Write an
essay on Swift’s allegorical vision in Gulliver’s Travels.
Allegory
means a story based on two levels, “apparent
level and deeper”. Swift’s
polemical tour de
force ‘Gulliver’s
Travels’ is a multi-genre text working on many levels. It is at once a folk-myth, a delightful children's story, a wonderful travelogue,a
neurotic fantasy, and an unequivocal moral
tale. Each of the four
books—recounting four voyages to fictional exotic lands—may have a different
theme but all are the attempts to deflate excessive human pride. Critics hail
the work as a satiric reflection on the shortcomings of Enlightenment thought.
The
form and structure of the whole work enhances Swift's purpose. By using outlandish humans such as midgets and giants, Swift
allows us to examine the fallacies of mankind without being overly frightened. As Tuveson points out, “In Gulliver's Travels there
is a constant shuttling back and forth between real and unreal, normal and
absurd.”
From
the start the Lilliputians arouse our interest and win our liking. The pigmies
of Lilliput ingeniously capture the giant whom chance has cast on their shore. Gulliver becomes an object of curiosity. He is instantly given
the name “Man-Mountain”. The
manner in which several ladders are applied by the Lilliputians to feed
Gulliver and the way Gulliver cripples the fleet of Blefuscu by his hand is
incredible and exciting. Similarly the customs of Lilliputians, their dancing
on the tight rope, conflict between Big Endians and Little Endians, and between
high heel and low heel are also a great source of amusement to us. Moreover, “they
bury dead with their head directly downward because they hold an opinion that
in eleven thousand moons, they are all to rise again” which catches our
attention.
