HISTORY UNIT PLAN

gulliver's travels

Jonathan Swift

“Gulliver describes a royal personage inspiring awe among the tiny Lilliputians because he was taller than his brethren by the breadth of a human fingernail.”

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historical context

The literature of the 18th century reflected the economic and intellectual progress of the period and a growing popular interest in reading. Writing became a profession ruled by economic criteria, and the value of an author depended on the number of pages he or she wrote. More printed items were produced, and literacy increased.

The narration was in the first or third person. The setting was given great attention with specific references to particular times of the year or of the day, and to the names of countries, streets and towns. All the characters were given contemporary names and surnames to reinforce the impression of realism. The hero of the novel was always the middle-class man with his problems: struggling either for survival or social success. The hero often represented the author and the reader was expected to sympathise with him. The language adopted was simple and factual. People preferred prose to verse and drama. They liked stories about pirates and thieves, accounts of crime, political pamphlets and newspapers, and novels about journeys to distant countries. By definition, a novel is a long prose narrative about largely fictional, if usually realistic, characters and plausible events. The 18th century novelist was the spokesman for the middle class. The writer's primary aim was to write in a simple way in order to be understood even by less well-educated readers. The novel, which was primarily concerned with everything that could alter social status, was particularly appealing to the practical-minded tradesman, who was self-made and self-reliant.

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Swift's life

Jonathan Swift was born in Dublin, from English parents. In 1688 his family returned in England and he became secretary to Sir William Temple, a Whig statesman, who encouraged him to write his first satirical works. In 1694 Swift returned to Ireland, where he was ordained an anglican minister. In 1713 he was appointed dean of St Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin. He was in opposition to the Whig government in London, defending Ireland and the Church, but also the poor, in fact during that period he began to write pamphlets denouncing the injustices suffered by Ireland: the Drapier's Letters (1724-1725), wrote under an assumed name, M.B. Drapier, attacking the government's proposal for a new coinage which would increase poverty in Ireland. In 1726 he published Gulliver's Travels. In 1729 A Modest Proposal appeared in which, with irony and bitterness, Swift suggested that the poverty of the Irish people should be relieved by the sale of their children as food for the rich. He died in 1745 and was buried in St Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin.

STYLE AND CONTROVERSIES

Some describe Swift as a misanthrope and a monster, others as a lover of mankind, but what we know for sure is that Swift did not share the enthusiasm and optimism of his age and the pride of England. He describes man as 'an animal capable of reason', an instrument that had to be used properly, not too intensively or it would be an error of judgement

About his style, Swift is known for his satire, used in many of his works and he's committed in creating awerness, using irony to make the reader recognise unexpected meanings and reform the morals of man and society

Gulliver's Travels consists of four parts, each narrating the adventures of Lemuel Gulliver, the ship surgeon, with illustrations of the maps of the places he visited.

II part

I part

4 May 1699 Gulliver sets sail from Bristol and after six months of travelling, his ship wrecks in Lilliput. The inhabitants of the land, six-inch-tall Lilliputians, carry Gulliver to the capital and house him in a temple.Gulliver gradually learns their language and customs, and gains the favour of the king. After many amusing experiences, he manages to return to England.

20 June 1702 Gulliver sets sail for India but finds himself in Brobdingnag. Here the native people are giants twelve times as tall as Gulliver. His size causes him to have many misadventures: he must escape from rats as big as lions and wasps as big as birds. Taken in by a farmer, he is later sold to the queen and finally becomes the king's pet. The king enjoys talking to him about the system of government in England and Europe. One day, Gulliver's cage is lifted up by a huge bird and dropped in the ocean. He is rescued and returns to England.

III part

IV part

Gulliver's last adventure is in the Land of the Houyhnhnms, an island inhabited by horses endowed with reason. They rule over the Yahoos, animals resembling human beings. Gulliver admires the superiority of the Houyhnhms and is ashamed of his similarity to the Yahoos. When the horses banish him, he builds a canoe and leaves for England. Once back in civilisation, he joins his wife and children but cannot stand their smell of humanity. He goes to live in the stable among the animals because they remind him of the noble Houyhnhms.

Gulliver's ship is attacked by pirates and they set him adrift on a small boat. He arrives on the flying island of Laputa, where the inhabitants are astronomers, philosophers and scientists. Gulliver visits their capital, Lagado, and its academy, where absurd experiments are made. The unhappiest of the people he meets are those who were born immortal, since immortality does not imply being young forever. The island drops Gulliver on Japan and he manages to go back to England.

INTERPRETATION

One of the main ingredients of satire is distortion or exaggeration. the fact that Swift describes three different immaginary worlds opens up a lot of satirical possibilities, because it enables the writer to play off three different perspectives on human conduct. Within this altered perspective, Gulliver's reactions to the changing circumstances highlight Swift's satirical targets in a humorous way.

Gulliver's transformation

during his adventures Gulliver developes a critical awerness towars european values, and it becomes deeper with each travel

style Gulliver is an invented, satirical character, he somehow always find himself displaced. The text is wrote in first person, in prose style and in matter-of-fact

The novel can be read on different levels: 1) a tale for children; 2) a political allegory of Swift's time; 3) a parody of voyage literature; 4) a masterpiece of misanthropy. The most common interpretation in the 18th and 19th century was that Swift was simply a conservative pessimist who wanted to ridicule the Europeans pretensions to rationality. A second interpretation claimed that he was mentally unbalanced and therefore the reader did not need to consider the ending of the book seriously. So Gulliver's actions don't have to be seen as the rational result of his experiences, because Gulliver himself finally becomes the target of the author's satire.

Original illustrations

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