Jonathan Swifts' "Gulliver's Travels"

Paper Summary:

This paper analyzes Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels" as the author's manifesto to the truth of human character. Specifically, the paper explains that the fantastical isles, to which Gulliver travels in Jonathan Swifts' "Gulliver's Travels", serve as the framework for satirizing civilized society. The paper points out that, thematically, the four voyages Gulliver experiences are consistent in their structure as mirrors for the English idea of enlightened civilization. Swift uses each society to highlight Gulliver's pride in his character and the flaws found in his own society. The paper relates that, whereas the Lilliputians and Brobdingnags may have been too simple for Gulliver's taste, the Laputians are too convoluted and steeped in muddled, music-based theologies and scientific reasoning. The true dystopia of Gulliver's Travels is the ridiculousness and pettiness of the Laputian government.

From the Paper:

"Through the Laputians' fumbling of practical practices such as geometry, in exchange for loftier, more obscure notions of problem-solving, Swift is proposing that this floating isle, a would-be utopia, is more in the tradition of Sir Thomas More's "Utopia", less so in replication of Plato's "Republic". Swift, by using excessive scientific jargon involving such devices as "lodestones", has presented a society that's excessive rationalism and reliance upon incomprehensible theories critiques England's own fervor over the Enlightenment."

More papers on Jonathan Swifts' "Gulliver's Travels":

• Book Review # 117773 : "Gullivers Travels"
• Analytical Essay # 30906 : "Jonathan Swift: An English Satirist."
• Book Review # 71210 : "Jonathan Swift's Satire"

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