Tag: Jonathan Swift

Culture and difference

Readings for Wednesday and Friday allowed me to think about Swift’s ideas on cultural difference that was prevalent in Gulliver’s encounter.

First, I was surprised to see Gulliver’s respect shown to the Liliputians, considering Europeans acknowledgment of their superiority over group of people who weren’t Protestant or who wasn’t European during this time period. However, Gulliver’s astonishment of Liliputians’ rather civilized society, compared to their littleness, can be a haughty remark about the different culture that he first encounters because it meant that he didn’t expect them to be a sophisticated society. Then, part 2 of the book describes Gulliver’s encounter with Brobdingnag. He feared their monstrous figure at first because of a presumption that large meant harmful. Swift reverses the notion by portraying their kindness, especially with Glumdalclitch’s lavish care and generosity towards Gulliver. I could see that Swift was open-minded and were rational like how Gulliver constantly referred himself as of rational creature because he accepts his prejudices and doesn’t show hostility towards Liliputians or the people of Brobdingnag but respects the differences.

The depiction of farmer’s enslavement of Gulliver as an entertainer to their fellow people reminded me of whites making comedy out of blacks. This certainly shows Swift’s understanding of the power exploiting the weak, vulnerable people. Gulliver’s constant mentioning about the similarities of his appearance to the Liliputians and the Brobdingnagians to him portrays the arrogance in superiority that humans don’t acknowledge. Obviously, Swift hated human’s irrational actions.

Lastly, Swift used the term ‘race’ or Chinese to describe the Brobdingagians’ actions. Surprisingly, Count de Buffon, a French naturalist, first used the term ‘race’ in the book Histoire Naturelle, published in 1749, to suggest innate differences among groups of people. The term might not be used in the same concept to rationalize hierarchy, but considering that Gulliver’s Travel was published in 1726, Swift was ahead of his time. Additionally, Swift was fully aware of the attires of Chinese as he described Brobdingagians’ attires.

It seemed to me that Swift wasn’t misanthropic, but philanthropic in the sense that he understood the limitation of human’s intellect and morality, and thus accepted the fact that humans are different and start on a different level of playing field instead of equal level. Humans, therefore, need assistance to live harmoniously with each other.

Gulliver’s Travels – Part Two

Part 2 Chapters 1, 2, 3, & 6 

In this story, Jonathan Swift has a goal set to satirize many things going on around him that he isn’t in favor of. He does this by using Gulliver as his spokesperson, and he sends Gulliver on many adventures in which he uses certain situations to call out certain things that Swift stands against in his daily life. In these four chapters, Gulliver is going on a journey but a storm hits and he and his crew get lost at sea. About a year later, they spot land and paddle to shore when they see that massive giants live on the island. The crew begins paddling back to the boat, but Gulliver is left stranded on the island. He then goes on to meet many giants, and he is paraded around to do shows for giants for a profit. Gulliver is then bought by the Queen, who brings Gulliver to the King.

The King asks many questions about the government of Gulliver’s home country, in hopes to learn something useful in leading his own country. Gulliver goes on to tell the King all about his country and their government with pride and patriotism, to which the King responds with laughter, mocking the way of life there. This is satirizing the priorities of the government, and the King is calling out the corruption of Gulliver’s government and his people. He calls out Gulliver’s people for basically being power-hungry and bloodthirsty. The King decides that Gulliver’s people are absolutely terrible people who are corrupt and evil in their ways, only prioritizing monetary possessions and power.

Gulliver also meets a “little person” that works for the Queen — who is 30 feet tall — and loves to pick on Gulliver. The Queen’s dwarf makes fun of Gulliver because he finally meets someone shorter than him. Because Gulliver is so small, he faces many challenges to survive. Cats, dogs, rats, and babies can kill him with ease, all of which are laughable to the giants because they are such small problems that the giants have no realization of in their daily lives.

Later on in the story, Gulliver sees his Master’s wife breastfeeding her child. Gulliver is disgusted by the sight of her, and he goes on to say that even the women in his country “appear so beautiful to us, only because they are of our own size, and their defects not to be seen but through a magnifying glass, where we find by experiment that the smoothest and whitest skins look rough and course and ill colored” (2537). I believe that Gulliver’s sexualization of women and his response to seeing his mistress breastfeeding is meant to satirize how men view women at the time and the fact that men need to change their perspective of women in general.

Swift uses extremely creative circumstances to shed light on topics he is passionate about, and he does a fantastic job of criticizing certain things subtly through his work.