Swift's Gulliver's Travels
5) Based on what you've read, is this really a work for children? What is going on here that might fly right over the heads of most young children? This book satirizes almost every institution of Swift's day, from the government to the Church. The fact the Lilliputians and Blefuscuans are fighting over which end of the egg to eat first is funy to children, but has deeper and somewhat sadder implications for adults.
6) Describe the narrator. What kind of character is he? What observational details does he choose to focus on? What, if anything, do these observations tell us about his own preoccupations or obsessions? Te things Gulliver notices seem to shift with each new country and his changing attitude. In Lilliput, he focuses on the organization of their government and cities, just as they do. In Laputa, even when describing the physical dimensions of the island, he ranges into incredibly detailed scientific observations. Gulliver is gullible -- easily molded by his environment.
Throughout the entire book, the reader is kept constantly aware of his own presence (by Swift's repeated mention of "the reader") and the speaker, who often uses "I," "me," and occasionally "we" -- a self-centered narrator if ever there was one.
8) This work is not solely
narrative as Swift includes other documents (letters, articles of impeachment, etc.). What is the effect of these inclusions? Are they merely distracting? Are they intended to add credibility to the text itself? Select one such inclusion and note the effect on your
reading of the whole. The articles of
impeachment that pertain to Gulliver in his first voyage serve to sharpen the
satire of over-officiousness and the tyranny of
bureaucracy that he sees at work in Lilliput. They are also highly unbelievable, however, which seems to emphasize that this is a work of fiction rather than strengthening the "truth" of the narrative.
