Gulliver's Travels by Jonathon Swift
Gulliver's Travels Part 3 chapter 2 summary
Gulliver is immediately surrounded by people and notices that they are all quite odd. Their heads are all tilted to one side or the other, with one eye turned inward and the other looking up. Their clothes are adorned with images of celestial bodies and musical instruments. Some of the people are servants, and each of them carries a "flapper" made of a stick with a pouch tied to the end. Their job is to aid conversation by striking the ear of the listener and the mouth of the speaker at the appropriate times to prevent their masters' minds from wandering off. Gulliver is conveyed to the king, who sits behind a table loaded with mathematical instruments. They wait an hour before there is some opportunity to arouse the king from his thoughts, at which point he is struck with the flapper. The king says something, and Gulliver's ear is struck with the flapper as well, even though he tries to explain that he does not require such actions. It becomes clear that he and the king cannot speak any of the same languages, so Gulliver is taken to an apartment and served dinner. A teacher is sent to instruct Gulliver in the language of the island, and he is able to learn several sentences. He discovers that the name of the island is Laputa, which in their language means "floating island." A tailor is also sent to provide him with new clothes, and while he is waiting for these clothes, the king orders the island to be moved. It is taken to a point above the capital city of the kingdom, Lagado, passing villages along the way and collecting petitions from the king's subjects by means of ropes sent down to the lands below. The language of the Laputans relies heavily on mathematical and musical concepts, as they value these theoretical disciplines above everything. The Laputans despise practical geometry, thinking it vulgar—so much so that they make sure that there are no right angles in their buildings. They are very good with charts and figures but very clumsy in practical matters. They practice astrology and dread changes in the celestial bodies.
Gulliver's Travels part 4 summary
Gulliver stays home for five months, but he then leaves his pregnant wife to set sail again, this time as the captain of a ship called the Adventure. Many of his sailors die of illness, so he recruits more along the way. His crewmembers mutiny under the influence of these new sailors and become pirates. Gulliver is left on an unknown shore, after being confined to his cabin for several days. In the distance, he sees animals with long hair, goatlike beards, and sharp claws, which they use to climb trees. Gulliver decides that these animals are extremely ugly and sets forth to find settlers, but he encounters one of the animals on his way. Gulliver takes out his sword and hits the animal with the flat side of it. The animal roars loudly, and a herd of others like it attack Gulliver by attempting to defecate on him. He hides, but then he sees them hurrying away. He emerges from his hiding place to see that the beasts have been scared away by a horse. The horse observes Gulliver carefully, and then it neighs in a complicated cadence. Another horse joins the first and the two seem to be involved in a discussion. Gulliver tries to leave, but one of the horses calls him back. The horses appear to be so intelligent that Gulliver concludes that they are magicians who have transformed themselves into horses. He addresses them directly and asks to be taken to a house or village. The horses use the words "Yahoo" and "Houyhnhnm," which Gulliver tries to pronounce. Gulliver is led to a house, and he takes out gifts, expecting to meet people. He finds instead that there are more horses in the house, sitting down and engaged in various activities. He thinks that the house belongs to a person of great importance, and he wonders why they should have horses for servants. A horse looks Gulliver over and says the word "Yahoo." Gulliver is led out to the courtyard, where a few of the ugly creatures Gulliver has seen are tied up. Gulliver is lined up and compared with one of the creatures, and Gulliver finds that the creature does look quite human. The horses test Gulliver by offering him various foods: hay, which he refuses, and flesh, which he finds repulsive but which the Yahoo devours. The horses determine that he likes milk and give him large amounts of it to drink. Another horse comes to dine, and they all take great pleasure in teaching Gulliver to pronounce words in their language. They cannot determine what he might like to eat until Gulliver suggests that he could make bread from their oats. He is given a place to sleep with straw for the time being. Gulliver endeavors to learn the horses' language, and they are impressed by his intellect and curiosity. After three months, he can answer most of their questions and tries to explain that he comes from across the sea, but the horses, or Houyhnhnms, do not believe that such a thing is possible. They think that Gulliver is some kind of Yahoo, though superior to the rest of his species. He asks them to stop using that word to refer to him, and they consent. Gulliver tries to explain that the Yahoos are the governing creatures where he comes from, and the Houyhnhnms ask how their horses are employed. Gulliver explains that they are used for traveling, racing, and drawing chariots, and the Houyhnhnms express disbelief that anything as weak as a Yahoo would dare to mount a horse that was so much stronger than it. Gulliver explains that the horses are trained from a young age to be tame and obedient. He describes the state of humanity in Europe and is asked to speak more specifically of his own country. In the fourth voyage, Gulliver reaches a stage at which he no longer cares for humankind at all, though in this section we see only the beginnings of his transformation. After visiting countries in which he is too large, too small, and too down-to-earth, he finds himself in a country where he is neither rational nor moral enough, stuck in the limbo between the humane Houyhnhnms and the untamed, unruly Yahoos. In these chapters we see the rough outline of Houyhnhnm society, which Gulliver finds pleasant but still alien. In the next section, he attempts to become a part of this society. In the meantime, we are treated to a description of the Houyhnhnms' society. Swift plays a clever trick in the first two chapters, obscuring the true nature of the Houyhnhnms so that we follow Gulliver in his mistaken belief that the horses are magicians or the servants of a magician. Instead of telling us outright that the horses are intelligent, Swift allows us to discover this fact through Gulliver's eyes. As a result, what looks strange to Gulliver also looks strange to us, and at some point in the description of the horses' behavior, we realize that there is nothing more to these creatures than meets the eye. Instead of being tools of humans, the horses are revealed to be intelligent in their own right. In one stroke, they go from being a manifestation of humanity to something utterly nonhuman. There are a number of differences between the first three voyages and the fourth. Three of these differences are particularly important because they signal changes in the overall satirical thrust of the novel: Gulliver finds himself not among fellow humans, however distorted in size or culture, but among a race of horses; instead of being happy to leave, he is eager to stay; and instead of seeing the world through his eyes, we are forced to step back and look at Gulliver himself as an important, though not always sympathetic, player in the drama. In other ways, these chapters are similar to the initial chapters of the other voyages. Gulliver arrives in a strange land, becomes the guest or prisoner of the people who live there, learns their language, and slowly begins to learn about their culture and tell them about European culture. The major difference here is that the humans, or Yahoos, are not his hosts. Instead, they are vile creatures that get nothing but his contempt. In his descriptions of the Yahoos, Swift uses the technique of describing the familiar in unfamiliar terms. Only slowly does it dawn on us that the Yahoos are humans. As with the realization that the Houyhnhnms are intelligent in their own right, the sudden shock—which we experience along with Gulliver—of recognizing the Yahoos for what they are strengthens the impact of the description. Over the course of two years, Gulliver describes the state of affairs in Europe, speaking to his Houyhnhnm master about the English Revolution and the war with France. He is asked to explain the causes of war, and he does his best to provide reasons. He is also asked to speak of law and the justice system, which he does in some detail, criticizing lawyers severely in the process. The discussion then turns to other topics, such as money and the different kinds of food eaten in Europe. Gulliver explains the different occupations in which people are involved, including service professions such as medicine and construction. Gulliver develops such a love for the Houyhnhnms that he no longer desires to return to humankind. His master tells him that he has considered all of Gulliver's claims about his home country and has come to the conclusion that Gulliver's people are not so different from the Yahoos as they may at first have seemed. He describes all the flaws of the Yahoos, principally detailing their greed and selfishness. He admits that Gulliver's humans have different systems of learning, law, government, and art but says that their natures are not different from those of the Yahoos. Gulliver wants to observe the similarities between Yahoos and humans for himself, so he asks to go among the Yahoos. He finds them to be very nimble from infancy but unable to learn anything. They are strong, cowardly, and malicious. The principle virtues of the Houyhnhnms are their friendship and benevolence. They are concerned more with the community than with their own personal advantages, even choosing their mates so as to promote the race as a whole. They breed industriousness, cleanliness, and civility in their young and exercise them for speed and strength. Gulliver's master attends a Grand Assembly of Houyhnhnms, where the horses debate whether or not to extinguish the Yahoos from the face of the Earth. Gulliver's master suggests that instead of killing them, they should, as the Europeans do with their horses, merely castrate them. Eventually, unable to breed, the Yahoos will die out, and in the meantime the Houyhnhnms can breed asses to take their place. Gulliver then describes further aspects of the Houyhnhnms' society. They create excellent poetry, have a sound knowledge of medicinal herbs, build simple houses, and usually live about seventy or seventy-five years, dying of old age. They feel no sorrow about death, accepting it as a routine element of life. They have no writing system and no word to express anything evil. A room is made for Gulliver, and he furnishes it well. He also makes new clothes for himself and settles into life with the Houyhnhnms quite easily. He begins to think of his friends and family back home as Yahoos. However, he is called by his master and told that others have taken offense at his being kept in the house as a Houyhnhnm. The master has no choice but to ask Gulliver to leave. Gulliver is very upset to hear that he is to be banished. He builds a canoe with the help of a fellow-servant and departs sadly. Gulliver does not want to return to Europe, and so he begins to search for an island where he can live as he likes. He finds land and discovers natives there. He is struck by an arrow and tries to escape the natives' darts by paddling out to sea. He sees a sail in the distance and thinks of going toward it, but then decides he would rather live with the barbarians than the European Yahoos, so he hides from the ship. The seamen, including Don Pedro de Mendez, discover him after landing near his hiding place. They question him, laughing at his strange horselike manner of speaking, and cannot understand his desire to escape from their ship. Don Pedro treats Gulliver hospitably, offering him food, drink, and clothes, but Gulliver can think of him only as a Yahoo and is thus repulsed by him. Gulliver is forced to travel back to England, where he returns to his family, which has been convinced that he is dead. He is filled with disgust and contempt for them. For a year he cannot stand to be near his wife and children, and he buys two horses and converses with them for four hours each day. Gulliver concludes his narrative by acknowledging that the law requires him to report his findings to the government but that he can see no military advantage in attacking any of the locations he discovered. Moreover, he particularly wishes to protect the Houyhnhnms.
Gulliver's Travels Part 3 chapter 5 summary
Gulliver visits the academy, where he meets a man engaged in a project to extract sunbeams from cucumbers. He also meets a scientist trying to turn excrement back into food. Another is attempting to turn ice into gunpowder and is writing a treatise about the malleability of fire, hoping to have it published. An architect is designing a way to build houses from the roof down, and a blind master is teaching his blind apprentices to mix colors for painters according to smell and touch. An agronomist is designing a method of plowing fields with hogs by first burying food in the ground and then letting the hogs loose to dig it out. A doctor in another room tries to cure patients by blowing air through them. Gulliver leaves him trying to revive a dog that he has killed by supposedly curing it in this way. On the other side of the academy there are people engaged in speculative learning. One professor has a class full of boys working from a machine that produces random sets of words. Using this machine, the teacher claims, anyone can write a book on philosophy or politics. A linguist in another room is attempting to remove all the elements of language except nouns. Such pruning, he claims, would make language more concise and prolong lives, since every word spoken is detrimental to the human body. Since nouns are only things, furthermore, it would be even easier to carry things and never speak at all. Another professor tries to teach mathematics by having his students eat wafers that have mathematical proofs written on them.
Part 1 summary
In Gulliver's Travels, Gulliver describes his four voyages. In the first voyage, he is the only person to reach land after a shipwreck. He awakes to find himself tied down by tiny men; these are the Lilliputians. A Hurgo (official) supervises them. Gulliver agrees to cooperate, and is untied and taken to the capital where he meets Lilliput's Emperor. He agrees to serve the Lilliputians, and is granted partial freedom in return. Gulliver prevents an invasion from Lilliput's enemy, Blefuscu, by stealing the enemy's ships and is given a high title of honor. He makes friends and enemies at court and learns details of Lilliputian society. After putting out a fire in the palace by urinating on it, he is accused of high treason through polluting the palace. He is sentenced to be blinded and starved. However, Gulliver escapes to Blefuscu, finds a boat, sails out to sea, and is picked up by an English ship.
Gulliver's Travels Part 3 chapter 10 summary
The Luggnaggians tell Gulliver about certain immortal people, children born with a red spot on their foreheads who are called Struldbrugs. Gulliver devises a whole system of what he would do if he were immortal, starting with the acquisition of riches and knowledge. Contrary to his fantasy, however, he is told that after the age of thirty, most Struldbrugs grow sad and dejected, and by eighty, they are incapable of affection and envious of those who are able to die. If two of the Struldbrugs marry, the marriage is dissolved when one reaches eighty, because "those who are condemned without any fault of their own to a perpetual continuance in the world should not have their misery doubled by the load of a wife." He meets some of these people and finds them to be unhappy and unpleasant, and he regrets ever wishing for their state.
The novel over time
• Develops over time e.g. present = graphic novel • Genre changes in response to cultural changes over time • Novel has a broader appeal to new audience (rise in literacy means audience is more expansive) • Increasing demand for travel literature in 18th C, people wanted to know about the new worlds that were opening up
Gulliver's Travels part 1 notes
• Rising popularity of the novel o As the novel develops and becomes more defined it focuses on characters more close to home • Realism of the novel is important at this time, trying to capture life as it really is, everyday life is worth recording • Increasing focus on individualism, trying to differentiate between epic heroes • Bildungsroman o Character builds and develops • Society itself is having a bildungsroman - dark ages, civil war then light of 18th C • Some of the writers at this time are v sceptical - are things getting better? E.g. Jonathon swift • GT is a satire and attacks idea of character moving to a higher state of society • Swift has different targets throughout Gulliver's Travels • As a satirist Swift makes us look back to Pope and Dryden but has more in common with Rochester • Swift believes that society is self-deluded in thinking society has distanced itself from violence of Civil War o Largely due to JS being Irish, he is exposed to conflicts still going on • People are getting too good an opinion of themselves, human nature is unchanged, it has just distanced itself on the surface from its barbaric past • Number of deaths was increased for petty crimes in order to maintain law and order • Merchant = hero, but a lot of the cargo being transported were people (slavery) questionable morals • Many ways that Gulliver could fit into a standard 18th C novel but his adventures do not • Subverts expectations of action which is world of romance but character is expected from 18th C lit • Gulliver is middle-class, normal man, not an epic hero in anyway but as a narrative he is very attentive to detail • All these intricate details make it seem more exact • Satires so many values that novel upholds o Individualism o Bettering state of the world • Gulliver is an ordinary guy but is also an individual with a distinct mind o Fine attention to detail, v precise o Wants to give us a full picture of the worlds he has visited • Wants to give us a full picture but the insane details means he borderlines the obsessive • How much does this accumulation of knowledge contribute to a greater understanding? • You capture life by understanding and writing down every single detail e.g. talking about his bodily functions • What is behind the popularity of the novel is how we somehow get a picture of real life • This obsession with being complete makes him less objective than he thinks, makes him a v unreliable narrator • G changes over time, following bildungsroman structure, G not necessarily progress or advance - more dark than that • Starts to see the pettiness of European culture and all its grandeur • After living with the giants, and seeing the human body blown up to such a great proportion he develops a pathological disgust towards his own body • Swift = v cynical of personal autonomy and the bettering of humanity • Something v antisocial about G, first decides to leave fam to get money - family relations and wealth = at odds? • If you make money can't spend as much time with your family, working all the time • Doesn't feel like G can go home after seeing all these amazing places • Emperor uses grand images and big words in order to try and big himself up - satire actually makes him smaller • Swift is satirising English politics and the politicians o Largely comes from the fact that Swift lived in Ireland so he knew the dominate nature of English politics and rule • People go to war for petty reasons e.g. French and English war - this is relayed in the novel o Mocks their weird relationship- F + E hate each other but still trade and send their children to each other's countries for education • Swift allows us to see a people who are small in stature but also in mind • In this world, G becomes small - he becomes much more concerned with status/ rank • Bizarrely concerned with charges that he had an affair with a woman in the small world
Gulliver's Travels Part 3+4 notes
• Second world is much bigger o G assumes giants will be savage monsters who will try to hurt him, was v wrong - they are an "enlightened race" o Human race is far more sinful, seeing the giants makes him realise the flaws in the human race • Giants are v smelly, can't get away from the smell of their bodies o G becomes v self-conscious of his body, wasn't self-conscious with little people as he couldn't see them o Human body becomes gross esp. in Book 4 and in Book 3 G realises the mind is just as stupid as the body o Small people = small minds, big people = big hearts and big in other ways • Specific target = grand academy (scientific research place in London) Swift clearly does not think science will make society or people better • When he goes to 'flying island' people are so up in the clouds and away from influence of mathematics, G struggles even to get their attention o These people are brilliant on paper but clumsy in their real lives • If it's like a pilgrimage it has a spiritual/ psychological element to it, has an end goal • G assumes that travelling will help him learn from the places he goes - consumerist element, thinks all this knowledge will make him a better/ more smart person • G = intellectually curious, wants to travel and see the world • G begins to gain a perspective on his own culture - travel narratives often give us a new way of understanding our own lives • G begins to see the pettiness of English social system, put value on things that don't really matter • Chap 5 G = particularly interested in mechanical structures and long labours • The need to standardise language is to make it consistent - easy to understand, simplification • Developments in science mean language needs to be developed, science has to be communicated in an objective way, without poetic flair • Swift is making fun of dreams of bettering the words, a world w/o talent and imagination and in which life would be easy for us • G shows us how dreams turn into nightmares e.g. Book 4 • Swift challenges us to imagine a place of immortality, what would it be like to live forever pg. 400 • The Luggnaggians don't die, but don't get wiser like G thinks, they eventually decay and so do their minds • What is the result of the stripping of illusions? Does this make G happy? To face the reality of human nature? • Houyhnhnms = pinnacle of humanity, people of reason • In the land of the Houyhnhnms, love is not erotic, lovers = more like friends, marriages are open to a real fondness of the individual o They only have sex to make strong children, all emotions are bled out of the human race in the Houyhnhnms • Houyhnhnms are so good and honest that they don't really need governance, grand assembly only meets every 4 years • Their approach to knowledge is practical and empirical • Purely oral society, they pass down tradition, nothing is written down o Alarming: seems like a society without literature o Houyhnhnms however, are intensely imaginative • Being w/ the Houyhnhnms gives G a new perspective of the human race o Terrifying thing for G (and for us) is that in the world of the Houyhnhnms, G does not recognise humans - has to become a kind of anthropologists o When G looks at human nature from a scientific POV, it's reminiscent of a Hobbesian state of nature - "short, brutish and nasty" o Humans don't recognise him either • Human fight over trivial things because naturally we are so violent • The emerging view of human nature seems to derive from Hobbes' state of nature, everything is driven by power and selfishness - everyone cares about themselves • In Houyhnhnms' world therefore, humans are seen as less than animals o Horse is made a symbol of reason and humans = symbol of animality - interesting as it's a reversal of the horse-man relationship (what is on top is no longer controlling what is below) o Swift = challenging the assumption that humans are superior to animals o Only difference is we have a bit of reason but we misuse this reason so that it's not useful o We find ways of tormenting other animals with our reason, our reason makes us worse than animals • Swift is making a process of de-mystification, G gradually finds out what humans are really like • Leaves journey in Book 4 as being a bit of cavalier - no longer attracted to his wife, passes out when she tries to kiss him, smell of human flesh really offends him o G is alienated from humans around him so surrounds himself with horses for company • G has dreams of differentiating himself from weaknesses of human nature • G has a lot of pride in being honest, wants to be like the Houyhnhnms who don't tell lies • Satirist is superior, they alone can see beyond the flaws of mankind • It is impossible to be completely truthful, those who claim to be are lunatics, G's voice of reason at the end of the text is v unreasonable • Swift, like Pope, is a v conservative person politically • Is arts progressing like science is progressing? o Are we advancing knowledge in arts? Is it even right to speak in this way?