Write an essay on Swift’s allegorical vision in Gulliver’s
Travels.
Allegory means a story based on two levels, “apparent
level and deeper”. Swift’s polemical tour
de force ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ is a
multi-genre text working on many levels. It is at once a folk-myth,
a delightful children's story, a wonderful travelogue,a
neurotic fantasy, and an unequivocal moral tale. Each
of the four books—recounting four voyages to fictional exotic lands—may have a
different theme but all are the attempts to deflate excessive human pride.
Critics hail the work as a satiric reflection on the shortcomings of
Enlightenment thought.
The form and structure of the whole work enhances Swift's
purpose. By using outlandish humans such as midgets and giants,
Swift allows us to examine the fallacies of mankind without being overly
frightened. As Tuveson points out, “In Gulliver's Travels there
is a constant shuttling back and forth between real and unreal, normal and
absurd.”
From the start the Lilliputians arouse our interest and
win our liking. The pigmies of Lilliput ingeniously capture the giant whom
chance has cast on their shore. Gulliver becomes an object of curiosity. He is instantly
given the name “Man-Mountain”. The
manner in which several ladders are applied by the Lilliputians to feed
Gulliver and the way Gulliver cripples the fleet of Blefuscu by his hand is
incredible and exciting. Similarly the customs of Lilliputians, their dancing
on the tight rope, conflict between Big Endians and Little Endians, and between
high heel and low heel are also a great source of amusement to us. Moreover, “they
bury dead with their head directly downward because they hold an opinion that
in eleven thousand moons, they are all to rise again” which catches our attention...........................
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