Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels"

Arthur Rackham - Illustrations for Gulliver's Travels - 1909

The experience of reading fiction is such a different experience than reading non-fiction.  I couldn't get comfortable until I put down my hard copy of my book to read Gulliver's Travels on my Kindle. This surprised me; I hadn't realised that over the years my pleasure vs school reading habits had taken such different consumption routes that they would actively affect my experience and comprehension of the text.

 

The efficacy of the delivery of information is not limited to the physical medium... of course.  Swift's use of satire and speculative fiction to deliver his commentary on colonisation, of the "other", and the locus of power.  Swift manipulates the delivery of his message in more than just the genre of text he writes - he focusses on the use of sound and language.  It is Gulliver's affinity with language that allows him to enter and immerse himself in  each of the exotic and European cultures that he meets - none of the people he encounters show the ease with which he adopts their dialects.

 

Despite their difference in stature, Gulliver hears the voices of the Lilliputans.  He may not initially speak their language, but he responds to their primal, human exclamations, whines and tones of voice, just as he, himself later expresses these gestures when trying to communicate with the Brobdingnags .  Although he is the large and powerful force, he bends and learns the Lilliputian's language in order to create a sense of belonging and co-operation. It is his facility with language which allows him to put the Lilliputians at ease with his might, essentially taming what little threat they posed, as they believe him to be tamed, and it was words  that he swore the oath that bound him to this kingdom.  The power of words proves double-edged, as it is with unfounded words that he is accused of treason.

 

Nowhere, of course, is the theme of language more important than in Gulliver's account of his visit to the Houyhnhnms.  Here, he learns that this superior race does not even have the words to express the concepts of lying or saying "the thing which was not" (219).  Nor do they have expressions to relay the concepts of politicking, compelling, or war.  Their lack of these words is offered as evidence of their higher, more virtuous, moral quality, just as we continue to mark cultures like the Penan, who have no native word for "thief".  When Gulliver is returned to his own people, he is forever marked by his travels in the way he speaks, now with a horse-like whinny.  

 

Works Cited:

Swift, Jonathan. Gulliver's Travels. New York: Oxford, 2008. Print.