Sie sind auf Seite 1von 7

Society and Satire in Gullivers Travels

Gullivers Travels is a novel, a masterpiece written by Jonathan Swift, composed of four books, in which the author makes use of the fantasy and the satire, in order to describe the society at that time. The book is presented as a man's narrative with the simple title Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. The main instrument of the satire in Gulliver's Travels is human nature itself, more exactly Man's pride as it manifests in pettiness, grossness, rational absurdity and bestiality. Gulliver's character, as a satirical tool, serves Swift's purposes by being both a mouthpiece for some of Swift's ideas and criticisms and as an illustration of them. Thus, satire on human nature is made through Gulliver's opinions as well as through Gulliver's own metamorphosis from a naive man into an enlightened and skeptical misanthrope. In the first book, A Voyage to Liliput, Liliput is treated like a Utopia. Swift makes various political allusions to events posterior to 1714. The opening pages of the book fill the readers mind with curiosity, by giving a fleeting glimpse of a small world where everything is perfectly created to a miniature scale. The entire Voyage gives to the satiric passages a comical rather than a bitter air. One of Swifts goals was to enrich his narrative with cunning allusions to the English political scene. The symbols used in dealing with political themes do not overload the narrative and they diminish in no way the humour and the charm of the story. The main satiric theme resulting from the representation of the Liliputian as morally despicable is the satire on individual political characters. The small peoples courage is remarkable and so is their ability to submit the Man Mountain. When Swift began writing the story, he realized that the best way to obtain the satiric effect would be gained by a different treatment of the Liliputians, who are shown not as a Utopian people, but as petty, experiencing political jealousies and being organized in factions, at war with another empire for ludicrous reasons, their king mad with the desire for power, Bolgolam feeling jealousy for Gulliver and Filimnap thinking about an immoral relation between his wife and the giant. Yet Swift allows the effect to remain predominantly humorous. In addition to the delightfully quality of this Voyage, the political satire element and its transformation of human motives to the mean instincts and passions developed by miniature beings, the writer treats in the chapter VI the Utopian motive of the learning, educational methods and laws of the Liliputians. 1

Liliput has a very simple criminal code: if a man who was accused is finally innocent, the one who accused him is severely punished. Lack of gratitude is also a major crime and rewards are for those who have attentively obeyed the laws. Their principles are exactly the ones that the English have never had. Swift firstly observed at the Liliputian educational system that their Notions relating to the Duties of Parents and Children differ extremely from ours1 and the bitter flavour of this comment prepares what follows. Due to the fact that men and women are together like other animals by motives of cohabitation and the love for their children comes from the same unwritten law of nature, the Liliputians find it right that a child has no obligation to his parents for bringing him into the world and that, as a result, Parents are the last of all others to be trusted with the Education of their own Children.2 (In this passage, the author makes use of an ironic accent, common in many reproaches made by humane bachelors at troublesome offsprings and naive parents.). Every town has its public nursery and all children must be sent there, except those of cottagers and labourers. Their parents must visit them no more than twice a year and when they do it, they are not allowed to stay more than an hour. Although they may kiss their children at meeting and parting, they must not whisper to them or use any fondling Expressions or bring any Presents of Toys, Sweet-meats, and the like.3 The difference between social classes is visible here, because the children are sent to an appropriate nursery, compatible with their social status. Also, boys and girls are sent to separate schools. In the final pages of the narrative, Gulliver returns to England and he is put in front of the strange feeling of readjusting his sense of proportion to the normal world. But the contrast is purely and simply a physical one and altogether amusing. The second book, A Voyage to Brobdingnag, derives in scheme from Book 1, Gulliver being, in fact, turned from a giant into a pygmy, and the natives from pygmies into giants. This part contains a type of satire that is no longer light, but keen of edge and weighted with a precise purpose, the book representing a development of the idea of relativity along two different lines and with contrary effects. On one side, merely physical contrasts are analyzed (human body is absolutely grotty, when viewed by someone as small as Gulliver).

1 2

Ricardo Quintana - The Mind and Art of Jonathan Swift, pg. 310 Ricardo Quintana - The Mind and Art of Jonathan Swift, pg. 310 3 Ricardo Quintana - The Mind and Art of Jonathan Swift, pg. 311

On the other side, the concept of relativity is expanded into the moral level and it is noticeable that Swift plays with canny deliberation, maintaining for some chapters the meaning of the contrasts which are being brought to light. At a certain moment, when Gulliver is asked to come to the court by the queen, he begins to see the Brobdingnagians as they really are, a friendly and virtuous people. When Gulliver has finished describing English society and politics, the king expresses his conclusion: he blames European people for being ignorant, idle and vicious; their laws are unacceptable and manipulated by underhand means; the original institution of government is corrupted and the Govern is selected by people with no reference to virtue, integrity and wisdom. The center of the second Voyage lies in chapters VI and VII, where this moral relativity becomes the basis of an extended satire on western civilization. Gulliver is so annoyed by Brobdingnagian contempt that all their words of wisdom serve only to make him even prouder of his own species; from now on, in order not to perish his self-esteem, he takes the most disapproving attitude towards them. Gulliver emphasizes the English political ideas, their learning, their legal methods and their taste in books. In all of these the Brobdingnagians show their discontent, their forthright, practical natures and their strong moral sense. The second Voyage ends even more hilariously than the first. Gulliver goes from one diverting incident to another, from the moment he is discovered floating in his box. Whether he is to make a difficult readjustment of perceptions or whether he now thinks he should be an inspiring giant, as he returns to Redriff, he thinks himself in Liliputians once more and calls out to everyone he meets to stand out of the way. This foreshadows the remarkable ending of part IV, but it is still an effect arising almost entirely out of mere physical contrast. The third book, A Voyage to Laputa, Balnibarbi, Luggnagg, Glubbdubdrib and Japan is inferior, in comparison with the rest of Gullivers Travels. Swift wrote some passages full of allusions to Englands politics towards Ireland and the Irish demonstrations against the coinage. A Voyage to Laputa is composed of four loosely formed parts: the story of the Flying Island; the ironical sketch of Balnibarbi and of the grand Academy of Lagado; Gullivers experiences in

Glubbdubdrib, more exactly a satire on literary critics and historians and the description of the revolting immortals of Luggnagg, the Struldbrugs. In this book, Swift uses the satire to criticize the misuse of the human intelligence, the desire for a never-ending life and the Anglo-Irish situation. Many passages are caustic and the main ideas behind the irony are perfectly apparent, but the attack is to fall anywhere with crushing effect. In Laputa, the subject of the ridicule is directed towards mathematics and music; in Balnibarbi towards all sorts of projects; in Lagado the headquarter of the Grand Academy towards the scientific experiments; in Glubbdubdrib at textual critics and historians. Also, there are various hidden symbols, as in the passage of mathematics, where Swift was paying his respects to Sir Isaac Newton or in the Laputians love of music, which was a hit at the Italian opera, then the craze in London. In the Grand Academy of Lagado the Royal Society is described in an emphatic way. Each of the social classes stands for either corrupt state or over-refined speculation, which are two models of corrupt judgment. Chapter X, dedicated to the description of the immortal Struldbrugs is entirely the most effective part of the third Voyage. The strong desire for life seemed to Swift but a gros passion emerging from the depths of the unconscious and like all such manifestations was to be repressed with the critics of reason. In the Struldbrugs he was simply bringing to its most expressive form a theme which had always held a strange fascination for him. The political satire, referring to recent events in Ireland, in general, is to be found mainly in chapter III, connected with the alternatives used by the king of the Flying Island in order to reduce to obedience his subjects living beneath him in Balnibarbi. Thus did Swift allegorize Irelands triumphant war against the halfpence. The last book, A Voyage to the Houyhnhnms is made of a rigorous artistic unity, which produces a final effect of the greatest power. Swift makes use of a great realism, which has a logic that cannot be found in the first Voyage and appears just a little bit in the second. The satiric intention presiding over A Voyage to the Houyhnhnms can be summed up in a single phrase; an assault upon mans Pride by way of le mythe animal.1
1

Ricardo Quintana - The Mind and Art of Jonathan Swift, pg. 319

The final effect of the last Voyage is not humorous at all, in spite of the fact that there are many hilarious passages. A fragment from chapter IV, where Swift describes the human body, has been declared by certain critics to be an unforgivable libel of the Human Form divine.1 Book 4 is a series of skillfully intermingled varieties on two themes, one agreeing with the wildness of man while under control of the irrational, the other descriptive of the life of reason. Moral degradation is made entirely repellent through the Yahoos, the perfect symbol for the communication of disgust. On the other hand, the life of reason gets an intellectual statement because, even though we do understand the Houyhnhnms, we are not touched by them. The connection between the irrational man and the Yahoo is very well established. The moment Gulliver first meets the Yahoos, he considers them to be the most loathsome creatures he has ever seen. It is only after he has been led home by a Houyhnhnm, who compares him with one of those creatures, that he realizes their similarity to men, noticing with shock and amazement a perfect human figure in this repulsive animal. As Gulliver starts to appreciate the qualities of his masters, he starts to despise himself and his race; this is the way that the moral similarity is built up. But the physical appearance and the disgust which it occasions are never allowed to fade in the readers mind, one of the most impressive image being the bathing scene in chapter VIII inciting the emotions afresh. Back of all this is an indictment of man and society perhaps as comprehensive and detailed as was ever penned by a satirist. It begins in chapter IV with Gullivers description of his crew and continues through chapter VI. War is described, from which Gulliver passes to the nonsenses and injustices of the law, to the discrepancies between rich and poor, to the diseases in Europe and ends with the physicians, ministers of state and the nobility (chapter VI). The anti-rational view of man is emphasized in chapter VII, where Gullivers master, now fully informed concerning Europeans, enlarges upon their similarity to the Yahoos. Of the five remaining chapters, VIII and IX are dedicated to the development of the second theme, a statement of the principles of rational behaviour. This theme is first introduced the moment the Houyhnhnms enter the story and from then on is interwoven with the satire on bestiality the gravity, cleanliness and truthfulness of the horses serving as a contrast for the repulsion of Yahoos and corrupt

The way in which man translates the revelation of his many gods.

men. But not until the first theme has been fully treated is the ideology of the Houyhnhnms set forth at length and their society described. The Houyhnhnms thought Nature and Reason were sufficient Guides for a reasonable Animal in shewing us what we ought to do, and what to avoid.1 (chapter V). They are representative for the Enlightenment, from this point of view, because they make the rules of their intellectual life upon the law of the universality of reason. Their grand maxim, to cultivate Reason, and to be wholly governed by it, leads immediately to an intense anti-intellectualism.2 Since the Houyhnhnms do not have their own way of writing, their knowledge is wholly traditional; they have no need of physicians, they face death with perfect resignation and accept the loss of friends and relatives without a tinge of grief. Chapters X, XI and XII together make up the long conclusion of the Voyage. It has already been pointed out that the contrasts experienced by Gulliver on his return to civilization from Liliput and Brobdingnag are almost entirely of the physical order. The last paragraphs canalize all the satiric energy generated in the preceeding pages of the voyage and direct it against the Pride of man. In conclusion, the perception that each of its parts has its peculiar mood, tone and effect. The first Book is written in the form of an ingenious fairytale, pleasant when stinging, the second Book is a sequel to the first one and it is based on an efficient and sharp satire, the third Book is an omnium gatherum3, interesting in places by reason of the satiric intensity, but frequently dull and, taken as a whole, markedly ineffective and the last Book is ruthlessly executed. Jonathan Swift, in fact, created the whole of Gulliver's Travels in order to give the public a new moral lens. Through this lens, Swift hoped to vex his readers by offering them new insights into the game of politics and into the social follies of humans.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

1 2

Ricardo Quintana - The Mind and Art of Jonathan Swift, pg. 323 Ricardo Quintana - The Mind and Art of Jonathan Swift, pg. 323 3 A miscellaneous collection (from Latin omnium of all, from omnis all + Latinized form of English gather)

1. Ricardo Quintana - The Mind and Art of Jonathan Swift, London ; Methuen, 1953 2. http://www.thefreedictionary.com 3. http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2177/human_form_divine.html?cat=2

Das könnte Ihnen auch gefallen