"Gulliver's Travels"

Book Review # 100849

English > Analysis
Literature > English

This paper analyzes Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels" as the work of an Irish writer.

2,287 words () | 3 sources | 2005 France

Paper Summary:

The paper demonstrates how Swift's Irish identity is shown through his novel "Gulliver's Travels". The paper highlights how Swift denounces the English for enslaving the Irish, clearly making himself the spokesman of the Irish nation against Britain, a tyrannical enemy. The paper then looks at all the hints to Ireland and to its inhabitants that can be found throughout the book.

From the Paper:

"Swift, as an Irishman exiled in England and then compelled to come back to his country, experienced the difference of treatment of the Irish compared to the English. As he himself exclaimed in this rhetorical question "Am I a Free-man in England and I do become a Slave in six hours by crossing the Channel?" , we can imagine the straits endured by the Irish at that time. First unconcerned by it, feeling himself more English than Irish, on his coming back from England, Swift started nonetheless to warm for the Irish causes. He reacted in particular to the tangible effects of English commercial injustices. For instance, he considered the laws that prevented the Irish from conducting their own political and economic affairs as intolerable."

Sample of Sources Used:

C. Fabricant, " History, Narrativity and Swift's Project to 'Mend the World' " in J. Swift, Gulliver's Travels, 1995, London: Macmillan Press Ltd. p.157.
C. Fabricant, Swift's Landscape, 1982, Baltimore and London: John Hopkins University Press. p. 47-48.
J. McMinn, Jonathan's Travels, 1994, Belfast : Appletree Press. p. 87.