Gulliver’s Travel
—Jonathan Swift
I still remember
the first time I read this novel because of my teacher’s requirement in my
middle school, at that time, I just read it as a story.
“When
bending my eyes downward as much as I could, I perceived a human not six inches
high”
Now when I go
back to read this novel again with some background material, I just find
something except oh it’s a interesting story. From the first voyage—Lilliput,
we can make a contrast with British at that time. In Lilliput, the official
positions are determined by skipping. British was dominated by the church and
monarch. In Lilliput, the political party is distinguished by the height of
shoes, high height party and low height party, in British, the party dispute is
between Tony party and Whig party. The first and second voyage can be
interpreted as an allegorical satires of the political events of the early
eighteenth century, or we can say that is commentary on the moral state of
English. The voyage to Laputa is a sharpened attack upon science in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and reveals Swift’s contempt for abstract
theory and ideology that is not practical service to human. The final voyage
reveals Swift’s ultimate satiric object—man’s inability to come to terms with
his true nature. The Yahoo as a satiric representation of debased humanity,
while taking the Houyhnhnms as representatives of Swift’s ideals of rationality
and order.
As for the
writer of this novel, Jonathan Swift, is a master satirist and his irony is
deadly. But his satire is masked by an outward seriousness , and an apparent
calmness conceals his bitter irony. In his writing, he uses all kinds of
techniques of satire, such as direct attack, indirect attack, irony and so on.
This makes his satire more powerful, as shown in his “Modest proposal”(the best
model of satire in English history).
By Dai Qiye(
ES02160)
Comments
Post a Comment