Completion time: 1726
Features: Fantasy travel satirical novels aimed at attacking the political and religious reactionary forces in the British Parliament at that time.
[synopsis of story]
Volume I: Tells Gulliver's adventures in Lilliput after being shipwrecked. When the surgeon Gulliver was young, he believed in adventure and good luck. 1699, he was hired by "Antelope" to sail in the South Pacific. Encountered a storm on the way, the ship hit the rocks and sank. He escaped ashore alone and fell asleep on the grass. Woke up and found himself tied to the grass. This is lilliput, lilliput. The people here are only six feet long. He wanted to struggle, so the young man shot at him with a sword. He had to become a prisoner and was taken to the capital by horse and presented to the king. The election of officials in this country depends on the ability to dance on a rope. Many people will fight to the death. The dispute between the two parties in this country is caused by the difference in heel height. The war between the country and its neighbor, Braive Sku, was caused by whether to break the big head or the small head first when eating eggs. King Lilliput wanted to destroy Blefuscu, so he sent Grave to sweep all the enemy fleets. But Grave didn't want to. He dived to Brescu, repaired the boat and set sail for home.
The second volume describes Gulliver's experience in the giant country after being shipwrecked again. After staying at home for a few days, Gulliver went to sea by boat again. The ship was caught in a storm and drifted to this huge country. He was regarded as a toy by a farmer for his little daughter. In order to make money, the farmer took him to the town to perform, and he was so tired that he sold him to the queen when he saw no profit. Facing the king, Gulliver proudly introduced the British parliament, army, courts, finance and nearly a hundred years' history. But under the king's questioning, it seems that the British system is not clever. Gulliver was very homesick. He went to the seaside and slept in a small box. The box was picked up by the eagle as a turtle and fell into the sea. He was rescued by a ship and returned to England after many twists and turns.
The third volume describes Gulliver's experience on the island after being attacked by pirates during his voyage. Shortly after returning home, Gulliver went out to sea again and was hijacked by a thief boat at sea. He was put alone on a small sailboat and drifted to an island. One day, he found a flying island in the air. The people on the flying island hung him up. That man looks strange, wears strange clothes, meditates all day, and worries about the sudden change of celestial bodies and the explosion of the earth. The country is short of food and clothing, and the land is barren. Leaving the flying island, Gulliver came to Witch Island. The governor on the island can summon ghosts, so Gulliver met ancient emperors and princes such as Alexander. It was in the conversation of the ancients that Gulliver found that many records in the history books were inconsistent with historical facts and even reversed right and wrong. Then, he returned to China via Japan.
The fourth volume describes Gulliver's experience in Chile. Four months later, Gulliver was hired again to go to sea with the captain. On the way, the sailor rebelled and exiled him to Ma Zhi, where he was attacked by a human-like animal. Fortunately, a Ma Zhi saved him. Ma Zhi is a rational horse and the master of this country. Gulliver decided to settle in Ma Zhi. Helpless, the master decided to destroy Yehu. Gulliver was a rational Yehu and survived, but he had to leave the country. He returned to England, he saw through the world of mortals and took horses as his friends all his life.
Brief introduction of the author
Jonathan swift (also translated as jonathan swift or jonathan swift) (1667 ~ 1745) is famous as a satirist. /kloc-The best satirist and political critic in Britain in the early 8th century was born in Dublin, the Irish capital. He went to school at the age of six and studied in kilkenny for eight years. 1682 entered the famous Trinity College in Dublin, and he was not interested in anything except history and poetry. Or is the school "particularly accommodating" to get a degree? After that, he continued to study for a master's degree at Trinity College until 1686. 1688, Ireland faced British invasion, and he went to Britain to find a way out.
The next decade will be a crucial period that will have a great impact on Swift's life. He works as a private secretary at Moore Manor through relatives. Temple, the owner of Moore Manor, is an experienced politician and a philosopher. He has excellent cultivation, which undoubtedly played a positive and even mentor role for Swift. From a political or other practical point of view, this may disappoint Swift, but as far as a satirist is concerned, he has been fully studied in the past decade. His two early satirical masterpieces The Story of the Bucket and divine retribution were written here.
After leaving Moore Manor, Swift returned to Ireland to continue to be his pastor. He devoted himself to political activities for the sake of the church. He wrote many political pamphlets in his later years and gained considerable reputation. Although he became famous for a while, he was lonely at heart. He even walked to the brink of despair step by step. He experienced everything and saw through everything, so he wrote Gulliver's Travels.
1745 10 June 19, Swift died in darkness and loneliness at the age of 78.
Gulliver's Travels is a wonderful book. It is not a simple children's book, but a literary masterpiece full of satire and criticism. George Orwell, a famous British writer, has read it no less than six times in his life. He said, "If I were to open a bibliography and list six books that I would keep even if other books were destroyed, I would definitely include Gulliver's Travels." In this book, Swift's narrative skills and satirical talent are fully reflected.
The hero of the work, Riemel Gulliver, is an English surgeon and later promoted to captain; He is well educated, proud of his motherland, and seems to be knowledgeable professionally and politically. But he is a mediocre man in essence, and Swift makes full use of this limitation of the hero to achieve the most full irony effect. The book consists of four volumes, each of which Gulliver has to face special circumstances unimaginable to ordinary people.
Main works:
abstract
The novel is based on the four adventures of the surgeon Gulliver and consists of four parts.
Volume I: Travel Notes of Lilliput. Describe Gulliver's trip in Lilliput. The man here is less than six inches long. He is like a towering mountain. This small court is full of intrigues and disputes. Those who wear high heels and those who wear low heels attack each other and are at odds.
Volume II: The Travels of Brobdingnag. Gulliver is a big pet in the eyes of the little people, but in Brobdingnag, he is as small as a weasel in the field. Gulliver was packed into a suitcase as a gadget and taken to various towns for performances and exhibitions. Later, the king summoned him. He boasted about the greatness of his motherland, political wisdom and justice of the law, but he was attacked and refuted by the king.
Volume III: Lepita, Balny Babi, Lagenager, Greta Cone, Japanese Travel Notes. This paper mainly describes Gulliver's travels in Lepita (Flying Island) and Geller Cone (Witch Island). People on the flying island are deformed, and they worry all day that the weather will suddenly change and the earth will be smashed by comets, so they are all in a state of panic. In the Academy of Sciences, designers are studying how to extract sunlight from cucumbers to keep warm, reduce feces from becoming food, cultivate hairless sheep and soften marble. On the witch island, the island owner is proficient in witchcraft and good at evocation. They read the past and present, and found that the historical truth was distorted by powerful people, and prostitutes-like writers were deceiving the world.
Volume 4: Travel Notes. Describe Gulliver's trip in Chile. In this country, rational, fair and honest intelligent horses are dominant, and intelligent horses are driven by a kind of animal similar to human beings-wild foxes, which are lustful, greedy and aggressive.
theme
The lilliputian scene depicted in the first volume of the novel is the epitome of the British Empire. The perennial struggle and foreign war between the Tories and Whigs in Britain are essentially just internal struggles among politicians on some minor issues that have nothing to do with the national economy and people's livelihood.
The second volume of the novel sharply criticizes Gulliver's proud British electoral system, parliamentary system and various political and religious measures, and expresses doubts and negation on various British systems and political and religious measures.
In the third volume of the novel, the author points the satirical finger at contemporary British philosophers, scientists who are divorced from reality and addicted to fantasy, absurd inventors, critics and historians who turn black and white upside down, and Britain's exposure of Irish colonial rule and oppression.
In the fourth volume of the novel, the author uses Gulliver to answer a series of questions, and exposes the nature of war, the hypocrisy of law and the shameful behavior of obtaining office by hook or by crook.
Looking at the overall plot of the novel, Gulliver's Travels has obvious political tendency. His critical edge focused on attacking parliamentary politics and reactionary religious forces in Britain at that time.
& lt Gulliver: By describing the author's four troubles, it is written that the author saw through the contemporary corruption and criticized the corrupt society at that time with irony.
Main character analysis
Gulliver: He was an ordinary man in England in the18th century. He loves labor, decisive, brave and kind. During his travels, he gained insight into the deterioration of social reality and came to the conclusion that British society was uncivilized. Gulliver's image is the embodiment of the author's thought. The author endowed his characters with various virtues. Gulliver cares about others and doesn't care about personal gain or loss. Gulliver is a positive ideal figure. He always talks frankly about his weaknesses and mistakes, but says nothing about his strengths. He is modest and eager to learn, trying to understand the new reality with new eyes. He never gave up on himself. Even though he is regarded as a plaything everywhere, he still keeps calm, maintains his dignity and talks with the king of Great Britain on an equal footing. He had the courage to help Lilliputian resist foreign invasion, but he flatly refused to help Lilliputian king's aggressive expansion policy.
Literary and artistic characteristics
The artistic features of Gulliver's Travels are mainly reflected in the use of satire, and sharp and profound satire is the soul of this work.
Britain at that time was the object of attack and satire by the author. Gulliver's first adventure was in Lilliput. In this tiny country, partisan struggles are tense, and neighbors not only want to defeat but also enslave each other. The king of Lilliput used rope competitions to select officials. In order to get a few colored silk threads from the king, the officials did not hesitate to perform a clown-like absurd performance. This small court was the epitome of Britain at that time, and even the political habits and laws of Lilliputian were exactly the same as the British political situation at that time. In the second volume, the author even criticized Britain by name. Gulliver gave a detailed introduction to the history, system and present situation of Britain, as well as various matters of national self-defense to the King of Great Britain. But from the perspective of Great Britain, British history is full of "greed, competition, cruelty, hypocrisy, lust, sinister and ambition". In The King's Word, the author said that "such a humble and incompetent bug" was "the most harmful little poisonous bug crawling on the ground in nature", which satirized all aspects of British society. The third volume satirizes the pseudo-science in Britain at that time through the boring and absurd scientific research conducted by the people of the Lagardo Academy of Sciences. The description of the island of Lepita criticizes the British exploitation and oppression of Ireland.
The novel not only attacked the social status quo, but also directly satirized human nature itself at a deeper level. The fourth volume, the discussion about "money" is like this. Gulliver came to the country where there was no money, no army and no police, and explained to his horse owner, "The wild sheep there believe that the more money, the better. No matter whether it is used or saved, there is not enough time. Because of their nature, they are either extravagant or insatiable. The rich enjoy the fruits of the poor's labor, and the ratio of the poor to the rich is one thousand. Therefore, most of us are forced to live a miserable life ... ". The author is concerned about the pure money relationship between people in capitalist society. Thus questioning human nature.
When the author satirized and attacked the parliamentary politics and reactionary religious forces in Britain at that time mercilessly and bitterly, some of them bluntly ridiculed each other, some used foreigners' lips, some used metaphors to satirize people, and some used animals to satirize people. All this is interesting.
The organic combination of the fantasy of the plot and the authenticity of reality also adds unique artistic charm to the novel. Although the author shows a fictional fairy-tale magical world, it is based on the reality of British social life at that time. Because the author's description is accurate, delicate and appropriate, people don't think it is a fictional illusion, as if everything is true. For example, when describing the proportional relationship between villains and adults, people and things, they are all reduced or enlarged at a ratio of one to twelve. The villain in Lilliput is twelve times smaller than Gulliver; Adults in big countries are twelve times bigger than Gulliver. Gulliver's handkerchief can be used as a carpet for Lilliput Palace. A peasant woman's handkerchief in an adult country covered Gulliver and turned into a sheet. When describing the operation of the flying island, the architecture of the palace and the structure of the town, the author also deliberately used the knowledge and data of mathematics, physics, chemistry, astronomy and medicine. In this way, the authenticity, harmony and symmetry of the local details of the characters are transformed into the authenticity, harmony and unity of the whole picture and scene, which greatly enhances the realism and appeal of the works.
The author's writing is concise and clear. For example, it is written that Gulliver copied an official proclamation in Lilliput, praising the king as "king of kings", "standing in the center of the earth, with the sun overhead" and so on. Gulliver also quietly explained in brackets: "the circumference is about twelve miles." With this explanation, the boundless territory of "reaching the four poles of the earth" suddenly shrank into a tiny place of about ten miles. This contrast is hilarious. The words in brackets show the author's simple and realistic narrative style. It seems that he has no intention to comment, but he is objectively and faithfully explaining the scale of lilliput for us. He once declared: "I would rather tell ordinary facts in the simplest and simplest style, because I wrote this book mainly for you, not for entertainment." Although the scenes of Lilliputian, Adult and Wisdom are different and the protagonist's situation is different, the layout and style of the whole novel are the same. The causes and effects of Gulliver's every sea trip are explained in detail, and the complicated plots are described in order of time and spatial order. The text is concise and vivid, and the story is strong. So Gulliver's Travels has been appreciated in European countries for hundreds of years.
The author can be translated into jonathan swift, jonathan swift and jonathan swift, and The Travels of the New Gulliver has been published.