Purpose of writing Gulliver’s Travels Or Idea behind the “Gulliver’s Travels

  Purpose of writing Gulliver’s Travels

                                    Or

     Idea behind the “Gulliver’s Travels

Undoubtedly, “Gulliver’s Travels” is the most favourite

work of Jonathon Swift. In it he has

mixed the ideas of adventure, fantasy, wonder and shock to capture the reader’s attention.

But

like all the mature works the aspect of entertainment is not neglected. Hence, the “Gulliver’sTravels” is not ‘entertainment for the sake of entertainment’. Reading the book but ignoring the

purpose behind it, would be a great injustice to this great satirical work of its age. In order to

comprehend the idea behind “Gulliver’s Travels” one needs to look into the background be

hind

this adventurous tale. “The Martinis is Sariblerus Club” made of such notables as Pope, Arbuthnot

and Gay proposed to satirize the follies and vices of learned, political, scientific and modern men.Each of the members was given a topic and Swift was to satirize the numerous and popular booksdescribing voyage to faraway lands. Swift kept the form of the voyage book but expanded histarget thus achieving a feat which has rarely been achieved in literature.

Mainly, “Gulliver’s Travels” is known for its

unforgiving satire. But as every satirist is idealist

at heart thus the purpose of satire in it is not to degrade but to ‘shame men out of their follies’.

One of the main purposes in writing this book was to finish the pride of man. There is a strongattack on politics, religion and flaws of human nature. His purpose seems to be an effort to stir hisreaders to view themselves as he viewed human beings. He saw men as creatures that were notfulfilling their obligations to be truly great. They were just trying to show themselves great. Wemust acknowledge that Swift succeeds in his purpose remarkably well.The metaphors used by Swift enhance the appeal of his work. Firstly, he took great pains tocreate the atmosphere of genuine travelogue. We are told that Gulliver was a seaman. First he isseen as a ships surgeon and then caption ships. All this provides a sense of realism. The four books

of the “Gulliver’s Travels” are also presented on parallel way. The voyages I and II focus on

criticism of various aspects of English society, while last two voyages are more preoccupied withhuman nature itself. Over all it leads to self-realization.

The metaphors used in each voyage serve Swift’s purpose quite well. The small size of 

Lilliputians is to satirize the self-imposed grandeur, rank, politics, and international wars. Wherethe Lilliputians highlight the pettiness of human pride and pretensions, the relative size of Brobdingnagians highlights the rough behavior of human. In the boyage to Laputa, Swift points outthat an excess of speculative reasoning can be negative as it takes us away from practical realitiesof life. Finally, the Houyhnhnms as the representative of perfect reasoning devoid of passions

serve dual role for Swift’s purpose. The domestic animals sh

owing more humanity than humansthrows light on the defects of human nature in the form of Yahoos. However, Swift does not wishus to be like Houyhnhnms, nor are they like ideal of human nature. He uses them to show thathow reason not with love, compassion and sympathy is inadequate to deal with many aspects of human nature.Swift also achieved the purpose of exposing social behavior, pretension, futility of 

institutions and the court intrigues. Ewald rightly says: “As a satire, the main purpose of “Gulliver’sTravels” is to show certain shortcomings in 18^th century English society”. In

the first voyage,changing nature of court favours, the rope dancing and the stick climbing illustrate this point. Thereferences about high heels and low heels and then quarrel between Big-Endians and Small-Endians highlight political and religious conditions of that age in England. In the voyage toBrobdingnage, Swift masterfully uses Gulliver as a naïve spokesman of European Civilization.However, the way the kin ridicules

him and makes fun of him clear indication of writer’s command

in using irony for his purpose. But, Swift does not preach an ideal world in the form of Brobdingnage.In the third voyage, the pseudo-intellectualism and love for eternal life are mocked by Swift.In the book four, rational Houyhnhnms are contrasted to the brutal Yahoos. Gulliver idealizesHouyhnhnms. No doubt, they have pure reason but they are not human. Of course they remainideal for humans until Swift exposes them as dull, unfeeling creatures, thoroughly inhuman andbloodless.

To conclude, we may say that “Gulliver’s Travels” is vastly considered as a tragic and

pessimistic work of Swift. But when one reaches the philosophy of the writer, the view is totallyreversed. What actually was Sw

ift’s philosophy

and purpose behind this book is crystal clear in the

concluding parts of this book. In fact, Swift created the whole of “Gulliver’s Travels” in order to

give the reader a new moral lens. In short, the book is full of such deep human philosophy whoseunderstanding can enhance our knowledge of the world and man.