Gulliver’s Travels is just one of the fascinating stories of its time. The adventures of Lemuel Gulliver, as narrated by Jonathan Swift is indicated some of the challenges that the as humans we undergo. However, apart from the fantasies and the fascinations that carry the audience as they engage in the reading, there is so much about the argument as proposed by Swift about being human, coming from the various encounters and escapades that Gulliver participates in.
At the onset of the story, Gulliver sets off on a voyage to Houyhnhnms. His crews conspire against him and confine him up to his cabin. This is the first time that we spot the human element of betrayal. Swift presents humans as untrustworthy turncoats who can even turn against their captain. They set him off on a shore of the unknown island. In this part, Swift depicts humans in a terrible light. Untrustworthy turncoat betrayers who have no consideration for the welfare of others.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Gulliver seems to miss his family. He laments leaving his wife with children of five months. He accepted the offer of captaining the big ship, about 350 tones. This indicates that humans are a social and emotional creature. He misses his family. He thinks of his wife and somehow seems to regret accepting the offer of captaining the ship. The sight of dead men in his sail makes him scared. Humans are indeed defined in the aspects of ‘spirits de corps.’ Gulliver is sad that he lost men in his sail and that there is nothing he could do to save them.
In the third chapter of the story, Gulliver admits that he had to learn the language of his new hosts. He was no longer the master but a servant. His decision and acceptance to learn a new dialect for his survival is an indication that humans are subject to changes and approval. Being human is about continuous but constant adjustments to life. Gulliver had to lower himself from the well-known captain to the new servant into his newly found master. The new world has people pronouncing words through the nose and throat. He was ready to accept this fate and life with it for the realization that he was not going to live any better from then henceforth.
Jonathan Swift has used the story of Gulliver’s Travels to advance different aspects and understandings on the element of being human. He managed to narrate the changes in lives and how humans react to them. At first, Gulliver did not accept that indeed he was in a new world of small people. However, when he set off and ended up in the world of prominent people, he was somehow exposed to the changes in life and readily accepted his second condition; this, according to Swift is being human.
