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Johnson Scathingly Dismissed Gullivers Travels as a Story about “Little People and Big People”; In Your View, What is it About?
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“One of the greatest triumphs that the human soul has ever achieved” T.S.Eliot, 1923, (speaking of the fourth voyage) “A satire on the four aspects of man: the physical, the political, the intellectual and the moral............It is also a brilliant parody of travel literature; and is at once science fiction and a witty parody of science fiction. It expresses savage indignation at the follies, vices, and stupidities of men, and everywhere implicit in the book as a whole is an awareness of mans tragic insufficiency. But at the same time it is a great comic masterpiece” Samuel Holt Monk “unconvincing and unpopular with all but the professional misanthrope” William A. Eddy, 1923 Gullivers Travels elicits as many responses as there are readers of it. Indeed, the commentary already available makes adding to it a daunting task. However, some solace can be found in the fact that this piece of work seems inexhaustible, with each new age offering different perspectives. I must confess to thinking that due to the seemingly simple question to this essay that I would not experience too many difficulties, to this I have been proven very wrong. I, like many others before me underestimated the complexities of Gulliver’s Travels leaving me initially unable to decide what it was about. There are so many themes running through this piece of work that it seems impossible say definitively what it is about! Swift’s voice is very evident throughout the book, indeed there are times when his presence is felt so strongly that unlike a lot of authors works, I feel it would be impossible to justly consider the question without exploring contextual and historical perspectives as well as trying to discover a little of Swift’s attitudes and personality. In the case of Swift, distinguishing the literary work from the literary life of the author is a particular problem, acknowledged by many of Swifts commentators including F. R. Leavis, who strongly disapproved of such commentary. Inability to separate Gulliver from Swift seems to lead inevitably to a psychoanalytic approach, (the dangers of which I shall discuss later) a problem which is made more difficult by Gulliver’s lack of depth along with the strongly felt presence of Swift. Gulliver appears to be more of a functional character rather than a realistic one, adding to the difficulty of distinguishing Swift’s voice from Gullivers. The shallowness of the character of Gulliver has fueled discussion as to whether or not Gullivers Travels can be placed in the genre of the novel: “while it has, in the nature and locations of Gulliver’s adventures, the improbability of romance, it has in it’s narrative manner the realism of a novel” Tippett, pg28 Whilst Allen argues that: “though possessing many of the attributes of a novelist [Swift] cannot be called one” Tippett on Allen, pg.28 When considering what Gullivers Travels is about, it is difficult to ignore the influences of the many television and film adaptations, most of which reflect Johnson's sentiments. Indeed, Gullivers Travels has infiltrated our society to such an extent that it would be difficult to find anyone in the western world who would not hold some opinion of what Gullivers Travels is about. I believe that much of the popular opinion expressed would also concur with Johnson’s. To say that Gullivers Travels is ‘a story about little people and big people’ is plainly a gross underestimation of this piece of work, and yet cannot be dismissed as untrue! It has been said of Gullivers Travels that: “from the highest to the lowest it is universally read, from the Cabinet Council to the nursery” Tippett, (1989) cites John Gay, pg20. This is true, and from the eyes of a child it is a story about little people and big people. For Johnson to dismiss it as such is more a statement about Johnson's intellect than Swifts talents! On the other hand, there is a lot to be said in favour of the highly edited children's versions of Gullivers Travels, which I found more enjoyable than the recently read unabridged copy, which would have benefited from selective editing! The ‘little people and big people’ are important as regards perspective, which is a considerable theme: “nothing is great or little otherwise than by comparison” (G.T. 11.1) Swift used perspective throughout the book to illustrate this. For example, Gulliver comments that he is horrified by the sight of the huge 'monstrous breast’ of a nursing mother in Brobdingnog, and on noticing how their skins were “rough and coarse and ill coloured” Gulliver: “reflect[s] upon the fair skins of our English ladies, who appear so beautiful to us, only because they are our own size, and their defects not to be seen but through a magnifying glass, where we find through experiment that the smoothest and whitest skins look rough and coarse, and ill coloured.
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