Gulliver's Travels (1726, a mended 1735)

a novel by Irish writer and clergyman Jonathan Swift is both a satire on human nature and a parody of the traveller tales" literary sub-genre.

Cave hill in Belfast is thought to be the inspiration for the novel. Swift imagined that the mountain resembled the shape of a sleeping giant safeguarding the city.

Born30 November 1667Dublin, Ireland

Died19 October 1745 (aged 77)Dublin, Ireland Pen name M. B. Drapier

Lemuel Gulliver Isaac Bickerstaff Occupation Satirist essayist political pamphleteer poet priest Language English Nationality Irish Alma mater Trinity College, Dublin Notable

work(s)Gulliver's Travels A Modest Proposal A Tale of a Tub Drapier's Letters

Narrator and Symbolism Gulliver is the narrator, and it is told in first person.

Symbol 1: The Yahoos symbolize humans for what we truly are.

Symbol 2: The way the storm takes him down when he is traveling symbolizes the hardships of life.

Symbol 3: The Liliputian’s represents the small mindedness of human kind and how trivial we are.

Genre: Gulliver’s Travels is an obvious satire piece.Setting: The setting of Gulliver’s Travels is mainly in England, but also in the fictious countries of Liliput, Brobdingnag, Blefuscu, Laputa, and the country of the Houyhnhnms. in the past, during the 18thCentury.

Mood: The mood is adventurous, emotionally affecting, and also I think ignorant at the same time.

1. The limits of human knowledge

2. No form of Government is ideal

3. Power may be great, but using it for what’s right is what is truly great.

The narrator and protagonist of the story.

He is intelligent and well educated, his perceptions are naïve and gullible.

He has virtually no emotional life, or at least no awareness of it, and his comments are strictly factual.

Gulliver’s wife

whose perfunctory mention in the first paragraphs of Gulliver’s Travels demonstrates how unsentimental and unemotional Gulliver is.

Other CharactersTHE EMPEROR - The ruler of Lilliput. Like all Lilliputians,

His power and majesty impress Gulliver deeply, but to us he appears both laughable and sinister.

THE FARMER-Gulliver’s first master in Brobdingnag.

GLUMDALCLICTCH-farmer’s nine-year-old daughter, who is forty feet tall.

THE QUEEN- The queen of Brobdingnag, who is so delighted by Gulliver’s beauty and charms that she agrees to buy him from the farmer for 1,000 pieces of gold.

THE KING- The king of Brobdingnag, who, in contrast to the emperor of Lilliput.

LORD MUNODI- lord of Lagado, capital of the underdeveloped land beneath Laputa , who hosts Gulliver and gives him a tour of the country on Gulliver’s third voyage.

YAHOOS- Unkempt humanlike beasts who live in servitude to the Houyhnhnm.

HOYHNHMS- Rational horses who maintain a simple.

GULLIVER’S HOUYHNHNM MASTER- who first discovers Gulliver and takes him into his own home.

DONPEDRO de MENDEZ- The Portuguese captain who takes Gulliver back to Europe after he is forced to leave the land of the Houyhnhnm.

BROBDINGNAGIANS- - Giants whom Gulliver meets on his second voyage.

LILLIPUTIANS & BLEFUSCUDIANS- Two races of miniature people whom Gulliver meets on his first voyage.

LAPUTANS- Absentminded intellectuals who live on the floating island of Laputa.

RICHARD SYMPSON- Gulliver’s cousin, self-proclaimed intimate friend.

JAMEE BATES- An eminent London surgeon under whom Gulliver serves as an apprentice after graduating from Cambridge.

ABRAHAM PANNELL- The commander of the ship on which Gulliver first sails, the Swallow.

WILLIAM PRICHARD- The master of the Antelope.

FLIMNAP- The Lord High Treasurer of Lilliput.

RELDRESAL- The Principal Secretary of Private Affairs in Lilliput.

SKYRESH ROLGOLAM- The High Admiral of Lilliput.

TRAMECKSAN - Also known as the High-Heels.

SLAMECKSAN- The Low-Heels.

Expository: Gulliver becomes a surgeon on a ship called swallow. His business begins to fail.

Rising Action: Gulliver begins to encounter different places.

Climax: Gulliver really starts to reject human society because of all of his travels. He calls the Brobdingnagian king ignorant because he refuses Gulliver’s offer to teach him how to make gunpowder.

Falling Action: After Gulliver encounters the horses during his voyage to Houyhnhnm, he returns to England with a less than excited attitude, and buys horses of his own that remind him of Houyhnhnm.

Resolution: Gulliver’s epiphany is that human society is all gross. He becomes a hermit and tries to find his own secluded land when the Houyhnhnm’s reject his return. When he gets home to England, Gulliver cannot even stand to be in the same room as his wife and children.

Gulliver washes onto the shore of Liliput during his first voyage. The Liliputians are tiny, ignorant, and petty. This is Gulliver’s first encounter with the insignificance of human society and it is when he first begins to despise it. This conflict is external

because of his first encounter with Liliput, but internal because

of the slow but sure spiralof misanthropy he gets into.

The overall meaning of the story is what human society is like, and how no matter high and mighty we claim to be, there is no such thing as a perfect anything.

ALL throughout history there is conflict of culture and conflict of individuals. During my life, I have experienced both, just as everyone has. I do not believe that a person can live without conflict because conflict is the basis of human nature.