Critical appreciation of four voyages and structure of Gulliver's Travells

NAME                 : GOND ASMITA K

ROLL NO            :  2^ND

PAPEER              : 3^RD (The neo classical literature)

TOPIC                 : Critical appreciation of four voyages and structure    

                                                        Gulliver’s   travels.

CLASS                 : M.A. SEM -1

GUIDE                : Heena ma’m Zala

YEAR                  : 2014-16

E-MAIL ID          : asmita.gond414@gmil.com

SUBMITTED      : M. K. Bhavnagar University

Que: 1   Critical appreciation of four

               Voyages and structure of  

               Gulliver’s    travels.

Gulliver’s Travels was written by Jonathan Swift which eas biggest satire because this novel is totally based on imagination. And whatever described on the novel we can’t found in the real life.

  

v An introduction of Jonathan Swift

 

v Life of Jonathan Swift :-

         Jonathan Swift was born in 1667 like steel, of English Parents in Dublin. He was most celebrated personality in the history of English Literature and prose.

                Swift was well known in the world of letters by his characters than by himself. Because the Swift is the man of letters and man of world. Swift has most associable temperament he found fault in everything and every person to whom he watches. He has ferocious and vindictive  temperament. He seemed to be often to delight in horrible for his owrn sake .Swift was the master in the prose and he was becomes famous by his novels Gullliver’s Travells.

                       Swift has not a attractive personality .He was not at all handsome, he had a kind of muddy complexion. Again if his person was ugly his temple was equally sour and laughter less. Swift was rude and he has not care of others feelings. Swift always found oppression and he found cynicism and misanthrope in everywhere.

                       So we can say that Swift has good as well as bad both things were prevalent in jis life. And so we can say that he ws fed up with his life and so he writes novel wiyh full of satire, which we found in the four voyages of Gulliver’s Travells.

          

v  The works of Jonathan Swift :-

Swift is one of the greatest satirist in English Literature. He often descends to dirt while satiring

‘His line on the death of Dr. Swift , which  hr erote on the supposed death are most pleasing his verse is fluent, easy and point.

 

                            Swift’s main prose works besides few minor satirical pieces such as the Modest proposal are the following:-

‘The battle of the book’

‘A tale of tub’

                     ‘Gulliver’s Travels’’

                     ‘The journal to Stella’

                     ‘The draper’s letter’s etc’

           According to Johnson a sentence or two letters “but it few metaphors seemed says Johnson a sentence or novel to be received rather by necessity than choice”.

           Swift dominated the Augustan age with his terrible flash of wit and anger , and his malicious merriment at the expense of humanity. All his works were published anonymously  and it was due to the fact that all his works were satires travelled ageinst the social , political, and religious life of his contemporaries.    

               His works included ‘The  battle of the books ’,

‘A tale of a tub’, ‘Gulliver’s Travels’, essays verses, pamphlets etc. largely satirical and the famous ‘Journal  to Stella ’.

 

             He wrote a number of pamphlets both against the wings and Tories: In fact , again what abuse he saw : for he has no party bias and simply wrote in the cause of justice as he conceived it . His most notable political work was the ‘Drippier Letter’ . In the contrast  to these public writings of Swift he also wrote as series of letters to Esther Johnson, popularly known as  the ‘the journal to Stella’.  Here in these letters Swifts points out as a satirists and he pour out his heart in it.

               Mention must be also made  of the famous essay , “meditation upon a broom stick “ which was become popular for its wit and  satirical vigour.

           Finally there are a number of short poems to the credit of Swift. They are light verses with not greay imagination and lyrical gharms about them.

                 Gullivers Travells was published in 1726. It is the best known book of Swift. It was intendend to be a social and political satire, but it is also and admirable story, and it is the quality which has made it immortal.

v Gulliver’s travels an introduction of the book:---

                                The book was first published , as with most of Swift’s book , anonymously. It was an immediate success, it was read by the high and low  the learned and the illiterate. The aim with which Swift started composing his famous  imaginary voyages included in Gulliver’s Travels was two fold.

                             One was the personal  and the private the triumph of mediocrity which had deprived him of his hopes and ambitions. HE who was a giant in intellect and imagination , who knew that he was a head and shoulders above the men who kept him down was embittered by it all. He mafe no secret of his fellow mwn whom he held responsible for his down fall.

                         “The purpouse of the book is to vex the world rather than divert it. I heartily hate and detest that animal called men , although I heartily love John ,Peter ,Thomas  and so forth . Upon his great foundation ,Thomas and so forth upon.

                   But see the iriny ,the book which hr intended to be a scathing satire against humanity. Has  turned out to be a children’s classics as it tackeles children’s innocent fancy and satisfied their boudless curiosity. The master of irony has become the victim of his owen weapon. But he always tried to amuse people, humanity and children by the tale of his novels.

                            Thus, it is said that his novels were satirical and it related to real world to the effect of humanity and human weakness. Which was appears lively in Gulliver’s Travels.

                  There are four voyages in the book Gulliver Travells but according to Pop “I heartedly hate and detest that animal called men.

v An  introduction of four voyages:---

                   

            In this novel four voyages were described differently by Jonathan Swift. And these four voyages are consideres as full of satire and depicted full of inhumanity in the novel.      

          There are four voyages described in the novel and it was full of satirical because it was fully depended on imagination  and it was called childish novel also:

The four voyages were:

1.    The country of Lilliput

2.   Brobdingnag

3.   The Laputa  and

4.   The country of Yahoos.

 

These four voyages were become the adventure of the Gulliver and so it was called an adventurous Journey of the protagonist of the novel.

vCritical appreciation of four voyages in Gulliver’s Travells :---

      It is worth to remembering that Swift himself regarded the “Travels” as admirable things that will wonderfully mend the world.

                      He was deeply concerned with the  nature of power. He wanted to show how it was used and abused . He wanted to demonstrate the gap between its use and reason. His means of reforming the states of  affairs was to employ reason satirically. But his irony not always been understood.

                Many critics have made heavy weather of “travels” Thus , Thackeray in the 19^th century thought that the moral they contain was “horrible, shameful, unmanly,and  blashphemouse”. 

                     Prof. Leavis in our time has regarded the force of the last book are conditioned by frustration and construction.

                 Critics have been bothered that if any unit is depicted in the novel or not. Modern criticism has become more intelligently sympathetic Swift himself and hid ideas. So we realize more fully the over all concepts contained in the “travels”. We may be more ready to realize, with Swift the  dark recess in man’s mind and to understand how deeply Swift felt about  the poverty and misrule he saw about him.

                           Some of the critics cast on the unity of “travels” arises from viewing them as if they were  a  novel instead of being a work of a different kind.

                 

                The first point they made that the protagonist is not is not drawn consistently. And into the four voyages the protagonist was found  like a mad men because he was reaches in to the different places where he was not familiar with any personality  was not reflected very well in the novel. 

                Let’s see how the four voyages were described in the novel by Swift and how a different scholar has criticized four voyages.

                 

v Critical appreciation of four voyages :==

v The firs voyage Lilliput :--

The introductory letters makes him out to be a simple sailor, a kind of fool. Yet the first book shows him to be  well- read , Well behaved and  well balanced. He is probably presented mean to mankind varying qualities from fool to genius from unrealistic ideas to a practical man of the world.

               One of his first   travel , he is ship –wrecked . He wakes up to find himself down by minute people. Six inches in high  Lilliputians of the country Lilliput. He is brought to the capital , he persuade to emperor ti give him his freedom. He is given it in some measure in return for services he must render Lilliput. He learns the local language and good deal about  the way of the life, especially court life.

               He learn even more when having captured the main fleet o Blefuscu, the neighboring power he refuses ti bring it under the power of Lilliput, because he does not wanted to be the cause of the bringing free   people into the slavery.

           He realized the over winning ambition of the emperor. He learns the savagery of the court. Articles of impeachment are drawn up against him. He is accused maliciously by discharge of his uity putting the fier in the emporers apartmen. He is also accused to treachery with the Blefuscans. His  enemies on the counsil wish to poison him. His supposed friend suggests taking out his eyes. The council are convinced of his guilt without the formal proof. But he  escapes  and any how reaches his own country.

    

                       This satire has been achieved by scaling down the pride and arrogance and unreliability of the powerful. Thus the quarrel of the Big Endians and Little Endians, and the Capering of the courtiers on the rope refelect some of the absurdities and corruption of England of European political administrators.

                    Thus, we can say that the first voyage is the struggles journey for Gulliver.

                  

v The second Voyage of Brobdingnage :--

 The second Book changes the scale now Gulliver is leaft on Brobdingnage . Here the inhabitants are giant like 60 feet heigh . While Gulliver is small like Lilliputians. HE stay with a  farmer family . He is looked after by Blumdalclith, the nine year old girl. Her father  make money by publically exchibiting him. He is sick through over-excertain. So fearing he would die , the farmer sells him to acourt . He become a play thing. The king gets interested in learning from him about England and the “mankind”. Gulliver described to him everything –English life , parliament,law courts , aarmed forces ,religion,sports and recent history .

                 The king concludes that “the bulk of your natives must be the most pernitious race of little odious vermin that Nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth . Gulliver still tries to impress the king with an account of gun powder. But it only horrifies the king. The interesting thing is that Gulliver falls from his standards in the first book.He thinks the king is too scrupulous not to hear about something which would give him absolute control over  his people’s liberty and lives. The king is an ideal king he has in peace with one- onother. Of course there are snags like poverty. They allow to make his ironic contrast with England.

According to William Hazlitt (1818)

         HE ridicules the idea that Swift is   a misanthrope  according to him..

                     “Swift has invented Brobdingnage and Llliput to make himself laugh , men and women made him angry”. He seems no structure difficulty in book-2.

                 

William Thackeray (1851)

          “Swift saw all the world blood-slot, and showed man as deserving to be the slave of brutes. He takes Gulliver’s violence against man as belonging to Swift”

    But in the people of Brobdingnagians  there the different ended , for it did not extend to the qualities of head and heart. The giants were, Gulliver found, all to human in their passion and prejudices In this they were exactly like a Lilliputians abd like ourselves. No doubt, their loves and hatreds were correspondingly deep and intense.

            Gulliver somewere found that they were rude and they have not good behavior also . But they had their own civil wars and factions but the were in eminently pragmatic and practical people.  As one of the critics put of Swift, it the mind is much yhe same in Lilliputians. Brobdinagnagian and Gulliver ,whatever the boldly stature might be.

v     Third Voyage Laputa

 According to Patrick Delany(1754)

                             He finds Swift more insane than misanthropic. He agrees with Ornery on Swift’s waste of opportunities in book,3. He also confuses Swift and Gulliver and concludes that in book 4 Swift took leave his reason.

  According to Samuel Johnson …….

            He said the book filled the reader with merriment and amusement, but book-3 gave test of pleasure. Johnson’s violent dislike of Swift disqualifies him as a judge. Otherwise he seemsto distinguish Swift from Gulliver. 

                              In the third book , the view point shifts again. Gulliver now provides the point of normality. Hr has readjusted himself to return human society on his home. When he puts to sea again he is captured by pirates . A young pirates wants to kill the captive . But Japanies Pirate is more merciful. He sets him a brief   in a canoe and Gulliver reaches Balnibarbi over which there floats the Island of Laputa which represents England and an irresponsible and irrational rulliong class. The king of Laputa reduces the  town of Balnibarbi to obedience by keeping the island hovering over them if they fall into factional or to fail to pay tribute , or else by throwing stones on them from above .The last resort  is  to drop the island on top of the houses and men . But as it would damage the bottom of the island it is seldom used. One two defies the king . But he has to give way because they have put up towers and threaten the stability of the island with load stone fixed in them and on the rock in the center of the city. The land of the Balnibarbi is also a good idea of foolishness. Here Swift satirizes the doing of the royal society eccentric experiment by some members.

                                The concern with royal society with words as the equivalents of things reflects some of the more  outré linguistic theories of the day , and continuous with the sinister fabrication of false evidence against suspects.

                                    The third book puzzles the critics but in general it seem to be an attack on over reliance on inductive reasoning. All four episodes added to this Laputa scientists. Cultivate their reach without regard of humanity. They are “pure” scientists’ theory. In Glubbdubdrib we realize that the human scientists, the arts, are as much in error the ghost shows us how wrong history and philosophy can be , because scholar have not been careful enough. But the lesson of Laggnagg is that experience does not make man wise.

  According to Thomas Sheridan (1784) :--

                      “Swift no misanthrope, but a man of eminent virtue who showed the true dignity and perfection in human nature and showed how to achieve it. Book 3 merely gives various views of the different vices. Fellies and absurdities of man not without mixture of good qualities. Structure no concern here”.

v Fourth voyage Yahoos and Houyhnhnms.

                           He finds a delightful and sought – after  comoanion and friend , much given to true charity , a born idealist etc. He adds Swift was neither cynic nor misanthrope . He rescues Dwift from being  mistaken for the misanthropic Gulliver of the book -4 . He takes Swift’s biography from biographical sources.

                     The fourth book continuous the technique of the third. Gulliver is still apparently the norm. He is put on shore by a mutinous crew. He is set upon by the Yahoos. He is rescued from them by a Houyhnhnms. At first  he thinks these rational horses must be the result of the magic . But he is horrified to find them comparing hi to Yahoos, eventhough they decided that it is astonished that he should have been taught “to imitate a rational creature”. Once again he learns a language and explains at length about Europe to his master to Houyhnhnms. His succeeds to getting his master to realize that European Yahoos must be different to the kind with which he is familiar. The dialogue allows Gulliver to describe the mode of European and English life in apparently simple terms. Construction the lot of powerful and weak nations and also showing the different kind of life lived by the rich and the poor.

                          Here Gulliver describes the ruling classes at some length. The similar between them and Yahoos who told the Gulliver that they untouchable.

                               They are rational, friendly benevolent temperate industrious. And Houyhnhnms life was so simple described . And here animals like horses are described superior than men and so it was the big satire by Swift. But finally he was rescued by unwillingly a group of Portuguese sailors.   

                    The life of horses has been based on absolute reason not by our method of drawing inferences from our experiences. There is no dispute among them, there is need for untruth. The horse have perfect memories: they need no schools : they need no written languages , no literature and they call themselves “perfection of nature”. And they have unlovable qualities like man.

                              Many commentators has been disgust by the end of this book . They seem to have failed to see how comic it is , and how necessary it is in order to round of satire Gulliver chatting with horses in horse day is a ludicrous creation yet hi neesds certain for Swift’s purposes enough of  detached  attitude of mind towards human affairs that he developed in the lands of the Houyhnhnms .

           Thus, it is said that “no human performance can arrived to any great perfection”.

v Structure of Gillivers Travells  :---

                     After description of four voyages it is became necessary to get the knowledge about the structure of the novel. And readers have good quest to know about the structure of the Gulliver’s travels.

v Unity  :---

 Travels   can not be thought as four unrelated adventures stories. It is call imaginary voyage book , and the journey of four voyages is the  primary unity of a form of literature.

                   Behind the Unity lies the more important character that grow and look back upon all adventures having relation with one another. 

               This is the third kind of unity of purpose which is more basic than either of the first two. The character described to particular form of mind.

·       Defects in unity :---

Book 3 fails to exhibit unified structure within itself. It breaks of the development of the story. It consist of visit to four voyages countries with no counting and continuing development of the story. But the book-3 is called “a catch all for satiric fragments”

                     

v Why the Voyage Lilliput placed first :---

            Swift wrote at one sense at education of Gulliver in the ways of the world , and in onother sense towards thw revolutions and condemnation of men’s depravity Gulliver is to be gradually disenchanted prepared for the violent unmasking of the man among the Yahoos and Houyhnhnms. Therefore the book-1 is made for the Lilliput to give the amusement to the people Book 1 highlights the comedy.

                   

           And so for the amusement and interest to the others people Swift have discovered the book-1 Lilliput.

v Swift’s use of Gulliver as a mask :--

   A mask is a structure device by which writer may avoid  presenting his idea in his owen person. Gulliver speaks in his travels , not Swifts Gulliver often presents to opposite of what Swift himself would  have said Gulliver functions as an obtuse mask through the story.

v  Plot as the element of travel ;--

                                              In the usual sense of plot of a story and  related to each other as cause and effect. There is no plot in travels . For example Gulliver does not arrive in brobdingang because anything that happened In Lilliput. Plot is a systematic plan to achieve a writers purpose. Swift’s plot is against the peace of the mind and readers. 

v Constract as a structural device

              Book 2 like at man through the end of the telescope and seeing him asa giant effectively contrasts, man seen through the other ends as a contemptible Lilliputian. Swift  contrast with mea’s reality with the possibility of his greatness. There is the contrast between the generouse , charitable , civilized , conduct of Captain Mendoz and the surely, arrogant ungreatful manner of Gulliver at himself immeasurably superior to the captain.

v      Irony in the travels as a structural device

      In travels irony becomes more than verbal. It become the part of the entire structure of the book, so that often the meaning is seen obliquely. See how Swift manipulate Gulliver in Brobdingang . There is there is good and evil appears ironically.

                 

                     Swift’s intention is to make must always to be carefully distinguished. The failure to make this simple distinction has caused many of the misreading of the meaning entire work.

                    Thus, the whole book is marked with the structure and so structure is cardinal point of the book.

Conclusion   

                   Thus, we can say that Swift is one of the very great  master of the  English prose. There is the stamp of the genius in every line of prose that wrote.

                       Simplicity , directness economy of the words and correctness of diction are the main features of Swift’s style. Swift is rational in his words and images . Which was refelects in his novel, mainly into the four voyages.

                 And the plot structure also the best of ever in Gulliver’s Travells. With which we can understand the onternal story and the meaning in the novel.

THANKYOU…………