My Opinion

I have focused my work on Jonathan Swift for two main reasons. Firstly, because he was a very brave man who, despite great many problems, dared to criticize his society and was able to challenge it as best he knew, with his pen. Secondly, because he used irony, humour and satire to express his ideas. This forces us to read between the lines and, as a result, to pay greater attention to what we are reading. When you first read Gulliver's Travels, you may believe that you are reading a book intended to amuse children. However, when you read this story in the light of being a satire, you realize that Swift was making a public statement about the affairs of England and of the human race as a whole.

Gulliver's Travels is his most famous book. The whole work is a metaphysical satire on human institutions, and a fascinating tale of fantastic voyages. It can be considered a novel of travel and a philosophical novel. Therefore, although this book is usually rewritten for children, it is also a crude critique on different points: the English middle-class, European society, the economic system, imperialism, rationalism, and the optimistic point of view of his time.

The work is divided into four parts (books), each of which has a different theme. Nevertheless, all of them are attempts to deflate human pride. Book I is a protest against imperialism and colonialism, an attack on the corrupt Whig oilgarchy which had displaced Swift's Tories in London; but it is also, on a deeper level, a satire of the universal human tendency to abuse political power and authority, to manipulate others and deceive ourselves. To the inhabitants of Lilliput (six inches tall), Gulliver is something of a giant. In this book, by describing the ludicruous system that Lilliput's government fashions, Swift is satirizing the English system of governing.

In Brobdingnag (Book II), it is Gulliver who is the tiny person, and the inhabitants of that land who appear to be giants. As a result of this, Lemuel is a physically inferior being and from this standpoint he sees mankind as grotesquely large, so their defects become more evident. Swift describes the Brobdingnagnians as superhumans, just morally bigger than us. Their virtues are not possible to attain because it is know that, since it takes so much maturing to reach this stature, few humans achieve it.

In Book III Swift is concrete in exaggerating the Laputan systematizing. He says that such systematizing is a manifestation of man's rationalism. The Laputans think abstractedly and lose their hold on common sense. For example, they serve food in geometric and musical shapes. Because everything is determined by abstract thought, the result is a chaos. It is kind of weird as they only think for abstract thinking's sake. This section is a satire on philosophers and scientists who, according to Swift, are totally useless in practical affairs.

In book IV Gulliver finds the Houyhnhnms, which are very reasonable. They have simple laws and act justly; that is, they do not quarrel and each one knows what is true and right. They are so reasonable that they feel no emotions. The Hoyhnhnms are horses, not humans. To contrast them, Swift presents the Yahoos, criatures who demonstrate the nature of human sinfulness. They are vicious and represent the corruption of mankind. We can relate this section totally to today since humans have always been pround and vicious.

To sum up, we can say that the ironic view of Swift is to see humanity from four different points. The first is that of a physically superior being, who sees mankind as ridiculously small. The second is that of a physically inferior being, who sees man as grotesquely large. The third is the point of common sense, from which the vast majority of humans appear crazy and wicked. The fourth is that of a rational animal, which sees the whole human race as irrational and bestial. These four pictures form a series in which the view grows gradually darker; that is, they represent stages in Gulliver's disillusion. We can see this in the last few chapters, when Lemuel becomes so obsessed with the faults of mankind that he cannot appreciate virtues of individual people. He starts the novel as an innocent character who expects the best from everyone but, as he gets older and suffers the discredit of humanity from this series of standpoints, his opinion and attitudes change. Therefore, he (both Gulliver and Swift) becomes a misanthrope.

I would like to say that I agree with Swift in this point. In my opinion children are anxious to get things right and still want to know exactly how things are. However, when grow older, we realize that people are bad, that we only think in ourselves and, as a result, we cover ourselves with a "helmet" to avoid helping the others and to think exclusively in ourselves. It's like a vicious circle but a vicious circle that has been repeated for a long time and maybe the only one which allows us to survive in this "cruellest dream, reality".

On the other hand, I have chosen to work on "religion and politics" because so much of Swift's work deals with religious and political affairs that he is not only studied in the field of literature but also in the field of history. This has helped me to improve my knowledge on English literature (and even, on the history of England) a lot.

Finally, I would like to say that I'm very happy because I have learnt not only literature but also computing. In my view, the Internet is a new way of reading and a new way of understanding literature and the world in general. Although working through the Internet has some disadvantages (e.g: the Internet system's collapse, web pages inestability and other computer failures); I think it is worth doing it because it has more advantages than drawbacks. Through the Internet you can access to any place at any time and, as a result, you can find all kind of information. And this is what students, teachers and all sort of scientists have always wished for.