Discussion - Week One - Gulliver's Travels - Part I

[Jim]

Part I: A Voyage to Lilliput, p. 19 – 76


Having a hard time making ends meet in London, Lemuel Gulliver signs on as a Ship’s Doctor sailing for the South Seas. A violent storm shipwrecks Gulliver on an uncharted island. Exhausted by his narrow escape, he sleeps on the beach, but awakens to find himself tied down by the little people. And so, our hero’s adventures begin…

Most of us have read, heard, or watched some version of this story. What are your thoughts reading it now as an adult? Are you finding the legal and political details interesting?

[Elizabeth]

Unbelievable...what Swift meant as biting social satire has become a children's book. Isnt the war between the two factions of Lilliputians supposed to parody the war(s) between the British and the French?
And...speaking of children's books: here's a piece of literary trivia: the day that Animal Farm was issued in London, Orwell raced over the city frantically, telling the bookstores who were putting it in their Children's sections that it was not a kid's book!

[Linda]

My focus in this reading (after a 30-year furlough) was entirely on Gulliver, himself. Why, for instance did he remove all scientific observations from his memoirs? (Especially curious in lieu of the fact that he protected his eyesight above all other aspects of his person.) Is he empiricist or fantastical after all? Why did he find it necessary qualify his voyage with a finger pointed at his mentor, Mr. Bates?

Also was intrigued with the religious connotations found between the cracks.

Made me wonder if this story is about them or him?

[Kyle]

That's interesting about Orwell. It is kind of odd how Swift's work has been adapted to a children's story. It would seem that a Gulliver's children's story would lose almost all of its meaning, and simply become a 'person goes to strange-world,' like Alice in Wonderland, except without all the depth and meat of Lewis Caroll. As I'm reading, I'm trying to imagine even having the desire to make.a children's adaptation; I'm not succeeding.

[Tracy]

My favorite image is of the politicians walking the tightrope--still resonates today, definitely. The threads they mention as prizes are some of the Honorary Order of Knights that were important in Swift's day: Order of the Garter (the blue thread, and you still see British royalty wearing the blue sash it represents) , Order of the Thistle, and one more that escapes memory for the moment...

Regarding religious divisions, I believe the parody on the Big-endians was actually about religion---whether or not you cracked your hard-boiled egg on the big or small end led to war, just as the English Renaissance was embroiled in religious wars over whether or not the communion wafer was truly or merely symbolically Christ's body, and the wine similarly truly or symbolically Blood. The low and high heels are Whigs (businessmen) and Tories(Royal loyalists).