英文小说Gulliver's Travel

An Analysis of Satire Art of Gulliver’s TravelsIntroductionGulliver's Travels is a color with a strong satirical fantasy novel written by Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) who was the best British satirist and political commentator early 18th century. It was written between 1720 and 1725, at that time Jonathan took part in the activity that Irish people resisted the British colonial rule. In 1726 when published for the first time, Gulliver’s Travels was sold out within a week, and then sold thirty thousand copies within three weeks (Tijin P127). Gulliver's Travels is a fantastic book, which is not merely children’s books, but the literary masterpiece of containing satire and criticism. From the perspective of the hero, Gulliver’s Travels describes the adventures in the four countries A V oyage to Lilliput, A V oyage to Brobdingnag, A V oyage to Laputa, Balnibarbi, Luggnagg, Glubbdubdrib and Japan, A V oyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms. By describing the experience of the four virtual states, author was about to expose deeply and sneer at the British political and social vices. Gulliver’s Travels from different aspects described human’s weakness, which is the adventure story, is a fantasy fiction, is a travels, a political comment, is the allegorical literature, it is worth reading within the classic.Gulliver was an ordinary people in the eighteenth century. He was a brave, resolute and kind-hearted man. When he traveled, he found that the society was increasing degradation, and he concluded that British society was not civilized. The figure of Gulliver was the inflection of the author’s thoughts. He gave lots of virtuesto the character Gulliver, and described Gulliver as a man who did not care about his personal gain or loss and always prepared to help others. Gulliver is a good positive character. He always frankly narrated his weakness and mistakes, but kept silent about his strong point. He was eager to learn, and tried to take advantage of the new vision to recognize the new realities. Though he was regarded as plaything to all over the country for people to watch, he never looked down upon himself and communicated with the king of Brobdingnag as usual. When Lilliput subjected to alien invasion, he helped them with no doubt, but flatly refused to fulfill the policy of aggression and expansion.An Analysis of Satire Art of Gulliver’s TravelsGulliver’s Travel can be called a satire novel, which applied many kinds of satire techniques to reach the aim of reveal and critique, such as irony, hyperbole，contrast and symbol etc.1. IronyThe ironic applied in Gulliver’s Travel, which adequately reflected Jonathan’s satire talent.For having strictly examined all the persons of greatest name in the courts of princes, for a hundred years past, I found how the world had been misled by prostitute writers, t ascribe the greatest exploits in war, to cowards; the wisest counsel, to fools; sincerity, to flatterers; Roman virtue, to betrayers of their country; piety, to atheists; chastity, to sodomites; truth, to informers: how many innocent and excellent persons had been condemned to death or banishment by the practicing of great ministers uponthe corruption of judges, and the malice of factions: how many villains had been exalted to the highest places of trust, power, dignity, and profit: how great a share in the motions and events of courts, councils, and senates might be challenged by bawds, whores, pimps, parasites, and buffoons. How low an opinion I had of human wisdom and integrity, when I was truly informed of the springs and motives of great enterprises and revolutions in the world, and of the contemptible accidents to which they owed their success.(Yili P241)Jonathan Swift satirized those who wrote privately compiled history and distorted history. When author said “how low an opinion I had of human wisdom an d integrity”（Yili P241）, actually he censured those silly people who wrote distorted history. In this novel, author obviously alluded to British society, but he deliberately said that “for I hope the reader need not be told, that I do not in the least intend my own country, in what I say upon this occasion”（Yili P242）This sentence undoubtedly told us the author’s intention. Certainly, it was a challenge for reader’s understanding, but when reader caught the real connotations they would grinned from their heart, which was the satire for evil.2. HyperboleGulliver’s travel applied a large number of cartoon-like exaggeration techniques in order to achieve the purpose of strong irony. Behind of the cartoon-like exaggeration, Gulliver’s Travel but also embodied the true nature of things.For example Lilliput people with the method of skipping to select officials, and high-ranking official belonged to those who jumped highest without falling, whichlooked like very ridiculous and illogic, but it revealed the truth and exposed that lords were just clowns. The other example, Lillput has two struggling political parties Tramecksan and Slamecksan in this empire, and they distinguished themselves from the high and low heels of their shoes. The king only made use of low heels in the administration of the government, which caused the animosities between these two parties run so high. Another ridiculous event was the war occurred between Blefuscu and Lilliput for thirty six months just because emperor of Lilliput changed the habit of eating eggs. He commanded all his subjects to break the smaller end of their eggs. All of this looked preposterous, but in this way hyperbole correctly described the fight between two parties just because of some pretty things.3. ContrastGulliver’s Travel applied multilayer comparison, compared real, kind and beauty to fake, ugly and evil, which distinct ly expressed author’s attitude of praise, criticism, love and hate. For example, author compared the greed, envy, debauched of Yahoos to the friendliness, mercy and honesty of H ouyhnhnms, which stirred up people’s disgust to Yahoos and aroused people’s pursuit for gracious virtue to Houyhnhnms.4. SymbolSymbol was the other obvious characteristic, which totally served for revealing t he theme. Lilliput stand for the king and lords’ contemptible and minute. Tramecksan and Slamecksan stand for Whig and Tory, they always wrangled for some pretty things. The king of Brobdingnag was very wise and able. Laputa stand for the British upper rule class who suppressed and enslaved people. Houyhnhnms stand for reason.Author took advantage of those symbols to express his philosophic thoughts of society life. In this way, his thoughts could transform to the vivid image and avoid empty and boring.ConclusionThe novel used strong satire, humor, bizarre imagination and exaggeration, which described Gulliver who loved of sailing adventure traveling around the world and has experienced large and small, thrilling and interesting adventures. Although Lilliput, Brobdingnag and Houyhnhnms kingdoms were different situation, and the hero's situation was not the same, either, the layout of the whole novel and style were consistent. Moreo ver, Gulliver’s Travel had a detailed account of the causes and effects when Gulliver went to sea each time. For its complex plot, simple and vivid words, Gulliver’s Travel was popular in the world.It is classified into the range of classical literature. A famous British writer George Orwell has read this novel no less than six times in his lifetime, as he once said, if he opened a bibliography, even if other books listed had to be destroyed he must retain six books, Gulliver's Travels was one of them (wenku).WORKS CITED1. British Literature. Tianjin People’s Publishing House, 2007.2. Jonathan Swift. Gulliver’s Travel. Yili People’s press and Kewen Press, 2001.3. /view/d92495a1284ac850ad0242e6.html。