Jonathan Swift’s Use of Size Satirizing the Negative Form...

Swift reveals the negative side of the Europeans in the 18th century. He satirizes Gulliver and the different inhabitants Gulliver comes across. By using size, Swift shows the dreadful sides of the Europeans and their faults. Although some readers say that Swift uses size in Gulliver’s Travels to satirize people positively, he uses satire to reveal the negative side of people showing their human pride, existence, and knowledge. First of all, Swift claims that Gulliver’s size symbolizes misplaced human pride. He uses the Lilliputians, Houyhnhnms, Yahoos, and Gulliver to point out the misplaced pride of humans. Swift writes, â€Å"...and the promise of honour I [Gulliver] made them [Lilliputians], for so I interpreted my submissive behaivour,†¦show more content†¦He uses the Laputans, Houyhnhnms, Yahoos, and Gulliver to compare the array of intelligence. According to Swift, â€Å"†¦although they [Laputan woman] live here in the greatest plenty and magnificence†¦and take the diversions of the metropolis, which they are not allowed to do without a particular licence from the king†¦Ã¢â‚¬  In other words, Swift believes Gulliver’s size symbolizes a vast range of knowledge. Swift reveals the Laputan’s knowledge, which is not made socially useful. Of course, many will probably disagree with this assertion that Swift satirizes the knowledge of the Laputans to the knowl edge of the Englishmen at the time, but he acknowledges the Englishmen’s use of knowledge negatively. In addition, Swift states, â€Å"When I [Gulliver] happened to behold the reflection of my own form in a lake or a fountain, I turned away my face in horror and detestation of myself, and could better endure the sight of a common Yahoo, than of my own person.† Swift believes that the Houyhnhnms, the horse race, show their intellectual size versus the Yahoo’s intellectual size. Swift uses the horses and Yahoos to show the misplaced intellectual sizes. Of course, many will disagree with this assertion that the Houyhnhnms shows a â€Å"utopia.† While it is true that Swift may use the intellectual sizes for a different purpose, it does not necessarily follow that Swift doesn’t use the Houyhnhnms, Yahoos, and Gulliver to show theShow MoreRelatedLockean Philosophy in Jonathan Swifts Gullivers Travels3527 Words   |  15 Pagesshaped within the same matr ix of cultural forces and events, they reveal through their respective works a similar ideology. The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to explore the parallels between Lockes Some Thoughts Concerning Education and Swifts Gullivers Travels, using textual evidence and literary criticism; and second, to compare the methods prescribed by Locke and Swift for education, taking into account some cultural views in the eighteenth-century. The first half of the eighteenth-centuryRead More Comapring Naivete and Satire in Jonathan Swifts Gullivers Travels and Voltaires Candide2292 Words   |  10 PagesNaivete and Satire in Jonathan Swifts Gullivers Travels and Voltaires Candide       A child has the ability to make the most critical and objective observation on society and the behavior of man. How is this possible? A child has yet to mature and lacks proper education and experience. However, it is for this very reason that a child would make the perfect social scientist; his or her naivete may provide an excellent means of objective criticism and most often satire. A childs curious