Swift clearly shows Gulliver as a symbol of the oppressed, who is held captive, ordered around, and threatened with severe punishment, despite his gargantuan size compared with the small Lilliputians; yet, I believe his writing of the events in the book signify a sort of egocentrism seen in both imperialism and the role of oppressors upon foreign lands.\u00a0 The use of shifting perspective, with Gulliver’s perception by others of a giant, a miniature person, and even a savage Yahoo, illustrates this varying of roles, as Gulliver is able to see reflections of his own English society is different aspects of each culture he encounters.\u00a0 \u00a0Gulliver’s varying states of subjugation, held as a giant captive in the land of Lilliput and enduring judgment as a Yahoo from the Houyhnhnms, illustrate him as a victim of the imperialist practices which his native England enacts upon other nations, such as Ireland.\u00a0 These episodes display Gulliver clearly as a racialized “other,” most notably by the Houyhnhnms, as he, first believing his own ways of life the most proper and according to logic, must become indoctrinated by each culture’s traditions.\u00a0 Despite feeding him and trying to educate him, the Lilliputians’ militarization of Gulliver show a clear parallel to oppressive imperialist practices, as he is used by the small people because of his size to destroy the military of the Blefuscudians, despite his confessing to them that he will not be merely a utility to enslave another people.\u00a0 Likewise, the Houyhnhnms also first judge him to be no more than a Yahoo, so they also begin to educate Gulliver into their culture, which he quickly adapts to and becomes obsessed with, despite his exile from their land because of his race.\u00a0 This sort of prejudiced expulsion, despite his clear passion for reason and logic, echoes the British and their genocidal tactics against native peoples, including forced removal from their homeland.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, Gulliver’s reluctance to believe each of his new environments echoes the views of a travelling conqueror, contrasting his own customs and practices which he sees to be the universal norm with the apparently strange and otherworldly ways of the Lilliputians and Houyhnhnms, despite his eventual acceptance and obsession with the latter.\u00a0 His encounter with the Yahoos specifically shows this darker side of the narrator, criticizing their savage nature and culture, especially when compared with his own love of reason and the Houyhnhnms’ entire civilization built towards the end of fully using their own reason and intellect to create a sort of perfect society.\u00a0 Gulliver’s attraction to the ways of the Houyhnhnms show this imperialist mindset, as he convenes with the Houyhnhnms to discuss how to solve the apparent problem of the Yahoo’s existence.\u00a0 Even his writing of the book implies a superiority of the author, compelling the reader to listen to him and follow his example because he has done these things and written about them.\u00a0 Instead of muddying the metaphor of the text, the variability of Gulliver’s significance to the foreign lands illustrates each side of the English oppression of Ireland, with Gulliver both enacting harsh tactics and prejudices upon others, as well as being\u00a0 a victim to the same types of treatments from his hosts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Swift clearly shows Gulliver as a symbol of the oppressed, who is held captive, ordered around, and threatened with severe punishment, despite his gargantuan size compared with the small Lilliputians; yet, I believe his writing of the events in the book signify a sort of egocentrism seen in both imperialism and the role of oppressors … <\/p>\n