Friday, December 23, 2011

What are the main incidents of Gulliver's Travels?

Gulliver's Travels is a satire that follows the protagonist, Lemuel Gulliver, as he voyages to various exotic fictional locales. Each of the fantastic races he encounters in his travels satirizes some aspect of British life, politics, or religion. Through his encounters with various exotic societies, Gulliver comes to have a clearer and more objective understanding of his own society. The major episodes in the work are voyages to four different lands: 
Lilliputians: Gulliver is captured by this race of tiny people and learns about their warlike society and their tendency to have absurdly passionate arguments about such trivia as what end of an egg one should open. He saves the palace from a fire by urinating on it and because of this is accused of treason. He manages to escape.
Brobdingnagians: The Brobdingnagians, a race of giants, are well-governed, with an admirable and practical educational system. Gulliver is kept as a pet and has terrifying encounters with animals such as mice, which in this land are his own size. He eventually escapes.
Laputa: This is a land of philosophers and mathematicians concerned with abstract speculation and having few practical interests. They are technologically advanced.
Houyhnhms: This is a land of intelligent horses who have barbaric primates called "yahoos" as slaves. They are an advanced and wise race who are horrified by Gulliver's descriptions of England, and they expel him from the island.


In Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, the narrative's main incidents can be found in the book's four voyages. In the first voyage, Gulliver is stranded on Lilliput, an island of small people wracked by petty disputes, such as a disagreement regarding the proper way to crack open an egg. Then, on the second voyage, Gulliver finds himself in Brobdingnag, a region of gigantic individuals, where he is put on display like some kind of freak or pet. In the third voyage, Gulliver travels to multiple locations, including Laputa and Balnibarbi, whose inhabitants are obsessed with absurd, abstract ideas. Finally, in his last voyage, Gulliver meets the Houyhnhms, a race of intelligent horses who enslave the barbaric, human-like Yahoos. Throughout his voyages, Gulliver is exposed to a variety of differing perspectives, and one of the main points of the novel's many incidents is to reveal how, by changing one's perspective, it's possible to observe life's often ridiculous nature.  

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