Gulliver's Travels Comparative Essay

Comparative Essay 3; Gulliver’s travels

I choose the topic: Perspective and relativity are very important aspects of Gulliver's Travels. Compare Gulliver's experiences in the first and second parts of the novel. How does Gulliver act differently? How is he treated differently?

In this essay I will compare Gulliver throughout the first and second parts of the novel, how Gulliver acts and how he is treated by the inhabitants of the different countries. I will consider the first and second part like they are classified in the film, where the first part Gulliver is in Lilliput and Brobdingnag and in the second part he is on the flying island of Laputa and with the Houyhnhnms. I will tell how I think Gulliver changes throughout this novel and why he is treated differently in every newly discovered country, although there is a striking difference between the first two and the last two journeys.

As I said before, Gulliver is treated differently in every country he visits. The only thing that they all have in common is that he is an outsider everywhere he goes. In the first voyage, Gulliver is the giant while during the second voyage everyone else is a giant. Although this seems like a great difference, both travels have something in common; in both voyages Gulliver is considered to be a very intelligent being. In contrast to the last two voyages, where on the flying island of Laputa the inhabitants consider Gulliver ignorant, while the Houyhnhnms even called him a savage beast. This is in my opinion the biggest difference between the first and second parts, where he is considered extremely intelligent or stupid, and I will discuss the two parts of the novel in the two following paragraphs. Another noticeable thing is that each part is the reverse of the preceding part. With this I mean that for example; Gulliver thinks that the tiny Lilliputians are vicious and unscrupulous, and then the king of Brobdingnag sees Europe in exactly the same light. Gulliver sees the Laputians as unreasonable, and Gulliver's Houyhnhnm master sees humanity as equally so. This is the same in the second part of the novel, where Gulliver sees the Laputians as unreasonable, and Gulliver's Houyhnhnm master sees the human race as equally so.

In this paragraph I will go deeper into the first two voyages, where Gulliver is considered very intelligent and acts like he is to. The Lilliputians literally and figuratively look up to Gulliver, they think he is a smart being and so does Gulliver. In his opinion he is superior to the Lilliputians, not only can he overpower them with his strength, he also ridicules the governing system of Lilliputians and praises his own. He acts like no one can stop him and he has a hint of arrogance in his behaviour. This also concerns his voyage to Brobdingnag, where the Brobdingnagians, off course, only figuratively look up to Gulliver, but still consider him intelligent. Gulliver still thinks he is superior to the rest of the inhabitants as he tries to explain the governing system of Europe and particularly the British system. He thinks that the country is quite simple finds it barbarous that the Brobdingnagians still enjoy public executions and have loads of beggars. Gulliver often says that such a well civilised being as himself shouldn’t be living in this country where he is treated like nothing more than a pet. So you can see that Gulliver still thinks of him as a better being than the rest of the inhabitants of Brobdingnag and Lilliput.