Gulliver’s Travels has several places that Gulliver visits. In this paper we will take a look a in-depth look at each of the places that Gulliver visits. In my opion Gulliver parelles many places to is home country, England. Lets take a look at the first stop in Gulliver’s travels, Lilliput. Lilliput is inhabitited by people who are only six inches tall. Gulliver seems like a gigant. The Liliputians have a structured government and social lifestyles. The government has a senate, officials, a council, and an emperor. The government has several parrells to the England government.
Gulliver tells us that these competitions, to choose the officials, who can ‘Dance on the Rope’, are often the cause of fatal accidents. Flimnap, in fact, would havekilled himself ina recent fall had not one of the king’s “cushions” broken his fall. The king’s “cushion” represents George I’s mistress, who aided Walpole in his return to power after a “fall. ” Another comparison between Lilliput and England, Reldresal, a Lilliputian government officer. He represents Walpole’s successor, he payed Gulliver a special visit.
His purpose is to acquaint Gulliver further with domestic and international politics, and to enlist Gulliver for assists in protecting their land from invasion, corresponding to the Tories and the treats to France. In Lilliput, the warring parties are the High-Heels , the Tories, and the Low-Heels , the Whigs. Just as George I favored teh Whigs, so the Lilliputian emperor favors teh Low-Heels. Just as George I’s successor, the Prince of Wales, indicated favor to both parties, the Lilliputian heir to the throne wears one high heel and one low.
Although several things are parralleled to England some things are not the same. They both have punishment system that are based on different ideas, were as the Englandjudiciary system is based on on punishment, the Lilliputians judiciary system has its rewards for following the rules. They also have very stiff punishments for unjustly accusing another of a crime. If at a latter point in time the accused person is fround innocent, the person who wrongfully accused is put to an creul death and the un justly accused is rewarded materially, and also recieves a title from the emperor.
Upon leaving Lilliput for Blefuscu after he had heard that the government was bringing charges of treasion against him and his punishment was going to be blinding him, which this could be paralled to an event in England, when Bolingbroke fleed to France before he went to trial. Gulliver’s second stop was quit different from his first stop in fact it was quit oposit. The people of Brondingnag were giants, Gulliver remembers the Lilliputians, and what they must have felt like. In this visit, the Brondingnagians, are a parrellal to the English noble.
The Brobdingnags treat Gulliver as though he is a circus act to be watched instead of an human being, but they are careful of him and they don’t harm him. The first “owner” of Gulliver actually does show him and then lets his daughter play with him like a doll. As the road show life is eating away at Gulliver he is rescued when the king and queen purchase him from the farmer. He bows and sctapes, pledges undying loyality, and embraces hte tip of the queen finger. The king and queen take good care of Gulliver and have thier scholars examine him to see what was wrong with him. They do lable him a freak because of thier ingornance.
The society they are used to is that of the noble they have set ways they do things. They look down on people who are not the same as they are they are the “High” society of the world so to say. Just as the English noble feel to the “common” people of England. Because of Gulliver’s place in England his is offened after he had been talking to the king about England and the king said, “how conemptible a thing was human grandeur, which could be mimicked by such diminutive insects. ” Gulliver has his noble king and queen in mind when he treats the royality of Brobdingnag with the most highest respect.
He asks the queen for some hair and he makes chairs similar to those back home, when the king and queen incourage him to use the furniture for him self he says that he dare not place a dishonoutable part of his body on those precious hairs. The king and Gulliver have a nother conversation about England and how they do things. The king his outraged when he learns about the taxation system, and thought that Gulliver had to be mistaken or that England was headed for bankruptcy. Also the king didn’t agree with the colonies that England had unless they were only for self-protection.
He also was blown away but the fact that England had a army standing by in peacetime. He was suprised to learn about the religious differences causing problems and didn’t know what to think of the gambling. Gulliver tells us “He was perfectly astonished with the historical account I gave him of our affairs during the last century, protesting it was only an heap of conspiracies, rebellions, murders, massacres, revolutions, banishment, the very worst effects that avarice, faction, hypocrisy, perfidiousnes, cruelty, rage,madness, hatered, envy, lust, malice, or ambition could produce.
So as you can see the Brondingnag were a country that was basically the opposite of England with the exception of the thought of the English noble being higher than everyone else. The next stop, Laputa, which in Spanish means “the whore,” although Gulliver interprets Laputa as meaning “flying island” this is one of the foils the author uses. The Laputans are described in a way that makes them seem silly. The have one eye turned inward and the other up to the sky, its symbolic of thier activities.
They are very devoted to abstract science, mathemativs, and music, Astronomy is a favorite of theirs. They have odd ways of satisfy their physical needs. Husbands generally ignore their waves and it is common for wives to meet their lovers in the presence of their husbands. Gulliver recalls a tale of a Laputan woman who left the flying island, normally if a woman leaves the island she never returns, who ran away from her husband to live with a cruel, deformed footman, so odious did she find her spouse and his Laputan ways.
The Laputans houses were poorly built because they refused to uses right angles in their construction, they distain geometry, and practical discipline. Although they are very good at theoretical thinking the Laputans are very curiously irrational. Laputans are very superstitious, they have many fears mostly to do with the movement of planets and stars. These fear are in relation to the speculations of English scientists of this time. When the king of Laputa has to handle rebellious subjects, a problem the king of Brobdingnag bever faces, since he has no colonies, he has two choices to solve the problem.
He can keep his island hovering over the troblesome town so that they are deprived of sunlight and rain. This dehas comparatively mild consequences, “death and dieases,” or he could simply have the island descend directly onto teh region, crushing the town. However, because he wouldn’t want to be deprived of the riches of his olonies, and more importantly he wouldn’t want to damage the underside of the flying island the king seldom resorts to this. So as you can tell they are different from England in their religious beliefs and practices.
They have a high monarchy government where the king decides what what is the best decision that is to be made where in England the king does have council with he uses to help him make decisions that will effect the country. Gulliver’s last journey lands him in the land of the Houyhnhnms. The Houyhnhnms are horse like creatures that are governed totally by reason. They have a society that is perfectly ordered, perfectly peaceful, except for the Yahoos, and exempt from the topsy-turviness of passion.
In thier society there is also no crime, poverty, unhappiness but also their is no joy, passion, ecstatic love. Everything is done on an even keel. The Houyhnhnms are the representation of the perfect human culture. The marriages are arranged and the couples have no more feelings for each other than for any one else. The Yahoos are human-like, and are keep in a kennel, and prohibited from having anything to do with the Houyhnhnms. The Yahoo had arrived on thier island by acident. These people are less civilzed than the Houyhnhnms.
They represent the lowest traits in human nature. They are gluttonous, filthy, lascivious, theiving, violentbrutes. Only physically do they resemble civilized people. They started out on the country only two Yahoo, and as they had children and their children had children they also lost the cilivilation and needed to be around other people to stay civilized. In a way this represent the way Gulliver wanted him home country England to be, perfect in its ways. But what would they have done with the Yahoos that they would have incountered?