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BOOK REPORT
—— Gulliver's Travels
In this short term, I have read Gulliver's Travel, which is written by Jonathan Swift—— a British writer. From the book, I really acquire a lot of knowledge which is unknown to me. For example, it makes me know more about British history in the seventeenth century and the eighteenth century. Before that I just know Britain becomes stronger and stronger at that time. It is Gullier's Travels that disclose the dark of the British society.
About the author and the background of the book
The book was published in 1726, was regarded as a children's literary works, but it is actually attacked the British social degradation and corruption of satirical writing. Because at that time, British society was rather dark.
Jonathan Swift was a son of the English lawyer Jonathan Swift. He was born in Dublin, Ireland, on November 30, 1667. He grew up there under the care of his uncle. Then he attended Trinity College when he was fourteen. And he stayed there for seven years. He graduated from it in 1688. In that year, he became the secretary of Sir William Temple who was an English politician and member of the Whig party. In 1694, he took religious orders in the Church of Ireland and then spent a year as a country parson. He then spent further time in the service of Temple before returning to Ireland to become the chaplain of the earl of Berkeley. Meanwhile, he had begun to write satires on the political. He worked on A Tale of a Tub, which supports the position of the Anglican Church against its critics on the left and the right. And The Battle of the Books, which argues for the supremacy of the classics against modern thought and literature. He also wrote a number of political pamphlets in favor of the Whig party. In 1709 he went to London to campaign for the Irish church but was unsuccessful. After some conflicts with the Whig party, mostly because of Swift’s strong allegiance to the church. he became a member of the more conservative Tory party in 1710.
Unfortunately for Swift, the Tory government fell out of power in 1714 and Swift, despite his fame for his writings, fell out of favor. Swift had been hoping to be assigned a position in the Church of England instead of returning to Dublin, where he became the dean of St. Patrick’s. During his brief time in England, Swift had become friends with writers such as Alexander Pope. The third voyage of Gulliver’s Travels is assembled from the work Swift did during this time. However, the final work was not completed until 1726, and the narrative of the third voyage was actually the last one completed. Gulliver’s Travels was a controversial work when it was first published in 1726. Ever since, editors have excised many of the passages, particularly the more caustic ones dealing with bodily functions. Even without those passages, however, Gulliver’s Travels serves as a biting satire, and Swift ensures that it is both humorous and critical, constantly attacking British and European society through its descriptions of imaginary countries.
Late in life, Swift seemed to become even more caustic and bitter. Three years before his death, he was unable to care for himself, and guardians were appointed. Based on these facts, some people have concluded that he became insane. However, the truth seems to be that Swift was suddenly incapacitated by a stroke late in life, and that prior to this incident his mental capacities were unimpaired. Gulliver’s Travels is about a specific set of political conflicts, but if it were nothing more than that it would long ago have been forgotten. The staying power of the work comes from its depiction of the human condition and its often despairing, but occasionally hopeful, sketch of the possibilities for humanity to rein in its baser instincts.
The main content of the book
Part 1: A Voyage to Lilliput and Blefuscu
4 May 1699 — 13 April 1702
The author gives some account of himself and family. This part tells us his first travel. He is shipwrecked, and swims for his life. Finally he got the shore in the country of Lillivput. Gulliver is made a prisoner, and carried up the country. The book begins with a very short preamble in which Lemuel Gulliver, in the style of books of the time, gives a brief outline of his life and history prior to his voyages. He enjoys travelling, although it is that love of travel that is his downfall.
During his first voyage, Gulliver is washed ashore after a shipwreck and finds himself caught by a race of people, less than 6 inches high. They are inhabitants of the neighbouring and rival countries of Lilliput. After giving assurances of his good behaviors, he is given a residence in Lilliput and becomes a favorite of the court. From there, the content follows Gulliver's observations on the Court of Lilliput. He is also given the permission to roam around the city on a condition he not harm their subjects. Gulliver helps the Lilliputians to subdue their neighbours the Blefuscudians by stealing their warships. However, he refuses to make the country become a province of Lilliput. But it displeases the King and the court. Gulliver is charged with treason and sentenced to be blinded. With the help of a kind friend, Gulliver flees to Blefuscu, where he finds an abandoned boat. He asks for the king of Blefuscudians to restore the abandoned boat. At first, the king refuses to do it. But a few days later, the king promises to restore the boat. With the help of the king, Gulliver restores the boat successfully and sails out. On the way, he meet with a strong storm. Fortunately, he is rescued by a passing ship. Then the captain of the boat sent him back to Britain.
Part 2: A Voyage to Brobdingnag
20 June 1702 — 3 June 1706
When the sailing ship is steered off course by storms and have to go in to land for searching for fresh water, Gulliver is abandoned by his companions and found by a farmer who is 72 feet tall. He brings Gulliver to home and ask his daughter cares for Gulliver. The farmer treats him as a curiosity and exhibits him for money. The word gets out and the Queen of Brobdingnag wants to see the show. She loves Gulliver and he is then bought by her and kept as a favorite at court.
Since Gulliver is too small to use their huge chairs, beds, knives and forks, the
queen asks the craftsman to build a small house for Gulliver so that he can be carried around in it. This is referred to as his "travelling box." In between small adventures such as fighting giant wasps and being carried to the roof by a monkey, he discusses the state of Europe with the King. The King is not interested with Gulliver's accounts of Europe, especially upon learning of the usage of guns and cannons. On a trip to the seaside, his travelling box is taken by a giant eagle which drops Gulliver and his box right into the sea. Then he stays in the box for some days until he was found by some sailors. At first, he thinks that he still in Brobdingnag. But he is wrong when he get out of the box. He is glad to see these people who are as big as him. Then he returns Britain again.
Part 3: A Voyage to Laputa, Balnibarbi, Luggnagg, Glubbdubdrib, and Japan
5 August 170
6 — 16 April 1710
After Gulliver's ship is attacked by pirates, he is marooned close to a rocky island, which near India. Fortunately he is rescued by the flying island of Laputa, a kingdom devoted to the arts of music and mathematics but unable to use them for practical ends.
Laputa's method of throwing rocks at rebellious surface cities also seems the first time that aerial bombardment was conceived as a method of warfare. While there, he tours the country as the guest of a low-ranking courtier and sees the ruin brought about by blind pursuit of science without practical results, in a satire on bureaucracy and the Royal Society and its experiments. At The Grand Academy of Lagado great resources and manpower are employed on researching completely preposterous and unnecessary schemes such as extracting sunbeams from cucumbers, softening marble for use in pillows, learning how to mix paint by smell, and uncovering political conspiracies by examining the excrement of suspicious persons (see muckraking).
Gulliver is then taken to Balnibarbi to await a trader who can take him on to Japan. While waiting for passage, Gulliver takes a short side-trip to the island of Glubbdubdrib, where he visits a magician's dwelling and discusses history with the ghosts of historical figures, the most obvious restatement of the "ancients versus moderns" theme in the book. In Luggnagg he encounters the struldbrugs, unfortunates who are immortal, but not forever young, but rather forever old, complete with the infirmities of old age and considered legally dead at the age of eighty. After reaching Japan, Gulliver asks the Emperor "to excuse my performing the ceremony imposed upon my countrymen of trampling upon the crucifix", which the Emperor grants. Gulliver returns home, determined to stay there for the rest of his days.
Part 4: A Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms
10 September 1710 – 2 July 1715
Despite his earlier intention of remaining at home, Gulliver returns to the sea as the captain of a merchantman. But he is bored with his employment as a surgeon. On this voyage he is forced to find new crews to his crew who he believes to have turned the rest of the crew against him. His crew then mutiny, and after keeping him contained for some time resolve to leave him on the first piece of land they come
across and continue as pirates. He is abandoned in a landing boat and comes first upon a race of terrible deformed and savage humanoid creatures. And they make him disgust. Then he meets a horse and comes to understand that they call themselves Houyhnhms (which in their language means "the perfection of nature"), and that they are the rulers, while the deformed creatures called Yahoos are human beings in their base form.
Gulliver becomes a member of the horse's household, and comes to both admire and emulate the Houyhnhnms and their lifestyle, rejecting his fellow humans as merely Yahoos endowed with some semblance of reason which they only use to exacerbate and add to the vices Nature gave them. However, an Assembly of the Houyhnhnms rules that Gulliver, a Yahoo with some semblance of reason, is a danger to their civilization. As a result, Gulliver is expelled. He leaves the land by boat. And then rescued by a Portuguese ship, Gulliver is surprised to see that Captain Pedro Mendez, a Yahoo, is a wise, courteous and generous person. He returns to his home in England, but he has difficulty adjusting himself to live among Yahoos. Even he is disgust about his wife and children. Some days later, he buys two little horse and regard them as his best friends.
My review of Gulliver's Travels
After reading Gulliver's Travels, I really benefit much from it. The stories in the Gulliver's Travels are ironic, humorous, exaggerated and fantastic. The hero of the travels～Gulliver traveled around the world 4 times and suffered numerous adventures, which were dangerous but interesting.
In Gulliver's Travels, the voyage to the Lilliput and Brobdingnag really attracts me. Lilliput is a country of small people who are less than 6 inches high. It is certain that Gulliver is a giant to them. When Gulliver stayed in Lilliput, he helped the small people a lot. In the contrast, Brobdingnag is a country of giant. Gulliver was a small people to them. He was appreciated by the queen of the Brobdingnag. So he could live in the palace for a long time. It is unbelievable that there are so small and giant people in the world. But the travel that impresses me most is the voyage to the country of the Houyhnhnms. The hero was abandoned by his crews in an island. And he found that it was an island ruled by horses. Horse was the master of this country. These horses were called Houyhnhnms.
The horses on the island were kind, friendly and honest. There were no words such as “cheat” or “lie” in their language. As a result, they also did not understand these meaning. They did not know what was “suspicion” and what was “distrust”. In their country, everything was authentic and transparent.
Gulliver had a good time in that horses’ country. He blended in the society entirely so that he was quite digest about contact with Yahoos. Because Yahoos always distrust and cheat others like the human. From that, the author may wanted to tell us the human’s society’s gloom.
I quite admire Gulliver’s adventure in Houyhnhnms. The Houhnhnms is the ideal country that many people pursue, just like Plato’s utopia. In that country, we do not
need to consider other’s words are true or false. But it is re ally unpractical to the real world we live. In our real world, the events we aren’t willing to see often happen: someone cheat others for money, even someone abandon their parents for fame. So it is no wonder that our teacher and parents always remind us of not being cheated by others when go out alone. And it can not fit with the morality of morality of loving others and helping each other. I often hesitant when I have the notion of giving help to someone who is in trouble. I often dare not to receive the help from strangers when they are willing to help me. It really a torment to me and also to somebody who want to help others. Not only losing the opportunity of helping others, but also missing the helps from others’, isn’t it a sorriness?
The author of the book~Jonathan Swift also made a crack at the tireless struggles of the Whig Party and Tory Party. I have learned that period of history from the high school history textbook. These two parties fighted with each other for its own profits. Maybe it was t he origin of the society’s gloom in Britain.
The impression that Swift give to me is that he is a very righteous person. The Gulliver’s Travels can reflect the author’s aversion to the society. He pointed out the features of the Britain at that time ironically: greed, hypocrisy, faithlessness, atrocity, rage, blackness and careerism. He described the strange phenomenon that the creatures take the place of humans. Horse becomes the carrier of the logos. And human becomes a dirty and rapacious inferior animals~Yahoos. He talked about human’s nature which were willing to be subjected to money, extravagant and insatiable.
When we learn something from this book, we have to look ourselves again. Is there any bad root in our mind? It is inconceivable that a book for children takes on such a serious issues. Though our society are not as descended like the Britain at that time. There are still numerous negative factors in our community. As the members of it, we should take some actions. Although our strength is very tiny, we can just do the things which we are competent to. I hope our country will like the Houyhnhnms someday. There are no doubts in children's eyes and no distrust in communications. All of us could do something to make society more flourishing.。