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Name-Riva M Pandya
RollNo-29
Topic-Theme, Motif and Symbol of Gulliver Travels
Sem-1
Year-2015-2016
Paper-2
M.K. Bhavnagar University.
Jonathan Swift’s “Gulliver Travels” published in 1726, is satire disguised as a fantastic novel, with each journey of the redoubtable Lemuel Gulliver delivering him to a different country race and culture. Swift uses each country to satirize some aspect of politics, religion or human nature. The theme in the first science- fiction -voyage tale is that no human is beyond corruption.
Theme of Gulliver Travels:-
Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.
Might versus Right:
Gulliver Travels implicitly asks whether social life should be governed by physical power or moral right. Gulliver experiences the advantages of physical might in Lilliput and the disadvantages as a miniature visitor to Brobdingnag. He is physically tied down by the Lilliputians and kept in a cage in Brobdingnag. He also observes physical force used against others, as with the changing of the Yahoos by the Houyhnhnms.
The age controversy between Lilliput and Blefuscu is a moral question related to the correct interpretation of their holy book. This differences of opinion justifies, in their eyes the war it has caused similarly the use of physical force against the Yahoos is justified for the Houyhnhnms by their sense of moral right are often just as arbitrary as physical subjugation. The Laputans control the land of Balnibarbi through force because they believe themselves more rational even though we might see them as absurd.
The Individual versus Society:
The ideal of a utopia goes back to Plato’s republic a city state governed by the wise and is expressed most famously in English by Thomas Mores’ Utopia .Swift’s attitude towards Utopia is more skeptical and he underlines the tendency to privilege the collective group over the individual .The children of Plato’s republic are raised communally without knowing their biological parents because this system enhance social justice.
The Houyhnhnms also enforce family planning dictating that the parents of two females must exchange a child with the parents of two males so that the male to female ratio is they come closer to the Utopians ideal than the Lilliputians but there is something unsetting about the Houyhnhnms indistinct personalities and lack of names. So Gulliver never complains about feeling lonely but the embittered and antisocial misanthrope we see at the end of the novel is clearly a profoundly isolated individual.
The limits of Human understanding:
The ideal that all human understanding has natural limits is important in Gulliver Travels. Swifts attacks theoretical knowledge his portrait of the self centered Laputas, who show open contempt for those not absorbed in private theorizing is a satire against people who value knowledge above all else.
Swift insists that there is a realm of understanding into which humans are simply not supposed to venture. The Brabdingnagian king was knows shocking little about the abstractions of political science yet his country seems prosperous and well governed similarly the Houyhnhnms knows little about arcane subject like astronomy though they know how long a month is by observing .
Truth and Deception:
Truth and Deception are most prominent themes in this novel. For one thing, the reader is constantly questioning whether or not Gulliver is a reliable narrator. Simply because what he is conveying is so fantastic.
Lying does appear with his journey in Lilliput. He learns that for the Lilliputians lying is a capital punishment and is considered worse than stealing in country of the Houyhnhnms Gulliver is surprised to learn that Houyhnhnms have no concept of what it means lie.
Motif of Gulliver Travels:
Excrement:
While it seems a trivial or laughable motif the recurrent mention of excrement in Gulliver’s Travels actually has a serious philosophical significance in the narrative. It symbolizes everything that is crass and ignoble about the human body and about existence in general and it obstructs any attempt to view humans as wholly spiritual or mentally transcendent creatures. Since the enlightenment culture of eighteen century England tended to view humans optimistically as noble souls rather than vulgar bodies Swift’s emphasis on the common filth of life is a slap in the face of the philosopher of his day. Swift suggest that the human condition in general is dirtier and lowlier than we might like to believe it is.
Foreign Languages:
Gulliver appears to be a gifted linguist knowing at least the basics of several European languages and even a fair amount of ancient Greek. This knowledge serves him well, as he is able to disguise himself as a Dutchman in order to facilitate his entry into Japan which at the time only admitted the Dutch. But even more important, his linguistic gifts allow him to learn the languages of the exotic lands he visits with a dazzling speed and thus gain access to their culture quickly. He learns the languages of the Lilliputians, the Brobdingnagians, and even the neighing tongue of the Houyhnhnms.
Clothing:
Critics have noted the extraordinary attention that the Gulliver pays to clothes throughout his journey. Every time he rip in his shirt or is forced to adopt some native garments to replace one of his own , he recounts the clothing details with great precision. We are told how his pants are falling apart in Lilliput, so that land are as the army marches between his legs they get quite an eyeful .We sense that Gulliver may well never fully reintegrate into European society. But the motif clothing carries a deeper more psychologically complex meaning as well. The state of nudity may remind Gulliver of how nonexistent he feels without the reassuring cover of clothing.
The Symbols of the novel:
Lilliputians-
The Lilliputians symbolizes wildly excessive pride in its own puny existence. Gulliver is a naïve consumer of the Lilliputians grandiose imaginings: He is by the attention of their royal family and cowed by their threats of punishment forgetting that have no real physical power over him. Their formally worded condemnation of Gulliver on grounds of treason is a model of pompous and self important verbiage but works quite effectively on the naïve Gulliver .In all, the Lilliputians symbolize misplaced human pride and point out Gulliver’s inability to diagnose it correctly.
Brobdingnagians-
The Brobdingnagians symbolize the private and physical side of humans when examined up close and in great detail. Gulliver is forced to pay attention to such things. He is forced take the domestic sphere seriously as well. In Brobdingnag he is treated as a doll or a plaything, and thus is made privy to the urination of housemaids and the sexual lives of women. It symbolizes a dimension of human existence visible at close range under close scrutiny.
Laputans-
The Laputans represent the folly of theoretical knowledge that has no relation to human life and no use in the actual world. Laputa symbolizes the absurdity of knowledge that had been tested or applied the ludicrous side of enlightenment intellectualism .Even up above the pursuit of theoretical understanding has not improved the lot of the Laputans. It do not symbolize reasons itself but rather than pursuit of a form of knowledge that related to the improvement of human life.
Houyhnhnms-
The Houyhnhnms represent an ideal existence, a life governed by sense and moderation of which philosophers since Plato have long dreamed. As in Plato’s ideal community the Houyhnhnms have neither need to lie nor any word for lying. They do not use force but only strong exhortation.The Houyhnhnms seem like model citizens, and Gulliver’s intense grief when he is forced to leave them suggests that they have made an impact on him greater than that of any other society he has visited.
England-
England is passed over very quickly in the first paragraph behind. Gulliver seems to have very few nationalistic or patriotic feelings about England, and he rarely mentioned his homeland on his travels. The end of the fourth journey England is brought more explicitly into the fabric of Gulliver Travels When Gulliver in his neurotic state starts confusing Houyhnhnms land with his homeland referring to Englishmen as Yahoos. The possibility thus arises that all the races Gulliver encounters could be version of the English and that his travels merely allow him to see various aspects of human nature more clearly.
Name-Riva M Pandya
RollNo-29
Topic-Theme, Motif and Symbol of Gulliver Travels
Sem-1
Year-2015-2016
Paper-2
M.K. Bhavnagar University.
Jonathan Swift’s “Gulliver Travels” published in 1726, is satire disguised as a fantastic novel, with each journey of the redoubtable Lemuel Gulliver delivering him to a different country race and culture. Swift uses each country to satirize some aspect of politics, religion or human nature. The theme in the first science- fiction -voyage tale is that no human is beyond corruption.
Theme of Gulliver Travels:-
Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.
Might versus Right:
Gulliver Travels implicitly asks whether social life should be governed by physical power or moral right. Gulliver experiences the advantages of physical might in Lilliput and the disadvantages as a miniature visitor to Brobdingnag. He is physically tied down by the Lilliputians and kept in a cage in Brobdingnag. He also observes physical force used against others, as with the changing of the Yahoos by the Houyhnhnms.
The age controversy between Lilliput and Blefuscu is a moral question related to the correct interpretation of their holy book. This differences of opinion justifies, in their eyes the war it has caused similarly the use of physical force against the Yahoos is justified for the Houyhnhnms by their sense of moral right are often just as arbitrary as physical subjugation. The Laputans control the land of Balnibarbi through force because they believe themselves more rational even though we might see them as absurd.
The Individual versus Society:
The ideal of a utopia goes back to Plato’s republic a city state governed by the wise and is expressed most famously in English by Thomas Mores’ Utopia .Swift’s attitude towards Utopia is more skeptical and he underlines the tendency to privilege the collective group over the individual .The children of Plato’s republic are raised communally without knowing their biological parents because this system enhance social justice.
The Houyhnhnms also enforce family planning dictating that the parents of two females must exchange a child with the parents of two males so that the male to female ratio is they come closer to the Utopians ideal than the Lilliputians but there is something unsetting about the Houyhnhnms indistinct personalities and lack of names. So Gulliver never complains about feeling lonely but the embittered and antisocial misanthrope we see at the end of the novel is clearly a profoundly isolated individual.
The limits of Human understanding:
The ideal that all human understanding has natural limits is important in Gulliver Travels. Swifts attacks theoretical knowledge his portrait of the self centered Laputas, who show open contempt for those not absorbed in private theorizing is a satire against people who value knowledge above all else.
Swift insists that there is a realm of understanding into which humans are simply not supposed to venture. The Brabdingnagian king was knows shocking little about the abstractions of political science yet his country seems prosperous and well governed similarly the Houyhnhnms knows little about arcane subject like astronomy though they know how long a month is by observing .
Truth and Deception:
Truth and Deception are most prominent themes in this novel. For one thing, the reader is constantly questioning whether or not Gulliver is a reliable narrator. Simply because what he is conveying is so fantastic.
Lying does appear with his journey in Lilliput. He learns that for the Lilliputians lying is a capital punishment and is considered worse than stealing in country of the Houyhnhnms Gulliver is surprised to learn that Houyhnhnms have no concept of what it means lie.
Motif of Gulliver Travels:
Excrement:
While it seems a trivial or laughable motif the recurrent mention of excrement in Gulliver’s Travels actually has a serious philosophical significance in the narrative. It symbolizes everything that is crass and ignoble about the human body and about existence in general and it obstructs any attempt to view humans as wholly spiritual or mentally transcendent creatures. Since the enlightenment culture of eighteen century England tended to view humans optimistically as noble souls rather than vulgar bodies Swift’s emphasis on the common filth of life is a slap in the face of the philosopher of his day. Swift suggest that the human condition in general is dirtier and lowlier than we might like to believe it is.
Foreign Languages:
Gulliver appears to be a gifted linguist knowing at least the basics of several European languages and even a fair amount of ancient Greek. This knowledge serves him well, as he is able to disguise himself as a Dutchman in order to facilitate his entry into Japan which at the time only admitted the Dutch. But even more important, his linguistic gifts allow him to learn the languages of the exotic lands he visits with a dazzling speed and thus gain access to their culture quickly. He learns the languages of the Lilliputians, the Brobdingnagians, and even the neighing tongue of the Houyhnhnms.
Clothing:
Critics have noted the extraordinary attention that the Gulliver pays to clothes throughout his journey. Every time he rip in his shirt or is forced to adopt some native garments to replace one of his own , he recounts the clothing details with great precision. We are told how his pants are falling apart in Lilliput, so that land are as the army marches between his legs they get quite an eyeful .We sense that Gulliver may well never fully reintegrate into European society. But the motif clothing carries a deeper more psychologically complex meaning as well. The state of nudity may remind Gulliver of how nonexistent he feels without the reassuring cover of clothing.
The Symbols of the novel:
Lilliputians-
The Lilliputians symbolizes wildly excessive pride in its own puny existence. Gulliver is a naïve consumer of the Lilliputians grandiose imaginings: He is by the attention of their royal family and cowed by their threats of punishment forgetting that have no real physical power over him. Their formally worded condemnation of Gulliver on grounds of treason is a model of pompous and self important verbiage but works quite effectively on the naïve Gulliver .In all, the Lilliputians symbolize misplaced human pride and point out Gulliver’s inability to diagnose it correctly.
Brobdingnagians-
The Brobdingnagians symbolize the private and physical side of humans when examined up close and in great detail. Gulliver is forced to pay attention to such things. He is forced take the domestic sphere seriously as well. In Brobdingnag he is treated as a doll or a plaything, and thus is made privy to the urination of housemaids and the sexual lives of women. It symbolizes a dimension of human existence visible at close range under close scrutiny.
Laputans-
The Laputans represent the folly of theoretical knowledge that has no relation to human life and no use in the actual world. Laputa symbolizes the absurdity of knowledge that had been tested or applied the ludicrous side of enlightenment intellectualism .Even up above the pursuit of theoretical understanding has not improved the lot of the Laputans. It do not symbolize reasons itself but rather than pursuit of a form of knowledge that related to the improvement of human life.
Houyhnhnms-
The Houyhnhnms represent an ideal existence, a life governed by sense and moderation of which philosophers since Plato have long dreamed. As in Plato’s ideal community the Houyhnhnms have neither need to lie nor any word for lying. They do not use force but only strong exhortation.The Houyhnhnms seem like model citizens, and Gulliver’s intense grief when he is forced to leave them suggests that they have made an impact on him greater than that of any other society he has visited.
England-
England is passed over very quickly in the first paragraph behind. Gulliver seems to have very few nationalistic or patriotic feelings about England, and he rarely mentioned his homeland on his travels. The end of the fourth journey England is brought more explicitly into the fabric of Gulliver Travels When Gulliver in his neurotic state starts confusing Houyhnhnms land with his homeland referring to Englishmen as Yahoos. The possibility thus arises that all the races Gulliver encounters could be version of the English and that his travels merely allow him to see various aspects of human nature more clearly.
well structured :)
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