Transcript Gulliver’s Travels - West Baton Rouge Parish School Board

Gulliver’s Travels
By Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift
1667 - 1745
Irish
• Swift was Irish. He was born in
Dublin in 1667
What are the similarities
between Lemuel Gulliver in
Gulliver’s Travels and Robinson
Crusoe?
• Both have an uncontrollable
urge to travel.
• Both are shipwrecked and are
the only crew members to
survive.
What are the differences
between Robinson and
Gulliver?
• Gulliver meets many people on
his travels. He is never alone.
• Gulliver can speak many
languages and learns the
language of every country that
he visits.
• Gulliver is interested in learning
about other cultures and
customs.
• Robinson Crusoe thinks that the
English are naturally superior to
all other races, particularly nonChristians.
• Lemuel Gulliver develops a deep
mistrust and hatred of human
beings in general and over the
novel the English are frequently
criticised.
• What kind of story is Gulliver’s
Travels?
In some ways it seems
like a children’s story,
but….
Gulliver’s Travels is a
SATIRE
Satire
• Although satire is usually meant
to be funny, the purpose of
satire is not primarily humour in
itself.
• It is an attack on something of
which the author strongly
disapproves, using the weapon
of wit.
True Story?
• Like Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver’s
Travels is written as though it is
TRUE.
• Of course nobody thought it was
true, but it makes it more
entertaining and more
SATIRICAL.
A story with 4 parts:
• Gulliver’s Travels is divided into 4
parts.
• Each part begins with Gulliver
arriving alone in a strange land.
• Each part ends with him returning
home to England to his family.
Lilliput
• Part One:
In Lilliput
Gulliver is a
giant. The
Lilliputians are
all 6 inches tall.
• At first in seems that feeding
Gulliver could be so expensive for
the Lilliputians that it may cause a
famine.
• Later they make use of Gulliver in
their war with a country called
Blefescu
• They want Gulliver to completely
destroy the Blefescuans but he
refuses.
Ridiculous War
• The Lilliputians and the Blefuscuans
are at war over the correct way to
break an egg.
• Those who break the small end are
Small Endians and those who break
the big end are Big Endians.
• Gulliver reports this as though it is
completely reasonable.
• This is a satire of
religious wars over tiny
points of religious
doctrine.
Brodbingnag
• Part Two:
In Brodbingnag
he is tiny, and
everyone else
seems like a
giant to him.
• First he is treated like a toy or a
show and people pay to come
and see him.
• Then he is invited to live with
the King and Queen.
• He tries to tell the King about
gunpowder, but the King is
horrified at the idea of such
destruction.
Laputa, Balnibari,
Luggnagg and
Glubbdubdrib
• Part Three:
In part three he visits four
countries.
Laputa
• Laputa is an island
that floats in the
air.
• They are extremely
impractical and
cannot concentrate
on any
conversation
Balnibari
• In Balnibari
people are
obsessed by
music and
mathematics.
• They are bored
by Gulliver.
Luggnagg
• In Luggnagg
ghosts of
famous people
from the past
are called forth.
• Gulliver is
disappointed by
many of them.
Glubbdubdrib
• In Glubbdubdrib people are
occasionally born immortal.
• These people are called struldbrugs.
• Gulliver thinks this is wonderful,
until he realises that the struldbrugs
still become old and infirm and then
long for death.
Land of the Houyhnhnms
• Part Four:
Gulliver is most
affected by his
final journey.
He loves the
houyhnhnms and
wishes to stay
with them, but
cannot.
• The Houyhnhnms share their country
with a race of wild, stupid, filthy
creatures called Yahoos.
• To The Houyhnhnms Gulliver looks
like a Yahoo.
• When Gulliver returns to England at
the end of the book, he cannot bear
to be around people or look in the
mirror, he is so horrified by the
human race.
Does Jonathan Swift
think Houyhnhnms are
better than people?
• The Houyhnhnms are clever,
peaceful and trustworthy.
• But they are passionless and
dull.
• In the end human beings are
somewhere between
Houyhnhnms and Yahoos.
Gulliver at the end of
the story…
• By the end of the book, Gulliver
has basically been driven mad.
• He cannot bear to look at his
wife and family.
• He buys some horses and
spends his time talking to them.
A Modest Proposal
• A Modest Proposal: For
Preventing the Children of Poor
People in Ireland from Being a
Burden to Their Parents or
Country, and for Making Them
Beneficial to the Public.
Swift appears to suggest in his
essay that the impoverished
Irish might ease their economic
troubles by selling children as
food for rich gentlemen and
ladies.
• At this time many poor Irish
Catholics were starving.
• Swift felt that the English and
wealthy Irish landowners were
to blame.
• Often satire seems very
shocking - like the idea of
eating children - this makes it
more POWERFUL.
• Swift wanted people to see that
allowing people to starve to
death was as immoral as selling
children for food.