Gulliver’s Travel's  as satirical Explorer of fictions and Illusion-

                   

                    Jonathan swift was born in Dublin in 1667.Through his parents  were of English origin,swift loved the land of his birth and fought for the Irish cause with great loyalty.England had invaded Ireland and conquered it.It had been taken away from the Irish and Irish economy was at the mercy of the English aristocracy who encored themselves and left their Irish  tenants in a state of affairs that prompted swift to write a fierce satire on the English landlord in a modest proposal. In this pamphlet he recoments with ironic seriousness,that every Irish woman should produce children for the English man’s table .Irony is a literary device by which an author uses words or expressions which mean more or less the exact opposite of what he intends to convey.Swift exposed the pathetic state of the Irish peasants whose only solution to poverty would be able to sell their children as delicacies for the English noble man’s table.swift wrote a witty allegory on the religious controversies of the time entitled A Tale Of Tub.It is a celebrated satire on the corruptions in religion conveyed through a simple story of three brothers Peter,Martin and Jack who allegorically represent the Catholics,Anglicans and non-conformists or Calvinistic respectively.

                                   Swift’s greatest literary work is “Gulliver’sTravels” published in 1726. Although swift professed to hate the species called ‘man’,he loved individuals.”Gulliver’sTravels”is satire on human nature.

“GULLIVER’S TRAVELS” BY JONATHAN SWIFT IS UNIVERSAL BOOK.

              Along with sharp  political satire,it touches such important-mes themes as morality,religion ,politics,human nature and quest for sense of life “Gulliver’s travels” did not lose its relevance now days because it is not only a sharp political satire of the English government of the 18^th century,but also it refers to every political system who practices injustice ways to choose leaders and ministers. “ Gulliver travels is considered a universal text due to his universal themes and issues which discussed in the book. This book is about human nature in general it is not restricted to one country or to particular group of people. We can found Lilliput in our daily live not in the size,but in the ideas they are representing.Moreover readers can identify easily with those strange people Gulliver met for example,the Houyhnhnm represent many of hypocrites people or governments who claimed that they are perfect and has no vice in their society because they don’t know it is name but they practice this vice.Gulliver  travels is a universal text as it talk directly to the reader and the more he go deep he found new meaning for this text,asking for the nature of the human being like what we watched in class when he says who I am?and this is a major concern of the humanity which asserts that Gulliver’s Travels is a universal book.In addition Swift is the one who concerns about the idea of life and death and the concept of survival in human’s mind.

The satire of Gulliver’s Travels

                  During the 18^th century there was an incredible upheaval of commercialization in  London England.As  a result, English society underwent significant, “change in attitude and thought”,in an attempt to obtain the dignity and spender of  royalty and the upper class. As a result English society held them selves in very high regards,feeling that they were the elite society of mankind.in this novel,Gulliver’s travels,Jonathan swift satirize this  English society in many ways .in the novel,swift uses metaphors to reveal his disapproval of  English society. Through graphic representations of the body and it’s functions, swift reveals to the reader that grandeur is merely an illusion a facade behind  which English society of his time attempted to hide from reality.

       VOYAGE-1  LILLIPUT:-

On his first voyage,swift places Gulliver in a land of miniature people where his giant size is meant as a metaphor for his superiority over the Lilliputians,thus representing English society’s belief in superiority over all others.we saw that Gulliver play with the small and tiny lilliputian .some times he took  the Lilliputians in his hand.he protect them and play with them. Like this way he is the owner and others are means lilliputian are his slave. He has a power. Because he was giant than the lilliputian.

          VOYAGE:-2 BROBDINGNAG:-

                              In this Brobdingnag the situation is reversed.Gulliver is now marooned and  dwarfed in the land of giants who are over forty feet  tall. He now becomes the midget he had laughed at in Lilliput  Observed through the microscopic eyes of Gulliver,the Brobdingnagian are hideous in size and stature,and Gulliver realizes that he must have been just as hideous to the little people in  Lilliput. Here swift satirizes the physical grossness of the human and the grotesque ugliness of the human body.

                                The malignancy of the human as a political animal and the accompanying 

                   Propensity for destruction are podiatry in the person of Gulliver. He is little more

                   Than an insect in Brobdingnag and at his best , an amusing  toy. His glorious account

                   Of  the English Political system and England’s preparations for war horrify the benevolent  concludes that the English must be “The most pernicious race of little  odious  vermin that Nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth”.

                                Gulliver ends up in a miniature box which is picked up by a giant eagle and dropped into the ocean.              

                   “THE WANT OF WHICH KNOWLEDGE WILL EVER PRODUCE MANY PREJUDICES AND A CERTAIN NARROWNESS OF THINKING FROM WHICH WE AND THE POLITER. COUNTRIES OF EUROPE ARE WHOLLY EXEMPTED”

v          VOYAGE 3 LAPUTA.

                A Voyage to LAPUTA  Brobdingnag , Luggna ,Glubbudubdrib and Japan is a satire on the scientists and philosophers of the age. The people of LAPUTA have extra ordinary physical features, heads turned at an angle, one eye turned up ward and the other inward. The Laputans , we are told, are so taken up with lintense speculation about theatrical mathematics that they constantly worry about abstract issues such as the sun burning out or a comet colliding with the earth.But they are totally inpet when it comes to practical things like constructing starlight walls  for their houses.Though the people of LAPUTA Swift ridicules the experiment  of the Royal Society and allied institutions of the time .His descriptions of the projects at the academy of Lagado are brilliantly comic and emphasize their impractical nature. For experimented with building,houses,starting at the roof and working down to the foundations .Glubbdubdrib is the island of sorcerers and magieians where it is possible to summon people who  are dead to make an appearance.Gulliver amuses himself by summoning Homer and Aristotle and comparing them and others .In Luggnag ,Gulliver en counts the strange phenomenon of the struldbruggs,immortal beings with decay in their bones and “deformities in extreme old age”(231) attending them.The experiments of LAPUTA,Blanibarbi and Luggnagg do not  yield  any thing their result.only in mysery,he decay ann death.The frighting, emptiness and sterility in of a purely scientific society is evident from this book.After a brief journey to Japan,Gulliver returns to England before setting out on his final voyage.

v          Voyage:-4 Country of the Houyhnhnm s:-

v                                 A voyage-to the country of the Houyhnhnm narrates the experiences of Gulliver in the land of the Houyhnhnm or horses,and the land of the Houyhnhnm or horses are creatures governed solely by reason,free from any emotion  or passions,while the yahoos who physically resemble human beings are ruled purely by “animal” instincts.The human is placed between the two extremes of rationality and animality observed.From the Houyhnhnm view point,Gulliver or man whom the 18^th century had defined as an animal whose most striking feature was the ability to reason is primarily a yahoo,with only glimmer of reason Gulliver is repulsed at being identified with the  yahhosin the land of the Houyhnhnm. In his conversation with the master-horse(whose language Gulliver has learnt) he explains the customs practiced in England ,including the wearing of clothes by humans (who resemble the yahoos).the government of the people,the legal system,and the uses of money as instruments of purchase.Many of the concepts can not be translated into the the Houyhnhnm language their vocabulary and range of experience were limited.The horses with their total lack of feeling and emotion are seen as being far from ideal.They are as dull and insipid as the yahoos with their animal sensuality are revolting .Swift  seems to indicate to us that the nature of the human is complex  and defies definition unlike that of the yahoos and the Houyhnhnm. The book for all its harsh satire and anger,instructs humans to see themselves  with  humility and honesty ;it condemns pride ,ego and oyopic selfesteem.It urges every person to use reason to be a good christian

v                                 Satire of Human nature:-

                                    Satire is a literary genre in which  human vices,weakness ,foibles and follies are held up to ridicule.Wit and humor are commonly used as instruments of satire.satirical writings were popular  in England in the 18^th centuary.some of the well-known satires of the period include Pope’s The Rape of the lock,Mandeville’s fable of the Bess and Swift’s A modest proposal and Battle of the books which range from gentle to biting satire.Reason and virtue were concepts central to the 18^th century philosophical discourse.While writers like shaftesbury saw the human’s as “naturally” benevolent and endowed with virtue ,others like Swift perceived a disconnect between moral standards set by society and actual ways of living.In Gulliver’s travels Swift uses satire as a vehicle to point the depraved state of human kind .Some critics have observed that Swift is a misanthrope because he paints human nature as a whole in a sordid and redeeming features to humanity.others see Swift’s work as an attempt to joint the human race out of its complacency and turn them towards the direction of selfrealisation and redemption.Swift seems to be holding up a mirror to society so that in viewing the gross magnification of its vices,humanity has a hope for the future.Describing Swift’s satirical technique Basil Wiley comments “His effort is always to strip the object satirized of the film of familiarity which normally reconciles us to it,and to make us see it as in itself really is,as the child saw the unclothed emperor in Hans Andersen’s story.

                                    The voyages to Lilliput and Brobdingnag focus on the flaws in human society,with particular reference to English society.In Lilliput,humans are seen as diminutive creatures,crawling about without dignity or grandear. Their efforts and institutions are devoid of significance and they seem to wallow in empty pride.The situation is reserved in the next part where humans are observed as physically coarse,vulgurvand gross in Brobdingnag.Gulliver grand presentation of the nature of English political and judicalinstitutions is met with a caustic remark from the king on the pernicious nature of the human being which reflects Swift’s own stance regarding the hollow andcontemptlble nature of  British legal and political systems.The king is only Swift’s own vehicle of truth.

                                    The satire on human nature becomes more pointed and sustained in the third and fourth voyages.The Laputans are criticized for their preoccupation with speculative reasoning and theoretical abstractions that the sun may burn up one day ,that the earth may collide with a comet and lead to total annihilation. They are not concerned with the practical aspects of everyday living.The projects undertaken by the member of the Grand Academy of Lagado lend themselves to sharp humor and satire .The experiment range from extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers to separating human excrement and reducing it to its original poor and building houses starting at the roof and working down to the foundations.Reason devoid of common sense is satirized in this section .The ludicrous nature of experimentation for the sake of experimentation and having no basis in reality is highlighted here.

v      In the land of the Houyhnhnm s ,the role of humans and animals are reserved .The horses represent reason in all its perfection but they have no individual identity.They appear to be the ideal human in the stoicism they maintain but have no human qualities such as compassion or love.They are an reachable ideal.on the other hand the yahoos who resemble humans are despicable ,sensual and bestial Gulliver’s voyages conclude with humors satire  as Gulliver is so taken up with the  “Noble Houyhnhnm and is so impressed with their culture  and their attitudes that he even imitates their gain and manner,trotting and neighing like a horse.Satire in Gulliver’s Travels also extends to human institutions ,to politics  and the state.This will be examined in the section on Gulliver’s travels as a political allegory.

v      FICTION  AND ILLUSIONS:-

                                     In this novel Swift create a longer fiction.It is  a fictions and illusions because the four voyages of the novel Gulliver’s travels are not real.The voyage of Lilliput in this voyage we saw the tiny people they are so much tiny than Gulliver ,we saw that how they take Gulliver in the court ,and the way they live is different and they arrange food for Gulliver and all the things .The world of tiny people ewe can not saw in this real world .We can not believe that thera is a world like this.so it is the fictions we can not saw the world like this but quite good.In the  second voyage of the Brobdingnag .The world  of giant the people of that world are the forty en chis and they are so much bigger than the Gulliver.In this voyage the situation is totally reverse.In this voyage Gulliver is became tiny people .In this voyage Gulliver treat like a pet and a girl keep him like her pet and once she sold Gulliver in a market,he do many tricks in front of the queen.so here Gulliver feels the powerless person because in Lilliput he has power but in this world he is tiny.In this voyage we saw the very giant men and also this type of giant world we can not saw in reality.

                                    

                                     The voyage of LAPUTA the floating Island.The Island was floating in the air,and people was lived in that  island.In the real life this type of island we can not see .We can’t  see the Island which is floating in the sky.so we can see that there is no reality in this voyage,it is fictional and imagery world.The voyage of Houyhnhnm s the master are horses and the yahoos who looking like a man are slaves and this is also a fiction and illusion because in real life we can not saw the world in which animal are master who rule over the yahoos or man.It is the world which can not be seen in real.No animal can ruled over the man.So,we saw all the voyage in this novel is not real,because we see this type of world can not be possible in this world.There can not be world like this.

v                                                              CONCLUSION:-

                                       Swift represent the society and political situation of 18^th century in this time England,suffer from superiority complex  and here he represent  the society of the England in 18^th century he sarized on the society of England and also satire on the human nature.Swift create a beautiful fictional world and by a character  of a Gulliver he has successfully represent the society of England in 18^th  century