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Jonathan swift's satirical prose
Criticism general essay
Jonathan Swift’s views on society
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A person who dislikes human and avoids human society is called misanthrope. According to some, Swift is misanthrope. I don’t agree with those who consider Swift a misanthrope. In my view, Swift does not hate or distrust human. Actually we can say that he has lost his faith in humankind. Perhaps he was tired of those who expressed hate towards the downtrodden and less fortunate, but his writing were an attempt to point out the others. If he hated mankind, he probably would not have pursued writing literature with the messages that his literature had.
Starting out, Swift was a man who used satire to convey his contempt for the human race. One of his most famous works conveyed this hatred and anger towards the human race....
Swift dehumanizes one year old babies in his proposal mainly to take a shot at women, who have these many babies that they cannot afford or support their livelihood. Swift say, “take in the whole number of Infants at a certain Age, who are born of Parents in effect as little able to support them” (Swift). He’s including babies not only of the age one but all babies. Another example of Swift dehumanizing in his proposal is women. He says, “It is true a Child, just dropt from it's Dam” (Swift). He is calling women a “Dam” in other words he is comparing women to an animal’s mother. He compares women to animals again when he says, “that of the hundred and twenty thousand Children, already computed, twenty thousand may be reserved for Breed, whereof
Swifts diction to me sounds kind of cold and harsh because it doesn't exactly sound like he likes the things hes describing, kind of like when you don't like someone and you refer to them as “girl,” “boy,” or “that person.” First, instead of starting of with saying “women” he says “the female sex” as if it was a sort of martain species. What had really caught my attention was in paragraph 5 where the abortions, to him, where “voluntary” abortions came into play, which if you think about it, he’s kind of like mocking this voluntary abortion thing because
Swifts Gulliver’s Travels enables us to critically and harshly analyse our world and encourages us to evaluate the customs of early 18th century English society in relation to an ideal humanity. In order to address the injustices prevalent in human constructs and behavior, Swift uses literary techniques to induce a state of extreme self-doubt. The satire's assessment of humanity's positive and negative traits is developed through Gulliver's awkward process of identifying with the loathsome Yahoos and idolising the rational Houyhnhnms. The allegory of a domestic animal portraying more "humanity" than humans exemplifies the flaws of human nature and the tumultuous, uncertain philosophical, ethical, and scientific thought, of Swifts period. The portrayal of the Houyhnhnms involves a direct attack on human nature. Although Gulliver's Travels Book IV makes a satirical attack on human nature in general, it does have specific targets in mind: namely, war and its associated destruction, the verminous, lying, criminal activities of lawyers, and the cruel shallowness of consumerism and wealth disparity. In intellectual terms the text leaves the reader feeling quite disturbed despite the use of humor and adventure telling. This essay will analyse Gulliver’s Travels Part 4 in terms of genre and will explore how the satire uses rhetorical means to provide commentary on rational humanity. In addition the essay will examine how Swift promoted change to early 18th century England by constructing an intricate attack on the philosophical position of his political adversaries.
... Jonathan Swift was not trying to plunge the country into cannibalism for profitable gains, but to show the readers that their society had lost the Godly love and care for each other that it was based on. Likewise, it expressed his contempt toward those who continually proposed illogical solutions that would never work. Jonathan Swift, a pamphleteer, which is the equivalent of the modern newspaper columnist today, wrote for political reasons, and shared his views in a way that caused people detest the current state of society. The way in which he presented his view forced them to see the truth of the matter. As one views the course of events that followed the publishing of the essay and the impact that it had, along with its consideration in his literary works as among his most drastic pieces, shows the importance of his political stand against the English hegemony.
On the surface, Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver's Travels appears to be a travel log, made to chronicle the adventures of a man, Lemuel Gulliver, on the four most incredible voyages imaginable. Primarily, however, Gulliver's Travels is a work of satire. "Gulliver is neither a fully developed character nor even an altogether distinguishable persona; rather, he is a satiric device enabling Swift to score satirical points" (Rodino 124). Indeed, whereas the work begins with more specific satire, attacking perhaps one political machine or aimed at one particular custom in each instance, it finishes with "the most savage onslaught on humanity ever written," satirizing the whole of the human condition. (Murry 3). In order to convey this satire, Gulliver is taken on four adventures, driven by fate, a restless spirit, and the pen of Swift. Gulliver's first journey takes him to the Land of Lilliput, where he finds himself a giant among six inch tall beings. His next journey brings him to Brobdingnag, where his situation is reversed: now he is the midget in a land of giants. His third journey leads him to Laputa, the floating island, inhabited by strange (although similarly sized) beings who derive their whole culture from music and mathematics. Gulliver's fourth and final journey places him in the land of the Houyhnhnm, a society of intelligent, reasoning horses. As Swift leads Gulliver on these four fantastical journeys, Gulliver's perceptions of himself and the people and things around him change, giving Swift ample opportunity to inject into the story both irony and satire of the England of his day and of the human condition.
...future. So their secret was not in their prophetic genius, but only in their widely open eyes in their own age. That is why their utopia is terribly exact, and that is why they could hit the target so precisely.
"In its most serious function, satire is a mediator between two perceptions-the unillusioned perception of man as he actually is, and the ideal perception, or vision, of man as he ought ot be," (Bullitt, 3). Likewise, "misanthropy" can be understood as being the product of one of two world views: 1) The Pure Cynic or Misanthropist has no faith in human nature and has given up on any notion of ideals. This type lies and manipulates as a matter of course and these are the types that tend to run the world. 2) The "Burned" or Disillusioned Idealist's misanthropy arises out of disappointment in humankind. In many ways, the second type exhibits more bile as he is constantly frustrated by what men do as opposed to what they ought to do. Jonathon Swift is the second type of misanthropist and Gulliver's Travels is arguably his greatest satiric attempt to "shame men out of their vices" (Ibid., 14) by constantly distinguishing between how man behaves and how he thinks about or justifies his behavior in a variety of situations. Pride, in particular, is what enables man to "deceive himself into the belief that he is rational and virtuous when, in reality, he has not developed his reason, and his virtue is merely appearance," (Ibid., 66). This satire works on so many levels that a paper such as this allows me to deal with only three elements, and in a necessarily superficial way: the ways in which the structure and choice of metaphor serve Swift's purpose, a discussion of some of his most salient attacks on politics, religion, and other elements of society, and his critique on the essence and flaws of human nature. Swift's purpose was to stir his readers to view themselves as he viewed humankind, as creatures who were not fulfilling their potential to be truly great but were simply flaunting the trappings of greatness. Gulliver's Travels succeeds in this goal brilliantly.
The kingdom of the little men campaign government officials by the skill of jump and climb. People show the best skill of jump and climb for a stick will get the highest officials. It is a satire of government campaign officials will ridiculous reason. Jonathan Swift means to satire on government officials were incompetent for the job. People in this kingdom was ruled by those officials seem really satire. Those officials are really ridiculous, they can’t rule the kingdom well. People under them ruling will be suffering.
In the fourth voyage, Swift presents a case study for opposing states of nature, with the Yahoos representing the argument that man is governed by his passions, seeking his own advantage, pursuing pleasures and avoiding pain, and the Houyhnhnms representing the argument that man is governed by reason. If this is the case, then Swift’s misanthropy was such that he saw men as the foul and disgusting Yahoos, and made it plain that reform of the species was out of the question. A major fault with this theory is that it leaves no place for Gulliver. When attention is drawn to the figure of Gulliver himself, as distinct from his creator, Swift, he is taken to be the moral of the story. If you can't be a Houyhnhnm you don't need to be a Yahoo; just try to be like Gulliver. The trouble with this idea is that when taking a closer look at Gulliver, he isn't worth emulating. The final picture of him talking with the horses in the stable for four hours a day, unable to stand the company of his own family, makes him look foolish. Another theory is that Gulliver made a mistake in regarding the Houyhnhnms as models to be emulated: so far from being admirable creatures they are as repulsive as the Yahoos. The Yahoos might be ruled by their passions, but these have no human passions at all. On this view, Swift was not advocating, but attacking reason.
In today’s society, there are many who believe that humans have an innate sense of virtue and morality. They are confident that all human beings are born with a perception of what is right and what is wrong. However, there are others who take the traditional biblical stance, in which it is simply human nature to be sinful. In Gulliver’s Travels, the author, Jonathan Swift, shows a strong inclination towards the latter thought: that all people are inherently evil. His disposition can easily be seen through his novel’s outlandish narratives that satire the corruptions of humanity.
According to Ehrenpreis, Swift lived in John Locke's time, and takes many ideas of humanity from him. Locke said that humans tend to classify species as "man" by their physical appearance. If there was a man without reason, he would be a dull irrational "man", and if there was an animal could express reason, they would be an intelligent and rational "animal". To Ehrenpreis, the Yahoos "embody an ironical reflection upon the fact that the bulk of unthinking men do in practice treat external shape as a sounder guide to humanity than ...
To be yourself is better than to seem to be what you are not. This how Gulliver in his travel struggled with and had to come back to accept the terms of his true nature. The growth of madness that traced in Swift’s satire is absolutely the pressure and what it takes to make changes the status quo which is much preserved by the elite in society. Somebody must be the voice of the voiceless and this is an instrument that will bring about the necessarily change.
Swift uses this to construct a thick and detailed depiction of the European. life, which he found mistake ridden and scatological. He was later picked up by a ship, and taken back to England, in which His stories were not believed until a Lilliputian horse was found. Swift is a misanthropic person who believes human nature is not right. and works in a decrepit and foul manner. In Gulliver's travels he highlights the flaws in society and shows them satirically.
By the end of Book II in Gulliver's Travels, it is very clear that the character of Gulliver is not the same man who wrote the letter in the beginning of the story. In fact, he is not the same man he was in Book I. From the onset of Gulliver's Travels, Swift creates for us a seemingly competent character and narrator in Gulliver. In his account we learn how his adventures have changed him and his perception of people, for the central theme of this story is how human nature and reason reflect society.