Based On Your Reading Of Gulliver's Travels, To What Extent Do You Agree That Jonathan Swift Is Misanthropic In His Presentation Of Human Society

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Based On Your Reading Of Gulliver’s Travels, To What Extent Do You Agree That Jonathan Swift Is Misanthropic In His Presentation Of Human Society

In Gulliver’s travels I think that Jonathan Swift is trying to show people what human society is really like. He does this through 4 voyages each to a different imaginary place, where the people are a satire of a different aspect of human society, and in each voyage Swift is telling us what he thinks of human society through what Gulliver says, and what he sees. Many people have described the book negatively for example William Thackeray, an 1850’s novelist described it as, “Filthy in word, filthy in thought, furious, raging, obscene,” and indeed over the two and a half centuries since it was first published it has caused a lot of controversy and has divided opinions.

Gulliver’s first voyage is to a place called Lilliput. The Lilliputians are small people, about 6 inches high, and this is a metaphor for their small-mindedness. Gulliver criticises the way the Lilliputians elect their ministers- by doing circus tricks, “…with a dance on the rope and whoever jumps the highest succeeds in office.” This quote is showing that Swift is annoyed that people have to ‘jump through hoops’ to get into office. This is one of the stupid laws in Lilliput. This is like politics in the 18th century and even now, in that the rich were the only ones in parliament in the 18th century, and now it is mostly the rich in parliament because they are the only ones who can finance a campaign.

Another law is no urinating in the palace. When a fire breaks out in the palace Gulliver does not want it to burn down, “This magnificent palace would have infallibly been burned to the ground,” so he urinates on it to put it out. Then the king of lilliput makes several articles against Gulliver. This is Swift satirising the ingratitude, hypocrisy and cruelty of the state, because he is talking about England, and it is also saying how a normal law could be used to drive out a person the king or prime minister didn’t like.

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At the end of the voyage to lilliput, my opinion of the Lilliputians is that they are ungrateful and small-minded. They are ungrateful because they don’t thank Gulliver for saving the palace, they are small-minded because thy have a war with Blefuscu because they open their eggs at the other end. This is satire for the war with France over religion. This could show that Swift is misanthropic because he is only saying how they are against Gulliver not what good things they have done, if any. However this could show that Swift is not misanthropic because they might not ...

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