Jonathan Swift´s masterpiece, Gulliver´s Travels was published in 1726. It had such an immense impact on the society of the time because it was, written in a unique form, so to speak. Up until then, only vague prose forms had been used that were not very “standardized” as in the case of Oronooko; or the Royal Slave, by Aphra Behn. However, Gulliver´s Travels was not the final form of the novel, but it is right in between the embryo and the final form, the one we know nowadays.
This book, that is divided in if four parts, was not only a hallmark for its form, but also for its content. In most occasions, any written form has an echo of the time it was written, or also of the personality of the authors, the point of view, and their own experiences. These reflect on their writing; an example of this is Gulliver´s Travels. In the book we can read between the lines, and extract a lot of inter-textual information that the author included in the text. References to politics, to both the Tories and the Whigs, or important political people like Robert Walpole. Also, like Diana said today, some information about the author´s own experience with the feral child Peter, and how it could have been (and probably is) his inspiration when writing about the yahoos in the fourth book. We can infer by this last book the love the author had for animals. Probably horses were one of his favorite’s ones, because he assigned them attributes that are very close to perfection. The only flaw that I can see in them, that is inhuman is their coldness. We as readers have to also take into account the fact that Swift is Irish. Like Carol Fabricant says in her article “Swift the Irishman”, beyond doubt he was a man that was attached to his homeland, not only for his family, traditions or childhood, but because it was part of him. It made him view the world from a different perspective. In a way, this is understandable because he is not from the powerful and glorious country, England, which is colonizing many parts of the world at that time; he is from a nation that is controlled in many ways by this power unit. Therefore he belongs to the less privileged part of society, and this affected his way of thinking. Obviously, this was present in his writings in a very clear way. I understand that in the first and second books of Gulliver´s Travels the theme of colonialism is very clear in a very subtle way. When these two books are read by the first time, what catches our eye is the size metaphor. In connection with it I got to the conclusion that this metaphor is also a powerful – powerless relation. To my understanding, the Lilliputs size not only implies lack of morality and intelligence, but also lack of power. While Gulliver is in Lilliput, he is the biggest person and therefore the most powerful one. Here he represents the colonizers, he can do what he wants and doesn´t have to depend on anyone. In book two it is the other way around, he has to suffer the feeling of depending on everyone. In this last book he is representing the feeling of the colonized, the powerless, and the dependable.
To sum up, in my opinion this book is so diverse with all the inter-textual information that contains, that is a very complete work. It is not difficult to tackle the important topics of the book as you go along, but it is very important, in this occasion to bear in mind some autobiographical aspects, because they deeply influence the piece.
