Gulliver's Travels Essay

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In this essay, on a pre-1914 novel, I will show how the main character changes emotionally, physically and mentally and also show how the novel was adapted into a film. I have chosen to study the classic Jonathan Swift novel, Gulliver’s Travels which was written in 1726. It is about a ship surgeon who goes on many voyages that change his life, his views on it and others around his. The novel is written in the past tense from the author’s point of view which makes it more believable that Lemuel Gulliver went on these expeditions.

The book begins with a short account about the main character in Gulliver’s Travels, Lemuel Gulliver. He says about his family, how and where he got the money to be able to study, and eventually onto why he became a surgeon on a ship. It says the few friends he had left him and he ended up friendless with only a wife to help support him. This makes Gulliver feel lonely and depressed because he has no-one to talk to and so stays at home alone.

As he stayed at home, his only friends those inside the many novels of the best authors he was reading, he was running low on money and so had to do something to be bringing in some sort of a salary. He decided to go on another adventure as a surgeon on a ship, to bring in some money to support his family, and ends up being shipwrecked and having to swim for his life. As he reaches land, scared, still depressed and even more alone, he lay still for hours on end resting and eventually falls asleep on the immensely short grass. As he awoke he found he was bound to the floor by many miniature ropes that were tied to his hair, arms, legs and face. As he lay on his back, Gulliver could only see towards the sky and so could not distinguish what the noises, that he could hear, were. He felt a strange movement over his leg which moved onto his breast and up to his chin. He looked downwards, without moving his head, to find a human not six inches high. He shouted Hekinah degul, which was repeated by the other small creatures around Gulliver. Now Gulliver feels frightened, puzzled and restricted, to both movement and communication due to the unknown language the small humans spoke.

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Throughout Lilliput, Gulliver feels superior to the “little people,” due to his size and it feels like a joke is being played on him- because of the stupidity of the situation. He felt inferior because he couldn’t speak the language- until he began to learn later on- and also because he was seen as a monster that noone wanted anything to do with. The Lilliputians were frightened of Gulliver, because of his size, and so Gulliver still felt lonely and vulnerable-because he could have had thousands of little arrows shot at him, could be tied down and murdered.

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