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BOOK REPORT Gulliver s Travels In this short term I have read Gulliver s Travel which is written by Jonathan Swift a British writer From the book I really acquire a lot of knowledge which is unknown to me For example it makes me know more about British history in the seventeenth century and the eighteenth century Before that I just know Britain becomes stronger and stronger at that time It is Gullier s Travels that disclose the dark of the British society About the author and the background of the book The book was published in 1726 was regarded as a children s literary works but it is actually attacked the British social degradation and corruption of satirical writing Because at that time British society was rather dark Jonathan Swift was a son of the English lawyer Jonathan Swift He was born in Dublin Ireland on November 30 1667 He grew up there under the care of his uncle Then he attended Trinity College when he was fourteen And he stayed there for seven years He graduated from it in 1688 In that year he became the secretary of Sir William Temple who was an English politician and member of the Whig party In 1694 he took religious orders in the Church of Ireland and then spent a year as a country parson He then spent further time in the service of Temple before returning to Ireland to become the chaplain of the earl of Berkeley Meanwhile he had begun to write satires on the political He worked on A Tale of a Tub which supports the position of the Anglican Church against its critics on the left and the right And The Battle of the Books which argues for the supremacy of the classics against modern thought and literature He also wrote a number of political pamphlets in favor of the Whig party In 1709 he went to London to campaign for the Irish church but was unsuccessful After some conflicts with the Whig party mostly because of Swift s strong allegiance to the church he became a member of the more conservative Tory party in 1710 Unfortunately for Swift the Tory government fell out of power in 1714 and Swift despite his fame for his writings fell out of favor Swift had been hoping to be assigned a position in the Church of England instead of returning to Dublin where he became the dean of St Patrick s During his brief time in England Swift had become friends with writers such as Alexander Pope The third voyage of Gulliver s Travels is assembled from the work Swift did during this time However the final work was not completed until 1726 and the narrative of the third voyage was actually the last one completed Gulliver s Travels was a controversial work when it was first published in 1726 Ever since editors have excised many of the passages particularly the more caustic ones dealing with bodily functions Even without those passages however Gulliver s Travels serves as a biting satire and Swift ensures that it is both humorous and critical constantly attacking British and European society through its descriptions of imaginary countries Late in life Swift seemed to become even more caustic and bitter Three years before his death he was unable to care for himself and guardians were appointed Based on these facts some people have concluded that he became insane However the truth seems to be that Swift was suddenly incapacitated by a stroke late in life and that prior to this incident his mental capacities were unimpaired Gulliver s Travels is about a specific set of political conflicts but if it were nothing more than that it would long ago have been forgotten The staying power of the work comes from its depiction of the human condition and its often despairing but occasionally hopeful sketch of the possibilities for humanity to rein in its baser instincts The main content of the book Part 1 A Voyage to Lilliput and Blefuscu 4 May 1699 13 April 1702 The author gives some account of himself and family This part tells us his first travel He is shipwrecked and swims for his life Finally he got the shore in the country of Lillivput Gulliver is made a prisoner and carried up the country The book begins with a very short preamble in which Lemuel Gulliver in the style of books of the time gives a brief outline of his life and history prior to his voyages He enjoys travelling although it is that love of travel that is his downfall During his first voyage Gulliver is washed ashore after a shipwreck and finds himself caught by a race of people less than 6 inches high They are inhabitants of the neighbouring and rival countries of Lilliput After giving assurances of his good behaviors he is given a residence in Lilliput and becomes a favorite of the court From there the content follows Gulliver s observations on the Court of Lilliput He is also given the permission to roam around the city on a condition he not harm their subjects Gulliver helps the Lilliputians to subdue their neighbours the Blefuscudians by stealing their warships However he refuses to make the country become a province of Lilliput But it displeases the King and the court Gulliver is charged with treason and sentenced to be blinded With the help of a kind friend Gulliver flees to Blefuscu where he finds an abandoned boat He asks for the king of Blefuscudians to restore the abandoned boat At first the king refuses to do it But a few days later the king promises to restore the boat With the help of the king Gulliver restores the boat successfully and sails out On the way he meet with a strong storm Fortunately he is rescued by a passing ship Then the captain of the boat sent him back to Britain Part 2 A Voyage to Brobdingnag 20 June 1702 3 June 1706 When the sailing ship is steered off course by storms and have to go in to land for searching for fresh water Gulliver is abandoned by his companions and found by a farmer who is 72 feet tall He brings Gulliver to home and ask his daughter cares for Gulliver The farmer treats him as a curiosity and exhibits him for money The word gets out and the Queen of Brobdingnag wants to see the show She loves Gulliver and he is then bought by her and kept as a favorite at court Since Gulliver is too small to use their huge chairs beds knives and forks the queen asks the craftsman to build a small house for Gulliver so that he can be carried around in it This is referred to as his travelling box In between small adventures such as fighting giant wasps and being carried to the roof by a monkey he discusses the state of Europe with the King The King is not interested with Gulliver s accounts of Europe especially upon learning of the usage of guns and cannons On a trip to the seaside his travelling box is taken by a giant eagle which drops Gulliver and his box right into the sea Then he stays in the box for some days until he was found by some sailors At first he thinks that he still in Brobdingnag But he is wrong when he get out of the box He is glad to see these people who are as big as him Then he returns Britain again Part 3 A Voyage to Laputa Balnibarbi Luggnagg Glubbdubdrib and Japan 5 August 1706 16 April 1710 After Gulliver s ship is attacked by pirates he is marooned close to a rocky island which near India Fortunately he is rescued by the flying island of Laputa a kingdom devoted to the arts of music and mathematics but unable to use them for practical ends Laputa s method of throwing rocks at rebellious surface cities also seems the first time that aerial bombardment was conceived as a method of warfare While there he tours the country as the guest of a low ranking courtier and sees the ruin brought about by blind pursuit of science without practical results in a satire on bureaucracy and the Royal Society and its experiments At The Grand Academy of Lagado great resources and manpower are employed on researching completely preposterous and unnecessary schemes such as extracting sunbeams from cucumbers softening marble for use in pillows learning how to mix paint by smell and uncovering political conspiracies by examining the excrement of suspicious persons see muckraking Gulliver is then taken to Balnibarbi to await a trader who can take him on to Japan While waiting for passage Gulliver takes a short side trip to the island of Glubbdubdrib where he visits a magician s dwelling and discusses history with the ghosts of historical figures the most obvious restatement of the ancients versus moderns theme in the book In Luggnagg he encounters the struldbrugs unfortunates who are immortal but not forever young but rather forever old complete with the infirmities of old age and considered legally dead at the age of eighty After reaching Japan Gulliver asks the Emperor to excuse my performing the ceremony imposed upon my countrymen of trampling upon the crucifix which the Emperor grants Gulliver returns home determined to stay there for the rest of his days Part 4 A Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms 10 September 1710 2 July 1715 Despite his earlier intention of remaining at home Gulliver returns to the sea as the captain of a merchantman But he is bored with his employment as a surgeon On this voyage he is forced to find new crews to his crew who he believes to have turned the rest of the crew against him His crew then mutiny and after keeping him contained for some time resolve to leave him on the first piece of land they come across and continue as pirates He is abandoned in a landing boat and comes first upon a race of terrible deformed and savage humanoid creatures And they make him disgust Then he meets a horse and comes to understand that they call themselves Houyhnhms which in their language means the perfection of nature and that they are the rulers while the deformed creatures called Yahoos are human beings in their base form Gulliver becomes a member of the horse s household and comes to both admire and emulate the Houyhnhnms and their lifestyle rejecting his fellow humans as merely Yahoos endowed with some semblance of reason which they only use to exacerbate and add to the vices Nature gave them However an Assembly of the Houyhnhnms rules that Gulliver a Yahoo with some semblance of reason is a danger to their civilization As a result Gulliver is expelled He leaves the land by boat And then rescued by a Portuguese ship Gulliver is surprised to see that Captain Pedro Mendez a Yahoo is a wise courteous and generous person He returns to his home in England but he has difficulty adjusting himself to live among Yahoos Even he is disgust about his wife and children Some days later he buys two little horse and regard them as his best friends My review of Gulliver s Travels After reading Gulliver s Travels I really benefit much from it The stories in the Gulliver s Travels are ironic humorous exaggerated and fantastic The hero of the travels Gulliver traveled around the world 4 times and suffered numerous adventures which were dangerous but interesting In Gulliver s Travels the voyage to the Lilliput and Brobdingnag really attracts me Lilliput is a country of small people who are less than 6 inches high It is certain that Gulliver is a giant to them When Gulliver stayed in Lilliput he helped the small people a lot In the contrast Brobdingnag is a country of giant Gulliver was a small people to them He was appreciated by the queen of the Brobdingnag So he could live in the palace for a long time It is unbelievable that there are so small and giant people in the world But the travel that impresses me most is the voyage to the country of the Houyhnhnms The hero was abandoned by his crews in an island And he found that it was an island ruled by horses Horse was the master of this country These horses were called Houyhnhnms The horses on the island were kind friendly and honest There were no words such as cheat or lie in their language As a result they also did not understand these meaning They did not know what was suspicion and what was distrust In their country everything was authentic and transparent Gulliver had a good time in that horses country He blended in the society entirely so that he was quite digest about contact with Yahoos Because Yahoos always distrust and cheat others like the human From that the author may wanted to tell us the human s society s gloom I quite admire Gulliver s adventure in Houyhnhnms The Houhnhnms is the ideal country that many people pursue just like Plato s utopia In that country we do not need to consider other s words are true or false But it is really unpractical to the real world we live In our real world the events we aren t willing to see often happen someone cheat others for money even someone abandon their parents for fame So it is no wonder that our teacher and parents always remind us of not being cheated by others when go out alone And it can not fit with the morality of morality of loving others and helping each other I often hesitant when I have the notion of giving help to someone who is in trouble I often dare not to receive the help from strangers when they are willing to help me It really a torment to me and also to somebody who want to help others Not only losing the opportunity of helping others but also missing the helps from others isn t it a sorriness The author of the book Jonathan Swift also m