Gulliver's Travel by Jonathan Swift as an adventure story

Gulliver's Travel

Jonathan Swift

Gulliver's Travel as an adventure story – discuss.

Answer: The book is written in the first person point of view through the eyes of Lemuel Gulliver, a surgeon and the sea captain who travels to remote areas of the world and describes four adventures. In the first, Gulliver is the only survivor of a shipwreck and he swims in the island of Lilliput where people less than six inches tall have tied him up. He was then taken to the capital city and eventually released. Lilliputians engage in ridiculous rituals and petty debates. Political relations, for example, are divided between men who wear high heels (symbol of the English Tories) and those who wear low heels (representing the English wig), and court positions that are best filled with rope dancing. Gulliver was asked to defend Lilliput against the Blefuscu Empire, with which Lilliput should break any end of an egg involved in the war, a matter of religious doctrine. Gulliver captured Blefuscu's naval fleet, thus, resisting and preventing disaster but refusing to assist the emperor of Lilliput in his victory at Blefuscu. Letter Gulliver urinated and extinguished the fire at the Royal Palace. Eventually he went out of grace and was punished for being blind and starving. He sailed to Blefuscu where he found a boat of normal size and was thus able to return to England. 

Gulliver's second voyage took him to Brobdingnag, inhabited by a race of giants. A farm worker finds Gulliver and delivers him to the farm owner. The farmer starts showing Gulliver in exchange for money and the young woman Glumdal Clich takes care of him. One day the queen ordered the farmer to bring the Gulliver to her and she bought Gulliver. He became a favorite in court even though the King had reacted Gulliver’s rituals with contempt when describing the great achievements of his own civilization. Reacting to Gulliver's description of the English government and history, the King concluded that the English must be an 'odious vermin' race. Gulliver offered to make gunpowder and cannon for the King, but the King was alarmed at the thought of such a weapon. Eventually Gulliver is picked up by an eagle and then rescued by people of his own size near the sea.

On Gulliver's third voyage he was interrupted by pirates and finally reached the island of Laputa. All the people of Laputa point one eye inwards and the other upwards, and they are so lost in thought that they must be reminded to pay attention to the world around them. Although they are greatly concerned with math and music but they do not have practical application for their learning. Laputa is the hometown of the king of Balnibarbri, the continent below it. Gulliver has been allowed to leave the island and visit Legado, the capital of Balnibarbri. He finds people living in the ruins of farmland and noise in apartments. Gulliver's host explained that the residents follow the prescriptions of a scholarly academy in the city where scientists undertake a completely unscientific project, such as extracting the sun's rays from cucumbers. Gulliver later visited Globudubdrib, the island of sorcerers, where he spoke with great men of the past and learned the lies of history from them. In the kingdom of Luggnagg he meets Struldbrugs, who are immortal but in age they are mortal and thus miserable. From Lugganagg he was able to travel to Japan and from there to England.

In the final part of his journey, Gulliver visits the land of Houyhnhnms, a race of intelligent horses who are cleaner and more rational, communal and generous (most of them have no words of deception or evil) but barbaric, dirty, yahoo names. And degenerate humanoid races, some of which make a mockery of human-animal relations. The Houyhnhnms are very curious about Gulliver who seems to be both Yahoo and civilized but after Gulliver describes his country and its history to Master Houyhnhnm, the Houyhnhnms concludes that the people of England are no more rational than Yahoo. It is finally decided that Gulliver must leave Houyhnhnms. Gulliver then returned to England so disgusted with humanity that he avoided his family and bought a house and instead had a conversation with them.

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Also Read: 😀

👉  Where is Brobdingnag?

👉  What kind of behave was done with Gulliver by the inhabitants of Brobdingnag?

👉  What is the full name of the Lilliputian emperor in Swift's Gulliver's Travel?

👉  What was the only obstacle to Gulliver's third voyage in?

👉  Gulliver's Travel as an adventure story – discuss.