Johnathon Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels
and Utopian Ideals:
Lindsay Braman
December 8, 2003
British Literature I
Jonathan Swift wrote the
classic tale Gulliver’s Travels in the early 18th
century. It is an enduring classic both because of the adventurous
stories, travel narrative style, and enduring philosophical
statements. The book is written in first person by the narrator,
Lemuel Gulliver, and is split into four parts. Each part begins by
Gulliver being shipwrecked, marooned, or somehow lost at sea, the
discovering land previously unknown and its inhabitants, and finally,
after a time of a few months to several years, returning to Europe
again by sea. The first part is the record of Gulliver’s
adventure in Lilliput—a land so small that a city of 500 square
feet can contain 500,000 citizens. Part two is a record of Gulliver’s
experience being left behind by his ship on an unknown land mass.
Gulliver finds this land, Brobdingnag, to be inhabited by giants and
feels the tables turned, as he is now the one smaller than normal. In
part three Swift writes of Gulliver’s adventures in much more
absurd lands, Laputa and Lagado. Laputa is a floating island filled
with odd creatures, more occupied with abstract thinking with
reality. The king of this floating island rules Lagado and other
lands, such as Luggnagg. Because Lagado is ruled by such impractical
authorities, the people of Lagado are consumed with useless and even
impossible science projects instead of growing food or bettering
their community. In Gulliver’s final adventure recorded in this
book, Gulliver travels to a land named only as “the country of
the Houyhnhnms.” Although Gulliver is arguably most out of
place in this country, it ends up being his favorite. Houyhnhnm is
ruled by Houyhnhnms, horse-like creatures that have what seem to be
low-functioning humans, Yahoos, as their servants and scapegoats.
Gulliver loves the Houyhnhnms because they are peaceful and
practical, but in reality they are cold and passionless. After a stay
of over two years, it becomes intolerable for Gulliver, a creature so
like a Yahoo to live as a Houyhnhnm and so he is asked to leave.
Between each adventure Gulliver returned home to his family for a
brief stay, but after his final adventure Gulliver returns home and
is unable tolerate his family because he has been conditioned to see
them, and himself, as disgusting Yahoos. During this fourth journey
Gulliver has become somewhat deranged— immediately after
returning he buys two horses and converse with them several hours
each day. The final chapter is a formal conclusion.
The purpose of this
paper is to analyze further the philosophical implications in
Gulliver’s first two voyages. Specifically, to defend the
theses that Gulliver’s voyage to Lilliput is an adventure into
a utopia, while his second voyage, to Brobdingnag, is a voyage into a
distopia. A Utopian land, according to Thomas Moore, is a land where
government is democratic and all people have equal rights and
opportunities to have their physical needs met, as well as access to
education. Where laws exist only to protect. A Dystopia then, is a
place where government is tyrannical or unreasonable, the needy are
ignored while citizens are exploited, and laws exist to punish and
prevent crime. Neither Lilliput nor Brobdingnag fit precisely into
the definition of utopia or dystopia, but the paradoxical ties of
these lands should be striking to most readers.
In Lilliput, our first
impression of its inhabitants in negative. They tie up this strange
shipwrecked man and piece him with arrows when he tries to move. But
in reality, Lilliput is the closest to a utopia or any of the lands
Gulliver visits. The government of the Houyhnhnms is purely based on
reason and logic and the government of Laputa is based on
abstraction, but the government of the Lilliputs seems to be far more
balanced one. The government of Lilliput has laws in place to
protect, not punish, but also allows for exceptions to rules on a
personal basis, unlike the Houyhnhnms. Gulliver is at first confined
for the protection of the society, and physically restrained not for
punishment, but for safety. After Gulliver proves that he is not
dangerous he is granted his freedom by a gracious king. Although some
of the political processes and issues in Lilliput are bizarre, it is
their treatment of their citizens that can be considered a model.
Gulliver, the potentially dangerous foreigner in their land, is able
to travel freely and his special skills are put to use. Lilliputan
society has a highly developed legal system, in which falsely
accusing someone is a capital offence and in a liar is considered
lower than a thief. In this legal system people are not only punished
for crimes, but people are rewarded for doing good things. The legal
system in Lilliput understands there are some circumstances in which
breaking the law is acceptable, even necessary, such as when the
emperor’s wife’s room catches fire and Gulliver alone is
able to put it out by urinating on it (although, in a later political
ousting this issue is raised again). Although he has broken a law
regarded public decency, he is honored and thanked. The government of
Lilliput cares for is young and its poor with no exceptions. Although
many laws and customs of Lilliput are far from ideal, there are
notable similarities between Lilliput and a utopian government.
The people and
government of Brobdingnag treat Gulliver, and their own citizens,
very differently. In Gulliver’s second adventure, he is allowed
to explore the world from a different perspective, one where the
grass is twenty feet high and he himself is only one twelfth ‘normal”
size. Gulliver is found in a field, and handed over to the field’s
farmer. At first his life there seems o go well, he is fed and
allowed to sleep in the farmer’s wife’s bed. But the
farmer does not value Gulliver’s life and in a ruthlessly
capitalistic move begins to exhibit Gulliver as a freak novelty for
money. Gulliver grows thin and is soon sold to the royal Court.
Gulliver becomes little more than a slave in Brobdingnag, a court
jester exhibited for cheap entertainment. Unlike his experience in
Lilliput, Gulliver is not allowed any freedom to choose his own
lifestyle and after his experience with the ladies of the court in
Chapter five of part three, even his sexuality becomes the plaything
of the royal court. Perhaps it should come as no surprise after the
king derides Gulliver’s description of England that in
Brobdingnag education and art are virtually nonexistent. Most people
of Brobdingnag have little or no education and the government leaves
them little part to play in legislation, since all laws must have
fewer words that the alphabet’s number of letters, and no
citizen is allowed to write argumentation concerning a law. They do
possess the technology for printing books, but consider them without
practical value. Like the slave of a corrupt government, Gulliver
only manages to get back to Brittan by escaping, aided by sheer luck.
The land of Brobdingnag
fits closer the definition of distopia than does Lilliput of Utopia
but the fact remains that the paradox seems striking and perhaps one
that Jonathan Swift intended for the reader to catch. Jonathan Swift
may have intended up to not only see the transition between part one
and part two as a shift from larger than life to smaller than life,
but also from a philosophically larger than life government to a
philosophical smaller than life government.
