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Gulliver's Travels

Gulliver's Travels

February 27, 1996


As a seemingly wise and educated man, throughout the novel Gulliver's
Tarvels, the narrator cleverly gains the reader's respect as a thinking and
observant individual. With this position in mind, the comments and ideas that
Gulliver inflicts upon those reading about his journeys certainly have their own
identity as they coincide with his beliefs and statements on the state of
humanity and civilization in particular. Everywhere Gulliver goes, he seems to
comment on the good and bad points of the people he encounters. Sometimes, he
finds a civilization that he can find virtues within, but he also encounters
peoples and places which truly diusgust him in their manner of operation and
civility. Overall, Swift gives Gulliver a generally negative and cynical
attitude towards the manner in which his current day English counterparts
behaved cleverly disguised in the subtext of his encounters with other nations
that either contrasted the way they lived, or mirrored unflatteringly his
contemporaries lifestyles.
In Gulliver's first voyage to Lilliput, his role as the town giant not
only put into perspective the selfishness and unrelenting need for power of the
human race, but also opened his eyes to the untrusting and ungrateful nature of
those aforementioned. When he first arrived in their land, the Lilliputians
opted to tie him up, giving him no freedom, which he luckily did not object to.
Then, once they had developed a somewhat symbiotic realationship with him,
Gulliver was basically forced to abide to their whims and fancies, and
ultimately to be their tool in war. At any time, Gulliver could have escaped
their grasp, but instead, he opted to stay and observe and oblige to their
customs. He was a very agreeable guest. He did tricks for them, he saved their
princess from her burning castle, he defeated their mortal enemies, and all he
was rewarded with was their spite and mistrust. From the start, no matter how
cordial and...