New Historicism and Gulliver’s Travels
Permalink for this paragraph 0 I’m not sure about anyone else, but throughout this semester I keep thinking of good works of literature to write my papers on and help me understand criticisms well after my paper is due. It happened to me again when we started discussing New Historicism.
Permalink for this paragraph 1 I was brought back to last semester, when I read Gulliver’s Travels for Western Ideologies. Gulliver’s Travels, written by Johnathan Swift, is a story about a man named Gulliver, whose desire for adventure takes him to some strange places.
Permalink for this paragraph 0 Even though it was only last semester, my memory of the entire story is a bit fuzzy. I do remember, however, the numerous amounts of footnotes telling the reader exactly what each place meant in the context of the time period of Swift’s life. (Swift was born in Ireland in 1667.) The first group of people Gulliver encounters are the Lilliputians, who are quite small in size and have a great argument about the proper way to crack an egg. Of course, while reading this, I thought the Lilliputians were crazy to think different ways of cracking eggs were that important. But, upon further reading and discussion, Swift actually used this analogy to portray political conflicts during his lifetime.
Permalink for this paragraph 0 Gulliver, who never stays at home for very long, has many other adventures, meeting giants, academics on a floating island and rational-thinking, talking horses who rule over Yahoos, brute-like human beings.
Permalink for this paragraph 0 It was quite interesting to read the book (despite how frustrating Gulliver could be at times) and how each different journey he went on and the people he meant depicted different groups of people in history, as well as Swift’s comments on those groups of people.
I really enjoyed Gulliver’s Travels as well and think that much of the enjoyment comes from the journey explored. There are so many metaphors for daily life that really give the text meaning.