Gulliver's Travels Literary Devices

Explanation and Analysis—Relative Sizes:

One of the most prominent motifs in Gulliver's Travels is the theme of relative perspective, with Jonathan Swift consistently demonstrating how different physical and social circumstances can lead to different perspectives on reality. In order to advance this argument, Gulliver undergoes literal changes in perspective as well as more theoretical ones. He goes from being a giant in Lilliput to being smaller than a dwarf in Brobdingnag, and his perspective on the relative size of objects changes accordingly.

In order to illustrate these changes in visual perspective, Swift frequently uses simile to describe the size of particularly small or large objects. In Book 1, Chapter 1, for example, he uses several similes to describe Lilliputian food:

There were Shoulders, Legs, and Loins, shaped like those of Mutton, and very well dressed, but smaller than the Wings of a Lark. I eat them by two or three at a mouthful, and took three Loaves at a time, about the bigness of Musket Bullets.

These similes provide a visual aid for the reader, making the relative sizes of things easier to understand, and also demonstrate the sort of things that Gulliver, an Englishman, finds important. The images he chooses show a preoccupation with food (mutton), nature (lark), and warfare (musket bullets).

Gulliver returns to this motif in Book 2 to describe the massive size of objects in Brobdingnag. When he returns to England in Book 2, Chapter 8, he has a hard time visually adjusting, showing how his perspective has changed:

As I was on the Road, observing the Littleness of the Houses, the Trees, the Cattle and the People, I began to think myself in Lilliput.

Gulliver's change in visual perspective paves the way for other, more substantial changes. When he returns from the land of the Houyhnhnms, for example, his perspective on humanity is so fundamentally altered that he is unable to readjust to life in England, demonstrating the extraordinary influence of circumstance on one's point of view.

Explanation and Analysis—Unfamiliarity:

Throughout Gulliver's Travels, Jonathan Swift uses a motif that spotlights the fact that even the most seemingly straightforward cultural customs can seem wildly unfamiliar and strange to people from other places. At multiple points in the novel, for instance, aspects of European culture are presented in ways that make them seem foreign and unusual. In doing so, Swift attempts to make readers question aspects of their culture that they take for granted.

In Book 1, Chapter 2, for example, the Lilliputians attempt to catalogue Gulliver's possessions. These objects would be instantly recognizable to any European reader, but they are completely unfamiliar to the Lilliputians, who describe the objects in comedically strange ways that illustrate the Lilliputians' alternate perspective. To that end, the Lilliputians are especially confounded by Gulliver's pocket watch, from which they draw several erroneous conclusions about his personality and culture:

"[W]e conjecture it is either some unknown Animal, or the God that he worships: But we are more inclined to the latter Opinion, because he assured us (if we understood him right, for he expressed himself very imperfectly) that he seldom did anything without consulting it."

Since the Lilliputians are unfamiliar with pocket watches and are unable to understand Gulliver's explanation, they jump to a conclusion that appears logical from their perspective. In this passage, then, Swift satirizes the European tendency to regard other cultures as primitive or superstitious. These assumptions, which are often grounded in racial prejudices, are used to justify acts of colonialism and oppression, but Swift's use of defamiliarization demonstrates the inherent absurdity of this outlook.

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Explanation and Analysis—Relative Sizes:

One of the most prominent motifs in Gulliver's Travels is the theme of relative perspective, with Jonathan Swift consistently demonstrating how different physical and social circumstances can lead to different perspectives on reality. In order to advance this argument, Gulliver undergoes literal changes in perspective as well as more theoretical ones. He goes from being a giant in Lilliput to being smaller than a dwarf in Brobdingnag, and his perspective on the relative size of objects changes accordingly.

In order to illustrate these changes in visual perspective, Swift frequently uses simile to describe the size of particularly small or large objects. In Book 1, Chapter 1, for example, he uses several similes to describe Lilliputian food:

There were Shoulders, Legs, and Loins, shaped like those of Mutton, and very well dressed, but smaller than the Wings of a Lark. I eat them by two or three at a mouthful, and took three Loaves at a time, about the bigness of Musket Bullets.

These similes provide a visual aid for the reader, making the relative sizes of things easier to understand, and also demonstrate the sort of things that Gulliver, an Englishman, finds important. The images he chooses show a preoccupation with food (mutton), nature (lark), and warfare (musket bullets).

Gulliver returns to this motif in Book 2 to describe the massive size of objects in Brobdingnag. When he returns to England in Book 2, Chapter 8, he has a hard time visually adjusting, showing how his perspective has changed:

As I was on the Road, observing the Littleness of the Houses, the Trees, the Cattle and the People, I began to think myself in Lilliput.

Gulliver's change in visual perspective paves the way for other, more substantial changes. When he returns from the land of the Houyhnhnms, for example, his perspective on humanity is so fundamentally altered that he is unable to readjust to life in England, demonstrating the extraordinary influence of circumstance on one's point of view.

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Gulliver's Travels: Motifs 2 key examples