"Cliff Notes - Gulliver's Travels" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cliff Notes)

Gulliver realizes his conduct may be against the "strict rules of decency," but he can't help himself. He's overcome by the demands of his body, and in contrast to the refined-seeming Lilliputians, he seems a little less human for it.

When he urinates, the Lilliputians scatter as though from a flood. Not only does Gulliver appear crude, he's positively dangerous, a walking natural disaster! He himself describes his urine as a "torrent which fell with... noise and violence." Gulliver's begun looking at himself and his functions through the eyes of his host. Have you?

He's also looking at his hosts with newly awakened eyes. When the emperor orders Gulliver to be transported to his court, the Lilliputians do sophisticated calculations to arrive at the exact amount of wood they will need for Gulliver's cart. They also devise a pulley system to raise Gulliver from the ground to the cart. Gulliver is so impressed he practically begins to brag about the Lilliputians.

They, however, don't hold Gulliver in such high regard. They house him in a polluted temple. Gulliver says he "creeps" inside his lodging, like something nasty and debased.

No doubt Gulliver is experiencing some conflicting feelings. On the one hand, he is the size of a Lilliputian mountain, the mere fact of his presence is a major event. On the other hand, he's crude compared to the Lilliputians, less civilized seeming. How do you think you'd react if you were in Gulliver's shoes?

^^^^^^^^^^GULLIVER'S TRAVELS: CHAPTER II

Gulliver starts off with his first description of the land of Lilliput: the countryside is gardenlike, the city genteel enough to recall painted scenery in a theater.

Against this idyll Gulliver juxtaposes a description of his first bowel movement. He says he was caught between "urgency and shame," that he'd waited as long as he could (two days), and that he relieved himself in the temple where the offense to others would be lessened. From that day on, the Lilliputian senate appoints two servants whose job it is to carry away Gulliver's excrement in wheelbarrows.

NOTE: Think for a minute about Swift's purpose here. Again we have an instance of high contrast between Gulliver and his hosts, with Gulliver definitely on the lower end. There's something else. At the end of his defense, Gulliver cites "maligners" who have on this and other occasions called his character into question. This draws us back to Gulliver's letter to Sympson. It also seems to be Swift referring to other of his works (A Tale of a Tub and his political writings) that caused a public outcry. You can see here why some readers have concluded that Gulliver is Swift.

We have another example of Gulliver seeing through Lilliputian eyes when he describes the emperor. How odd that Gulliver is impressed by the tallness of the monarch. He is taller than his subjects by almost the breadth of Gulliver's fingernail. To the Lilliputians, this may well be a big difference, but to Gulliver? What do you think of physical size as a criterion for the power to rule? Start thinking about the details you're given on Lilliputian government. For example, what do you think when Gulliver tells you that government officials are making money on the side by selling permits to those who wish to have a look at Gulliver? On the one hand, it's laudable that the government did something to prevent chaos in the country (whole villages were being deserted, lands were being left untended because of the mass exodus to the capital). On the other, the officials are obviously corrupt. What's more, Gulliver, who prided himself on his honesty just a chapter ago, seems undisturbed.

The government really has its hands full with Gulliver, docile as he is. Council members fear his diet could cause a famine; the stench of his carcass, were they to kill him, might pollute the entire city, even bring on the plague. Good reports on Gulliver's behavior convince the emperor not to harm him, however. So it's decreed that Gulliver shall have a suit of clothes tailored in high Lilliputian style, language lessons, and sufficient food even though it will require special additions to the national treasury.

First, though, Gulliver must swear peace to the kingdom and submit to a personal inventory (to make sure he has no weapons). The painstaking search Gulliver undergoes represents the suspicions between the Tories and the Whigs in the first quarter of the eighteenth century. In 1715 the Earl of Oxford and Viscount Bolingbroke, leaders of the Tories (by this time, Swift was also a Tory and a close friend of these men), were put under gruelling investigations by the Whigs. Gulliver in Part I has been said to represent Oxford and/or Bolingbroke, and the Lilliputians the suspicious, bureaucratic, power-hungry (Swift's view of them, at any rate) Whigs.

Gulliver--and the Tories--are not such easy marks. Gulliver does not let the Lilliputians into all of his pockets. He manages to keep secret his eyeglasses and a magnifying glass. Let's see how, or if, these instruments keep him safe from his blind spots.

^^^^^^^^^^GULLIVER'S TRAVELS: CHAPTER III

In Chapter III we learn some of the "inner workings" of the Lilliputian political system. Bear in mind that Swift is drawing a parallel here to the court of George I.

Political offices frequently become vacant through disgrace. To gain entry into court, candidates petition to entertain the emperor; after he receives five or six such petitions he sets up a competition in which they must all do the Dance on the Rope. Whoever jumps the highest without taking a tumble gets the job. Sometimes chief ministers in midcareer are asked to make a display of their competency; Flimnap (symbolizing Robert Walpole, the leader of the Whigs), the Lilliputian treasurer, is admired for his ability to jump at least an inch higher than his peers. Gulliver tells us that these competitions are often the cause of fatal accidents; Flimnap, in fact, would have killed himself in a recent fall had not one of the king's "cushions" broken his downward flight. The king's "cushion" represents George I's mistress, who aided Walpole in his return to power after a "fall."

It's easy to see that Lilliputian politics have their fair share of absurdity and menace. How on earth does rope jumping qualify one to hold office? That an emperor would base his hiring system on a practice proven to be injurious to many of the candidates is appalling. That great numbers of people crowd to the capital to watch these "diversions" is horrifying.

NOTE: By ostensibly talking about the Lilliputians Swift is able to make a devastating case against the Whigs. Swift could have never made such bold accusations had he actually "named names." Satire is indeed a powerful tool.

Gulliver has been growing increasingly impatient to be unchained. The matter is hotly debated in council, where it is first decided that Gulliver must swear allegiance in the Lilliputian manner (hold his right foot in his left hand, place the middle finger of his right hand on the crown of his head, and his thumb on the tip of his right ear) to the terms set for his "full liberty." What ridiculous ceremony, but Gulliver complies.

Let's take a look at the conditions for Gulliver's freedom. The document begins with a full paragraph of some of the most overblown praise of a ruler you or I have ever read. Gulliver must perform many tasks for the kingdom, ranging from messenger to surveyor to raiser of stones, and "do his utmost to destroy" the Blefuscudian fleet. Otherwise (!), Gulliver is at "full liberty."

Gulliver reacts by prostrating himself before the emperor. Perhaps this is what captivity in a strange land would do to any of us.

^^^^^^^^^^GULLIVER'S TRAVELS: CHAPTER IV

We get further comparisons between Lilliput and England. Reldresal, a Lilliputian government officer (who represents Walpole's successor), pays Gulliver a special visit. His purpose is to acquaint Gulliver further with domestic and international politics, and to enlist Gulliver's aid. There is, he says, "a violent faction at home [corresponding to the Tories], and the danger of an invasion by a most potent enemy [representing France] from abroad."

In Lilliput, the warring parties are the High-Heels (the Tories) and the Low-Heels (the Whigs). Just as George I favored the Whigs, so the Lilliputian emperor favors the Low-Heels. Just as George I's successor, the Prince of Wales, indicated favor to both parties, the Lilliputian heir to the throne wears one high heel and one low.

Blefuscu is the "other great empire of the universe," says Reldresal, and is preparing an invasion. As Lilliput here stands for England, so Blefuscu stands for France; from 1701 to 1713 these two countries were engaged in the War of the Spanish Succession. Again in a parallel to Europe, the war between Lilliput and Blefuscu began because of religious differences, represented by the manner in which eggs are broken before being eaten. It used to be that everyone broke the larger end of the egg. One day, however, when the emperor was a child, he cut his finger on the shell. His father immediately issued an edict that all subjects would from then on break the smaller end of their eggs, or suffer severe penalties. There were rebellions throughout the kingdom so intense that one emperor lost his life, another his crown. The fire was stoked from agents provocateurs from Blefuscu. When the rebellions finally came to an end, many Big-Endians went into exile in Blefuscu. To this day in Lilliput the books of the Big-Endians are outlawed and no member of this sect is permitted to have a government job. Lilliputians are bitter that Blefuscudians consider them to have started a religious schism.