M. K. Bhavnagar University Department of English

Name: VYAS NUPUR HITESHBHAI.Roll No:43Year: 2015-2016Subject: The Neo-classical LiteratureTopic: The Themes of Gulliver TravelsEmail id: nupurvyas1995@gmail.com

Important Themes in Gulliver Travels• The Theme of Travel and Discovery• As a Satire of Human Nature• As Utopian and Dystopian Fiction• As Political Allegory

The theme of Travel and Discovery

Travel and Discovery

• It is Travelogue.• It is fictional travelogue contain factual elements related to

travel by sea.• The four parts linked by the theme of travel and discovery.• Each of islands Gulliver arrives at offers varying and diverse

experiences for traveller.• The entire novel is the framework of travelogue documenting

the new,bizzarre,and occasionally life-threatening experiences that befall Gulliver.

• Travel and discovery offers opportunity's to present Gulliver in varied situations where the pride depravity commonly associated with human race.

• The travelogue takes the reader on a journey of discovering places and observing the customs and manners of the people through the eyes of the writer-narrator.

Theme All the four parts belongs to the

realms of fantasy and figments of swifts imagination.

Swift attempt is to make each of the voyages as full of fantasy as possible.

The reference to the new lands and new discoveries echo the growing interest in the study of science in the eighteenth century which was also the age of enlightment or the of Skepticism.

As a Satire of Human Nature

o Satire is Literary genre in which human vices, weaknesses, and follies are held up to ridicule.

o In Gulliver’s travels , Swift uses satire as vehicle to point to the depraved state of Human kind.

o Swift work as an attempt to shock the human race out of its complacency and turned them towards the direction of self-realization and redepmtion.

Satire of Human Nature

The voyages to Liliput and Brobdingnag focus on the flaws in human society , with particular reference to English Society.

The situation is reversed in next part where humans are observed as physically coarse , vulgar and gross in Brobdingnag.

Reason devoid of comman sense is satirised in the third and fourth voyages.

As Utopian/Dystopian Fiction

The term Utopia means an ideal world or an ideal society.

Dystopia means an unpleasant, nightmarish world.

The land of the Houyhnhnms seems almost utopian but here Swift exposes a world where Reason prevails in its perfection but is devoid of personal identity.

The Laputan community in part-3 is a Dystopia which relies on its island-subjects living below it for sustenance.

As a Political Allegory An is a literary genre means its

meaning could be read on two levels – a primary level and literary level.

Swift uses to highlight the allegorical elements in his tale and thus the allegory functions as an excellent vehicle of criticism of English government and its activities.

Political Allegory• There are several allegorical references to life in the

Royal courts of George-1 in the first section of the novel.

• The flippancy and hollowness of court life are satirized through the Lilliputian ministers and antics.

• The conflict between Roman Catholic and the Anglican churches presented as Big Endians and the Little Endians.

• Patens of War and destruction are woven into the allegorical motif.