all ages.

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    Gulliver's Travels Study Guide

    Uploaded by

    Chae
    76 views1 page
    Gulliver's Travels is a 1726 satire written by Jonathan Swift that uses the journey format to scrutinize and parody aspects of human society. The protagonist, Lemuel Gulliver, embarks on four voyages where he encounters societies like the tiny Lilliputians or the intelligent horses that help examine English culture. When published, the novel was controversial for how it presented humanity, especially the English. While edited against Swift's wishes, the complete version critiques politics and ideas through comedy that has appealed to people of all ages.

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    Gulliver

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    Gulliver's Travels is a 1726 satire written by Jonathan Swift that uses the journey format to scrutinize and parody aspects of human society. The protagonist, Lemuel Gulliver, embarks on four voyages where he encounters societies like the tiny Lilliputians or the intelligent horses that help examine English culture. When published, the novel was controversial for how it presented humanity, especially the English. While edited against Swift's wishes, the complete version critiques politics and ideas through comedy that has appealed to people of all ages.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    76 views1 page

    Gulliver's Travels Study Guide

    Uploaded by

    Chae
    Gulliver's Travels is a 1726 satire written by Jonathan Swift that uses the journey format to scrutinize and parody aspects of human society. The protagonist, Lemuel Gulliver, embarks on four voyages where he encounters societies like the tiny Lilliputians or the intelligent horses that help examine English culture. When published, the novel was controversial for how it presented humanity, especially the English. While edited against Swift's wishes, the complete version critiques politics and ideas through comedy that has appealed to people of all ages.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    Gulliver's Travels Study Guide

    Gulliver's Travels, a misanthropic satire of humanity, was written in 1726 by Jonathan


    Swift. Like many other authors, Swift uses the journey as the backdrop for his satire. He
    invents a second author, Captain Lemuel Gulliver, who narrates and speaks directly to the
    reader from his own experience. The original title of Swift's novel was Travels into Several
    Remote Nations of the World. In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a
    Surgeon, and then a Captain of several Ships.
    Gulliver's name probably is an allusion to King Lemuel of Proverbs 31, who was a weak-minded
    prophet. Swift may also be connecting his character to a common mule, a half-ass, half-horse
    animal that is known for being stubborn and stupid. A gull is a person who is easily fooled or
    gullible. At the same time, Gulliver represents the everyman with his average intelligence and
    general good humor. The reader is able to identify with him and join him in his travels.

    Even though Swift constantly alludes to events that were happening while he was alive, the story
    rings true today, bringing light to our own societal issues and to patterns of human nature.
    Throughout Gulliver's voyages, Swift goes to great lengths to scrutinize, parody, and satire
    various aspects of human, and often English, society. He does this in two ways, first by
    comparing humanity's ways with those of cultures decidedly beneath it (such as
    the Yahoos and the Lilliputians); second, by comparing humanity with cultures that are far
    superior in intellect and political ideals (such as the Houyhnhnms).
    Gulliver embarks on four distinct journeys, each of which begins with a shipwreck and ends with
    either a daring escape or a congenial decision that it is time for Gulliver to leave. The societies
    Gulliver comes into contact with help him (and the reader) to examine his own culture more
    closely. When Gulliver's Travels was published in 1726, this examination of English culture was
    not appreciated. The novel was highly controversial because of the light in which it presented
    humanity-and more specifically, the English. When the novel was first published, Swift's identity
    was hidden because of the novel's volatile nature. The people who saw that the book made it into
    print also cut out a great deal of the most politically controversial sections, about which Swift
    became extremely frustrated. In a letter written under the pseudonym of Gulliver, Swift shows
    his annoyance with the edits made to his novel without his consent: "I hope you will be ready to
    own publicly," he writes, "whenever you shall be called to it, that by your great and frequent
    urgency you prevailed on me to publish a very loose and uncorrect account of my travels . . . .
    But I do not remember I gave you power to consent that anything should be omitted, and much
    less that anything should be inserted." The version of the novel read today is complete.

    Part of what has helped Gulliver's Travels to persevere since Swift's time has been its appeal to
    people of all ages. The book has been read by countless children and has been made into more
    than one children's movie. At the same time, it has been widely critiqued and studied by literary
    scholars and critics, politicians, and philosophers. In addition, much like the works of
    Shakespeare, the comedy of the novel has something for people of all intellectual levels, from
    toilet humor to highbrow satires of political processes and of ideas.

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