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An Analysis of Post-Colonialism on Gulliver's Travels Novel

19 Januari 2022   23:05 Diperbarui: 26 Januari 2022   10:31 2447
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Gulliver's Travels, a parody of popular travel stories of the time, and Gulliver's Travels as a surgeon combine adventure and barbaric satire to satirize British customs and politics of the time. This is fiction in the form of a novel that does not yet have genre rules as an organizing tool. Gulliver's Travels uses certain political events. It is divided into four parts. It is a 1726 prose satire by the Irish writer and clergyman Jonathan Swift, satirizing both human nature and the literary subgenre of "travellers' tales." It is Swift's most well-known full-length work and an English literature classic. The book was a huge hit right away. "It is extensively read, from the cabinet council to the nursery," English dramatist John Gay said. Robert McCrum published his list of the 100 best novels of all time in 2015, and Gulliver's Travels is included as "a satirical classic masterpiece”.

There are two versions of the novel Gulliver's Voyage. However, in 1735, a new edition was published with allegories not found in version 1726. It's not universal, but it's considered a more authentic version. Especially in the last two adventures, there is debate and controversy about Swift's satirical objects and the allegorical meaning of the book. This is its permanent appeal that some of the terms in the book fit into the general glossary. Perhaps the best known is Yahoo, which generally means a rude or stupid person. Each book has a different theme, but their common feature is the understatement of humanity. With lots of images, imagination and reality, this novel will inspire you to keep reading. The narration is good, but the language is neither so simple nor easy to understand. Therefore, you need to repeat this several times to understand the context.

Gulliver's Travels is an adventure story about Lemuel Gulliver's multiple journeys. He works as a ship surgeon. Due to a series of disasters en route to known ports, the ship finds up on various unknown islands, where it encounters people and creatures of unique sizes, behaviours, and philosophies. The first voyage begins when Gulliver's ship is damaged in a storm, and he is stranded on the island of Lilliput. When he wakes up, he discovers that he has been kidnapped by Lilliputians, tiny people who stand around fifteen centimetres tall. In exchange, he assists them in resolving some of their issues, particularly their fight with their foe, Blefuscu, who lives on an island across the bay from them. Gulliver is treated with care and kindness. Gulliver's second journey carries him to Brobdingnag, a giant-infested land. Gulliver is discovered and handed up to the farm owner by a farm worker. The farmer begins to show off Gulliver for money, and Glumdalclitch, the farmer's tiny daughter, take care of him. Gulliver is bought by the queen when she orders the farmer to bring him to her. Gulliver is a favourite at court, despite the king's derision when Gulliver recounts his own civilization's remarkable achievements. Following Gulliver's explanation of British administration and history, the monarch concludes that the British must be the worst race on earth. Gulliver offers to create the king gunpowder and cannons, but the king shudder at the prospect of such weaponry. Gulliver is eventually discovered. Pirates sent Gulliver adrift on his third voyage, and he ultimately wound up on the island of Laputa. The Laputas all have one eye pointing inside and the other skyward, and they're so lost in thought that they need to be encouraged to look around, despite their enthusiasm for mathematics and music. Gulliver is allowed to leave the island and travel to Lagado, Balnibarbri's capital. He comes to farmland and people living in filth. Residents follow the recipe of the city's educated academy, where scientists conduct entirely unrealistic projects like harvesting sunlight from cucumbers, as explained by host Gulliver.

According to the novel, there are several aspects of colonialism that we would like to discuss. After the start of the 15th century, European expansionist ideas swept the globe. Every European colonial power sought new colonial lands for a variety of reasons. Gulliver's Travels portrays a conflicted view of colonialism. Jonathan Swift's use of satires to describe various occurrences exemplifies Gulliver's conflicted reaction to his journeys through faraway locations. Even among the natives, Gulliver was averse to conquest conflicts. The region would aid in the improvement of the territory's poor governance practices.

Swift utilizes of the different races and societies that Gulliver encounters while traveling to ridicule many of the flaws, folly, and fools that humans tend to make. The first section shows a warlike, brawling but essentially trivial dwarf, and the third section shows a confused and unrealistic pedant and intellectual as an imbalance, lacking even common sense and dignity. increase. Houyhnhnm, on the other hand, is the epitome of sanity and integrity. However, Gulliver himself proudly identified these horses, and his subsequent contempt for the people around him was that he was also out of balance, and humans could strive for the noble rationality that Gulliver envisioned. It indicates that it cannot be done.

Swift takes advantage of satirical effects by using techniques of irony, contrast and symbolism. The story is based on the social reality of Britain at the time. He satirized not only British politics and religion at the time, but also humanity itself at a deeper level. Gulliver's Travels has three types of satire techniques: verbal irony, situational irony, and dramatic irony. First, he uses positive and commendable language to explain what is clearly ugly and annoying to express the author's contempt and resistance. Second, the irony of the situation occurs when there is a conflict between the character and the situation. In Gulliver's Travels, plot development is often the opposite of what the reader expects. Third, dramatic irony occurs when words and actions have meanings that are understood by the listener or audience, but not by the speaker or character.

As a fiction, Gulliver's Travels is as well done as any other novel. As an adventure novel or satirical novel, the author showed complete justice to plots, words and characters. Overall, the story has such a deep meaning that it makes you want to get a copy. Since the main topic of this essay is the colonialism in the Gulliver’s Travel novel, the writer wants to analyse and discuss more deeply about the topic using the Post-Colonialism theory (Helendra, 2011). So, the reader can gain more understanding about the topic in the novel.

Gulliver's travels depict colonialism's support from a variety of perspectives. For instance, the governance of the region is described. Swift's depiction of the lilliputian arguments is a satirical reference to Gulliver's belief that Europeans were more developed. When compared to English argument, Gulliver viewed Lilliputian debate as trivial. One of the key objectives for European colonialism was to introduce Christianity to the entire world. Gulliver also portrays opposing viewpoints on spiritual traditions in the region he visited. Religious ideas in Lilliputian and the Blesfuscu regions are mocked by Gulliver. Gulliver is actually jailed for urinating on the fireplace to put out a palace fire. This act exuded arrogance when it came to religious activities. The legislation, on the other hand, reflected imperialistic notions that Christianity seems to be the only legitimate spiritual practice (Yusuf, 2017).

Gulliver's inner thoughts are sometimes used to indicate support for colonialism in the text. Gulliver is enthusiastically greeted in the region's palace at Brobdingnag, where he quickly gains favour with the court. Despite this goodwill, Gulliver is complimentary of the English government. These compliments to the English government reflect disdain for his hosts, who have decided to expel him from the area. This demonstrates Gulliver's belief in the superiority of the European race over aboriginal ethnics, as well as his support for colonialism.

For the discussion done above, this work is quite complicated yet interesting to read. Thus, this work of art is suitable you are at the advanced level of reading comprehension. This work is a good comparison of literary works across generation. But overall, this work is really interesting.

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