Gulliver's Travels
Jonathan Swift wrote it in Ireland.The first part of it appeared in October 1726 and by November the book was in everybody's hand.
1.The story of the book is known to us all. In the first part Gulliver describes his shipwreck in Lilliput where the tallest peo;ole were six inches high. The emperor believed hismself to be the delight and terror of the universe, but it appeared quite absurd to Gulliver who was twelve times as tall as he. In his account of the two parties in the country, distinguished by the use of high and low heels, Swift satirixes the Tories and the Whigs in England, Religious disputes were laughed at in an account of a problem which divided the Lilliputians:"Should eggs be broken at the big end or the little end?" The follows an ironical comment:"This, however, is thought to be a merer strain upon the text, for the words are thses, that all true believers shall break their eggs at the convenient end. And which is the convenient end seems, in my humble opinion, to be left to every man's conscience, or at least in the power of the Chief Magistrate to dtermine." This part is full of references to current politics.
2.In the second part, the voyage to Brobdingnag is described. Gulliver now found himself a dwarf among men sixty feet in height. The King, who regarded Eruope
as if it were an anthill, said,"I cannot but conclude the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that Nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth."And Gulliver, after living among such a great race, could not but feel tempted to laugh at the strutting and bowing of English lords and ladies as much as the King did at him.
3.The third part is a satire on philosophers and projuctors, who were given to dwelling in the air, like the inhabitants of the flying Island. In the Island of sorcerors, Gulliver was able to call up famous men of ancient times and question them. Then he found the world to have been misled by prostitute wriers into ascribing the greatest exploits in war to cowards, the wisest counsels to fools, and sincerity to flatterers. He saw, too, by looking at an lod yeoman, how the race had greatly deteriorated through vice and corruption.
4.In the last part, Gulliver's satire is of the bitterest. Gulliver was now in a country where horses werer possessed of reason, and were the governing class, while the Yahoos,though in the shape of men, were brute beasts with such vices as stealing and lying. In endeavouring to persuade the horses that he was not a Yahoo, gulliver was made to show how little a man was removed from the brute. Gulliver's account of the warfare among the English lords, given with no little pride, caused only disgust from the horses. He praised the life and virtues of the horses while he was disgusted with the Yahoos, whose relations reminded him of those existing in english society to such a degree that he shuddered at the prospect of returning to England.So, when he returned home, his family filled him with such disgust that he swooned when his wife kissed him.
5.Swift hated all kinds of oppression-political, economical and religious. But he cherished a great love for the people,
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