Face of the Colonizer in Gulliver’s Travel Book I & II

8/3/2019 Face of the Colonizer in Gullivers Travel Book I & II

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Face of the Colonizer in Gullivers

Travel: Book I & II

Gulliver's Travels (1726, amended 1735), officially Travels into Several Remote Nations of the

World, in Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of several

Ships, is a novel by Irish writer Jonathan Swift that is both a satire on human nature and British

politics. This text also deals with colonial system and its crucial feature behind the mask of irony

and satire. Swifts identity as Irish is also reflected here. The colonial construction of Other is

represented through Gulliver. The unusual human being refers to the face of colonizer and their

exploitation. In Europe colonized people was like exotic creature for entertainment, just like

Gulliver among different types of colonizer. Im going to focus how Swift has unmasked the face

of colonizer on Book I and II.

The first voyage finds Gulliver stranded on Lilliput after a shipwreck. Here, he is neatly captured

by the famous Lilliputians, "human Creatures not six inches high. Gulliver is a source of fear

and awe to them, and participates somewhat helpfully in the Lilliputian war against Blefuscu, a

lengthy conflict that has arisen between the big-enders and little-enders (depending upon which

side of a boiled egg one must crack in order to eat it). Court intrigue and resentments, including

the accusation of adultery with a Lilliputian, soon require of him that he escape an assassination

attempt.

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And in Book II, he returns to England, only to set off again on another voyage. A storm, a

longboat journey to fetch water, and abandonment by a terrified crew, leaves him in

Brobdingnag where he is captured by giants "as tall as an ordinary Spire-steeple." (65). Gulliver

becomes something of a pet, amusing and entertaining the Brobdingnagians with his exploits and

size, competing with the royal dwarf and endearing himself to these massive people. While in

transit to the Frontiers, a giant eagle captures him in his travel-box (imagine a carrier with holes

punctured in the top to transport a small pet) and drops him into the ocean, where he is rescued

by more familiarly-sized humans.

Though in contrast to size, character and culture Lilliputian and Brobdingnagians both are

different but their behavior toward Gulliver remain same in many ways. In both continents

Gulliver become colonized and manipulated. They both use Gulliver rather as a puppet to

entertain and to use for their own benefit. To Lilliputian, Gulliver appears as a threat but they

find him useful to win over their enemy. Gullivers strength and he himself is a mere object of

colonial power here. Gulliver from the beginning tries to please them and show his loyalty and

tries to adopt their language, thought and believe. Gulliver blindly follows their law, rules,

language and culture. Gulliver is huge the Lilliputians are tiny. Even they have tied him up but

he is strong enough to fight them and escape. But Gulliver is already mentally colonized by

them. The manipulation is here a hyperbole of British colonial power and tactic.

The emperor himself in person, did me the honour to be by pros training myself at his majestys

feet (25).

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The Brobdingangians see Gulliver as a clever creature and he is used as a sexual toy by the

ladies.

This made me reflect upon the fair skins of our English ladies, who appear so beautiful to us,

only because they are of our own size, and their defects not to be seen through a magnifying

glass where we find by experiment that the smoothest and whitest skins look rough and course,

and ill colored."

Though the giant people are white they are ugly because of their size. It imposes the idea that

English people and their whiteness is not so beautiful in a closer look. It also refers to the

colonialism the closer one looks, the more ugly it looks.

When Gulliver can make his escape he is already torn and tired of fitting in between two

different types of perspectives and adopting the ruling class point of view.

"When I came to my own house, for which I was forced to enquire, one of the servants opening

the door, I bent down to go in (like a goose under a gate) for fear of striking my head. My wife

ran out to embrace me, but I stooped lower than her knees, thinking she could otherwise never be

able to reach my mouth. My daughter kneeled to ask me blessing, but I could not see her till she

arose, having been so long used to stand with my head an eyes erect to above sixty foot; and then

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I went to take her up with one hand, by the waist. I looked down upon the servants and one or

two friends who were in the house, as if they had been pygmies, and I a giant."

After being colonized twice by two different sizes of colonizers and being their toy Gulliver

adopts a self hatred and agony inside him. Swift is showing the personal view of colonized

person who always obey to the ruling class, act as a puppet by their wish, give himself up to fit in

the Eurocentric society and somehow at the end of the day he become a stranger to himself and

hate himself for who he is by born.

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Documents

Face of the Colonizer in Gulliver’s Travel Book I & II