I would do the compare/contrast of types of narrators in P1 and perhaps tell how it

effects the telling of the story of Frankenstein in P2 and the effects of GT in P3. I would
sketch out your thoughts and run them by the teacher first as it is a term essay.

Structurally, Gulliver's Travels is divided into four parts with two introductory
letters at the beginning of the book. These letters, from Gulliver and his
editor Sympson, let us know that Gulliver is basically a good person who has
been very much changed by the amazing journeys to follow. Part I follows
Gulliver's journey to Lilliput and its tiny people; Part II to Brobdingnag and
its giants; Part III to several islands and countries near Japan; part IV
follows Gulliver to the country of the Houyhnhnm. The first and second parts
set up contrasts that allow Swift to satirize European politics and society.
The third part satirizes human institutions and thinking and is subdivided
into four sections that are set in Laputa, Balnibarbi, Glubbdubdrib, and
Luggnagg. The first two sections are seen as a critique of sciences and
scholars; the Glubbdubdrib section looks at history; and the Luggnagg
section at Swift's fears about getting old. The final section moves from
criticizing humanity's works to examining the flawed nature of humanity
itself.

P1 Types of narrative

GUILLIVER’S TRAVELS

• The narrative tone is that of earnestness and rational logic in presenting what the
audience reacts to as irrational and extreme, thereby exposing true intension of
the author

• The author is not sincerely the narrator

• Author thinks oppositly from narrator and that gap is mirrored by

audience distance from narrator.

• The books starts off with a logical narrator but as the story progresses
narrator gets more and more distant and unreliable

FRANK

Frankenstein's narrative, the ardent student, creator, sufferer; he passes the baton to
the monster. The narrative at this point runs counter, where the monster relays back to
Frankenstein's voice, then lastly to Walton and his letters to his sister. Keep in mind,
though, that the whole of the story is conceived (after all, this is a novel about
conception) via the letters from Walton to his sister, from December 11 to September 12
the tone remains static: The style of voice, the diction, and rhythm (all elevated, all High
Language) stay loyal to the original voice of the letters. Even the dialogue between the
old man and Frankenstein are contained within Walton's range. Therefore, we only
know what he tells us; he becomes our narrator agent. When Dr. Frankenstein tells him
early in their dialogue that he and his own sister were "strangers to any species of
disunion and dispute," we have to assume that this is not only a compartmentalized
piece of Frankenstein's nostalgia, but also that this line could have been easily rendered
as artistic licensing from Walton's pen. Throughout, we must rely on his merit as our
chief storyteller.

The first separates Shelly the author from responsibility to the story's autobiographic
markers

P2 FRANK

P3 GUILLIVER’s

The narrative structure of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein occurs in passes, like a relay
race with three runners, who each pass the baton in a circuitous pattern. Altogether,
there are four passes. Starting with voyager

Walton, who opens the novel with a series of letters to his sister Mrs. Saville; then to
the Frankenstein's narrative, the ardent student, creator, sufferer; he passes the baton
to the monster. The narrative at this point runs counter, where the monster relays back
to Frankenstein's voice, then lastly to Walton and his letters to his sister. Keep in mind,
though, that the whole of the story is conceived (after all, this is a novel about
conception) via the letters from Walton to his sister, from December 11 to September
12: he story is presented within this framework, documented and delivered to Mrs.
Saville (we assume as much since we have in our hands the accumulation of his fifteen
months of travel; if she never received them, how

could we then have the story?). The first three letters are sent, a travelogue of his first
five months of travel. The fourth letter, the last, sets in motion the story of the doctor and
his monster. In this respect, Walton navigates our course for the novel. Indeed, when
the narrative passes to Frankenstein and the monster, the tone remains static: The style
of voice, the diction, and rhythm (all elevated, all High Language) stay loyal to the
original voice of the letters. Even the dialogue between the old man and Frankenstein
are contained within Walton's range. Therefore, we only know what he tells us; he
becomes our narrator agent. When Dr. Frankenstein tells him early in their dialogue that
he and his own sister were "strangers to any species of disunion and dispute," we have
to assume that this is not only a compartmentalized piece of Frankenstein's nostalgia,
but also that this line could have been easily rendered as artistic licensing from Walton's
pen. Throughout, we must rely on his merit as our chief storyteller.

But to say that the novel is merely told in the first-person limited would be a disservice
to Shelley's narrative strategy. With each pass of narrations comes a new and
deliberate level of distancing. And this serves several purposes. The first separates
Shelly the author from responsibility to the story's autobiographic markers, detaching
herself from father William Godwin and his theories on the perfectibility of man, the
countless miscarriages and deaths of her children, and her own doomed relationship
with Percy Shelley. Indeed, with each pass from narrator to narrator, Shelley removes
herself further from any cloying notion that this might be a metaphorical roman à clef.
The second purpose creates a distance from the reader's reality, and with each pass in
the narrative, the more plausible the story's conceit becomes. The ultimate trick is
Shelley's success with creating the monster and pulling it off without any kind of
biological detailing (aside from Frankenstein's painstaking grave-robbing and laboratory-
as-apartment squatting, there is simply no medical proof or veracity that the monster
could live.) The issue of verisimilitude is addresses by the novel's end, in the last of
Walton's letters to his sister:

Guilliver’s travels

the author is not sincerely the narrator. The classic

example of this distance is Swift's "A Modest Proposal." The narrative tone is that of
earnestness and rational logic in presenting what the audience reacts to as irrational
and extreme, thereby exposing the true intension of the author. The author thinks
oppositely from the narrator, and that author-narrator gap is mirrored by the audience's
distance from the narrator. The audience does not align with the narrator.

Gulliver's Travels works the same way. Swift is not Gulliver, and by the time Part 4 is
done, Swift has exposed Gulliver as a convert to the Houyhnhnms and thus rejected
their rational, dispassionate world view. Similarly, the audience, especially by the end of
Part 4, is thoroughly distanced from Gulliver the narrator and aligned with Swift.
Contrary to Gulliver, Swift ultimately shows compassion for the Yahoos and by
extension for humanity, despite their overwhelming faults, because the alternative, the
world of the Houyhnhnms, is too odious a place to consider.
The first creatures Gulliver meets in Houynhnhnmland are the Yahoos, and he recoils,
saying, "I never beheld in all my Travels so disagreeable an Animal, nor one against
which I naturally conceived so strong an
 Antipathy" (189-90). The initial encounter comes long before he realizes that Yahoos
are human-like, if not actually human. In contrast, two Houyhnhnms save him from the
Yahoos, and he says of them, "Upon the whole, the Behaviour of these Animals was so
orderly and rational, so acute and judicious, that I at last concluded, they must needs be
Magicians" (191). Of course, after a run-in with wild Yahoos, one would take to the
Houyhnhnms. And the audience is right there with Gulliver, completely in step with such
an action. The Houyhnhnms seem admirable. They are clean, fair, orderly, and highly
rational, especially compared to the Yahoos, their opposites in nearly every
characteristic. The Houyhnhnms have no notion of lying or unbelief, a practice "so
perfectly well understood among human creatures" (203). The Houyhnhnms also can't
understand war or what causes it.

After being among the Houyhnhnms, Gulliver's discourse with them on the failings of
human nature begins to enlighten him. He says, "I began to view the Actions and
Passions of Man in a very different Light," because his Houyhnhnm friend "daily
convinced me of a thousand Faults in myself, whereof I had not the least Perception
before, and which among us would never be numbered even among human Infirmities"
(217-18). Gulliver, because he cannot associate with the Yahoos, sees how
preposterous some negative elements of human nature appear to an outside viewer.
The Yahoos are filthy, lazy, manipulating, petty, and unteachable. Perhaps the reader
comes along with Gulliver on this enlightened journey. e more he learns about the
Yahoos, the more Gulliver praises them, but the harder it is for the reader to continue to
align with him. Swift pushes their logical, dispassionate existence to its extreme. Their
highest

virtues are friendship and benevolence, and passion never interferes with reason. As a
result, their marriages are pragmatic, utilitarian affairs void of love or pleasure. Death
has no great impact because an individual life does not either, the result of a world
without passion. When they die, their relatives express "neither joy nor grief at their
departure" (231). Though he lives with them in peace for three years, learning their
language and adopting their customs, they reason that Gulliver is too much like a
Yahoo, and thus cannot live as a friend with them anymore. A civilized Yahoo is not
according to nature, so he must be dismissed, despite his many professions of
happiness and contentment. His Master admits that he does not necessarily agree with
that decision, but of course he will comply, and so dismisses Gulliver. Through this
seemingly absurd turn, Swift appears to be satirizing the philosophy of logic without
emotion. Gulliver departs the island with tears and grief, but he cannot refute the nobility
of the Houyhnhnms, nor disguise his reluctance to return to humanity. Maybe the reader
still agrees with Gulliver that it would be hard to return to England, but the reader cannot
agree with the Houyhnhnms that their logical assessment of Gulliver among them was
right, or their decision to exile him a celebration of the best of their civilization. Thus,
Gulliver's continuing profuse praise of the Houyhnhnms starts to distance the reader.

Gulliver meets a kind sea captain who offers him clothing, shelter, food, and friendship,
and Gulliver finally begins to trust him. The captain seems an exemplary man of
compassion and generosity, human nature at its best. He gives treatment opposite that
of the Houyhnhnms. But Gulliver is repulsed. His wife joyfully welcomes him home, be
he cannot tolerate her presence. He lives as a recluse, horrified by all humanity. Now
Swift has finally completed in distancing the reader from his narrator, who cannot stand
any human, no matter how generous or lacking vice. He says he can tolerate human
weaknesses that are "those Vices and Follies only, which Nature hath entitled them to"
(250), but he cannot stand Pride in a human. The Houyhnhnms, whose name,
according to their etymology, means "the Perfection of Nature" (199), are entitled to
thinking much of their good characteristics because to think otherwise would be untrue.

Perhaps the satirist has now finally satirized himself after exhausting every other subject
possible. Or perhaps Swift instead admits that folly, finally, will always be part of
humanity, and the self-awareness and cynical distance of the satirist are not the
answer. Gulliver learns from the Yahoos the weaknesses of humanity, because he sees
them without any redeeming qualities. But there is no place for Gulliver in a world
without any of those vices either, because they cannot tolerate him. If there are two
possibilities, as Swift seems to be saying, run from all humanity or accept humanity,
Gulliver's solution does not work. He is miserable at the end. He has rejected humanity,
and his ideal world will not have him. This is not where Swift wants the reader to be at
the end. If Gulliver has no compassion for the weakness of humans, then the reader
must. If Gulliver cannot see the good in people, such as the wise sea captain, then the
reader should. The reader does not associate with Gulliver at the end because Swift
has isolated him, not only from the reader but from Swift as author. Gulliver cannot see
the folly of the Houyhnhnms' world view, and he cannot see

the good in human nature. Thus Part 4 works to align the reader with Swift against
Gulliver. Gulliver's lack of compassion signals for the reader compassion from Swift for
human nature because people will always be foolish in spite of themselves, and to
expect otherwise is its own folly.