Overview of lecture: Gulliver’s Travels as Swift's Snare for the Reader

Features of the satire in 1st Voyage

1)Imitation and parody of the travel narrative

Title page of the 1st edition of the Travels: note title and author

 

Signifying reality with maps:

Kingdoms of Lilliput and Blefuscu (near Sumatra):

Houyhouhm Land (near Alaska)

 

 

2) use of ironic indirection to produce an active reader

3) brutally explicit to the point of vulgarity

4) cleanse the world by driving evil out

 

Example of 4 traits of satire: parody, ironic indirection, explicitness, attacking evil

286: "But I had another Reason which made me less forward to enlarge his Majesty's Dominions by my Discovery. To say the Truth, I had conceived a few Scruples with Relation to the Distributive Justice of Princes upon those Occasions. For instance, A Crew of Pyrates are driven by a Storm they know not whither, at length a boy discovers Land from the Top-mast, they go on Shore to Rob and Plunder; they see an harmless People, are entertained with Kindness, they give the Country a new Name, they take formal Possession of it for their King, they set up a rotten Plank or a Stone for a Memorial, they murder two or three Dozen of the Natives, bring away a couple more by Force for a Sample, return Home, and get their Pardon. Here commences a new Dominion acquired with a Title by Divine Right. Ships are sent with the first Opportunity, the Natives driven out or destroyed, their Princes tortured to discover their Gold; a free License given to all Acts of Inhumanity and Lust, the Earth reeking with the Blood of its Inhabitants: And this execrable Crew of Butchers employed in so pious an Expedition, is a modern Colony sent to convert and civilize an idolatrous and barbarous People.

But this Description, I confess, doth by no Means affect the British Nation, who may be an Example to the whole World for their Wisdom, Care, and Justice in Planting Colonies; their liberal Endowments for the Advancement of Religion and Learning; their Choice of devout and able Pastors to propagate Christianity, ….

The Travels as Enlightenment Science fiction, but what is s/f?

Philip K. Dick writes that science fiction is "not merely a story set in the future, and it not merely a story featuring high technology…It entails a “fictitious world” that “comes out of our world, the one we know: This world must be different from the given one in at least one way... sufficient to give rise to events that could not occur in our society…There must be a coherent idea involved in this dislocation…so that as a result a new society is generated in the author’s mind, transferred to paper, and from paper it occurs as a convulsive shock in the reader’s mind, the shock of dysrecognition.” In “good science fiction, the conceptual dislocation—the new idea, in other words—must ...be intellectually stimulating to the reader…[so] it sets off a chain-reaction of ramification–ideas in the mind of the reader; it so-to-speak unlocks the reader’s mind so that that mind, like the author’s, begins to create.” (Philip K. Dick, Letter, 1981)

Two key elements:

What is the conceptual dislocation of the 1st voyage? what are its effects?

What if men and women were 6 inches tall? How do they look different?
30: Proclamation: "GOLBASTO MOMAREN EVLAME GURDILO SHEFIN MULLY ULLY GUE, most Mighty Emperor of Lilliput, Delight and Terror of the Universe, whose Dominions extend five thousand Blustrugs (about twelve miles in circumference) to the Extremities of the Globe; Monarch of all Monarchs, taller than the Sons of Men; whose Feet press down to the Center, and whose Head strikes against the Sun:")

Are the Lilliputans fair in their treatment of Gulliver?

What does Gulliver's response suggest about his character?

How does this text represent the difference between the big-endians and the small-endians?

How does size effect the Lilliputan desire to dominate another people?
40: His Majesty desired I would take some other Opportunity of bringing all the rest of his Enemy's Ships into his Ports. And so unmeasurable is the Ambition of Princes, that he seemed to think of nothing less than reducing the whole Empire of Blefuscu into a Province, and governing it by a Vice-Roy; of destroying the Big-Endian Exiles, and compelling that People to break the smaller end of their Eggs, by which he would remain the sole Monarch of the whole World. But I endeavoured to divert him from this Design, by many arguments drawn from the Topicks of Policy as well as Justice: And I plainly protested, that I would never be an Instrument of bringing a Free and Brave People into Slavery. And when the Matter was debated in Council , the wisest part of the Ministry were of my Opinion.

 

What is the conceptual dislocation of the 4th voyage?

1: A reversal: not man but horses are the rational and governing specie

2: the human equivalents, the Yahoos, are brute, low, irrational.

3: the Houyhnhnms use perfect reason in all their social life:

  • language (no negation, no lying fiction or opinion)
  • treat others with dispassionate equality
  • many human institutions not needed
  • absence of vices
  • fixed and rational hierarchy

 

In the 1st encounter there's a category problem for Gulliver: where do I fit in?

215-216: At last I beheld several Animals in a Field, and one or two of the same kind sitting in Trees. Their Shape was very singular and deformed, which a little discomposed me, so that I lay down behind a Thicket to observe them better. Some of them coming forward near the Place where I lay, gave me an Opportunity of distinctly marking their Form. Their Heads and Breasts were covered with a thick Hair, some frizzled and others lank; they had Beards like Goats, and a long ridge of Hair down their Backs and the fore-parts of their Legs and Feet, but the rest of their Bodies were bare, so that I might see their Skins, which were of a brown buff Colour. They had no Tails, nor any Hair at all on their Buttocks, except about the Anus; which, I presume, Nature had placed there to defend them as they sate on the Ground; for this Posture they used, as well as lying down, and often stood on their hind Feet. They climbed high Trees, as nimbly as a Squirrel, for they had strong extended Claws before and behind, terminating in sharp points, and hooked. They would often spring, and bound, and leap with prodigious Agility. The Females were not so large as the Males, they had long lank Hair on their Heads, but none on their Faces, nor any thing more than a sort of Down on the rest of their Bodies, except about the Anus, and Pudenda. Their Dugs hung between their Fore-feet, and often reached almost to the Ground as they walked. The Hair of both Sexes was of several Colours, brown, red, black and yellow. Upon the whole, I never beheld in all my Travels so disagreeable an Animal, nor one against which I naturally conceived so strong an Antipathy. So that thinking I had seen enough, full of Contempt and Aversion, I got up and pursued the beaten Road, hoping it might direct me to the Cabbin of some Indian. I had not got far when I met one of these Creatures full in my way, and coming up directly to me. The ugly Monster, when he saw me, distorted several ways every Feature of his Visage, and stared as at an Object he had never seen before; then approaching nearer, lifted up his Fore-paw, whether out of Curiosity or Mischief, I could not tell. But I drew my Hanger, and gave him a good Blow with the flat Side of it, for I durst not strike him with the Edge, fearing the Inhabitants might be provoked against me, if they should come to know, that I had killed or maimed any of their Cattle. When the Beast felt the smart, he drew back, and roared so loud, that a Herd of at least forty came flocking about me from the next Field, houling and making odious Faces; but I ran to the Body of a Tree, and leaning my Back against it, kept them off, by waving my Hanger. Several of this cursed Brood getting hold of the Branches behind, leaped up in the Tree, from whence they began to discharge their Excrements on my Head: However, I escaped pretty well, by sticking close to the Stem of the Tree, but was almost stifled with the Filth, which fell about me on every side.

In the midst of this Distress, I observed them all to run away on a sudden as fast as they could, at which I ventured to leave the Tree, and pursue the Road, wondring what it was that could put them into this Fright. But looking on my Left-hand, I saw a Horse walking softly in the Field: which my Persecutors having sooner discovered, was the Cause of their Flight. The Horse started a little when he came near me, but soon recovering himself, looked full in my Face with manifest Tokens of Wonder: He viewed my Hands and Feet, walking round me several times. I would have pursued my Journey, but he placed himself directly in the way, yet looking with a very mild Aspect, never offering the least Violence. We stood gazing at each other for some time; at last I took the Boldness, to reach my Hand towards his Neck, with a Design to stroak it using the common Style and Whistle of Jockies when they are going to handle a strange Horse. But this Animal seeming to receive my Civilities with Disdain, shook his Head, and bent his Brows, softly raising up his right Fore-foot to remove my Hand. Then he neighed three or four times, but in so different a Cadence, that I almost began to think he was speaking to himself in some Language of his own 

 

The radical critique of the 4th voyage: A change in the security of the subject position from which the voyage to another culture is narrated

Behn, Crusoe, and Gulliver (in the 1st Voyage):

 1: The reader & Crusoe à ß 2: the “other” culture;

                  Gulliver                 à   ß the alternative world

                                                                Lilliput

                    [with cultural difference sustained ]

These 1st person travel narratives:

  • Reader watches with narrator who is bearer of the gaze
  • his/our assertion of superiority is more secure

Gulliver in the 4th voyage:

1: Gulliver comes from reader’s world  à

·  he offers a 1st person narrative of an alternative world to us (1st person narrative): an ethnography Houyhnhnms        

· he becomes someone who proudly represents our "human" world and history to the members of the alternative society (Houyhnhnms)

           ß 2: the ‘other’ in this alternative world

·       observes Gulliver and listens to his history

·       then Houyhnhnm master offers a critical rejoinder to Gulliver: a counter-ethnography of humans as Yahoos

IV:7: 251 When I had answered all his Questions, and his Curiosity seemed to be fully satisfied; he sent for me one Morning early, and commanded me to sit down at some Distance, (an Honour which he had never before conferred upon me) he said, He had been very seriously considering my whole Story, as far as it related both to myself and my Country: That he looked upon us as sort of Animals to whose Share, by what Accident he could not conjecture, some small Pittance of Reason had fallen, whereof we made no other Use than by its Assistance to aggravate our natural Corruptions, and to acquire new ones which Nature had not given us: That we disarmed ourselves of the few Abilities she had bestowed, had been very successful in multiplying our original Wants, and seemed to spend our whole Lives in vain Endeavours to supply them by our own Inventions. That as to myself, it was manifest I had neither the Strength or Agility of a common Yahoo, that I walked infirmly on my hinder Feet, had found out a Contrivance to make my Claws of no Use or Defence, and to remove the Hair from my Chin, which was intended as a shelter from the Sun and the Weather. Lastly, That I could neither run with Speed, nor climb Trees like my Brethren (as he called them) the Yahoos in this Country. 

 

Q: How does Gulliver respond to the Houyhnhnm world view and this interpretation of him as a Yahoo?

 A new configuration

 1: Houyhnhnms + Gulliver  à ß 2: yahoos = the essential human

 3: the Reader as trapped or ensnared:

  • to accept Gulliver’s narrative means “I” am a Yahoo;
  • but, to resist that I am a yahoo may just show my yahoo depravity

Friday's assignment on Gulliver’s Travels, book IV: prepare for the debate on Voyage 4.

Proposition: Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels shows that human kind would be happier if they could think and behave the way the Houyhnhns do.