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Jonathan Swift: Life and Career - Coggle Diagram
Jonathan Swift: Life and Career
Jonathan Swift's Life
Born: Dublin, 1667, to English parents.
Education: Graduated from Trinity College, Dublin.
Death: Suffered a stroke in 1742, died in 1745, buried in St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin.
Career
He moved to England and worked as Sir William Temple's secretary for ten years.
Became an Anglican minister in 1695.
Authored works such as A Tale of a Tub (1704) and The Battle of the Books (1704), exploring themes of pride and literature.
His best-known work, Gulliver's Travels (1726), is a satirical masterpiece.
Gulliver's Travels is a satirical novel in 4 books.
Plot: Lemuel Gulliver is a doctor who takes to the sea (as ship doctor) and completes lots of voyages successfully until a storm wrecks the ship he is on. The lands that Gulliver visits expose the faults of European society and the vanities and errors of men.
First Voyage:
Lilliput
: Land of tiny people;
satire
on
human pride
and
petty conflicts
. Gulliver is shipwrecked and reaches Lilliput, a land of tiny people. Initially, the Lilliputians fear him, but he earns their trust by helping them in their war against the Blefuscans.
Second Voyage:
Brobdingnag
: Land of giants; commentary on human fragility and insignificance. Gulliver finds himself in a land of giants where he feels small and vulnerable. Though treated kindly, he is ridiculed as a curiosity.
Third Voyage:
Laputa
and
Lagado
: Gulliver visits the floating island of Laputa, where its inhabitants are obsessed with abstract science and intellectual pursuits, neglecting practical needs. In Lagado, he observes absurd experiments that waste resources, offering a critique of impractical science and intellectual arrogance.
Fourth Voyage:
Houyhnhnms
and
Yahoos
: He meets the Yahoos, primitive and irrational creatures who represent materialism and all the negative aspects of mankind. Then he meets the Houyhnhnms, noble horses who govern their land with great wisdom. Gulliver admires the Houyhnhnms and grows disgusted with humanity. But Their society is standardised: they don’t accept diversity and feel morally superior to other creatures.
Narrative Style:
Told through the eyes of Lemuel Gulliver, a reliable first-person narrator.
Mimics travel literature to create a sense of realism.
A critique of Western society's values, politics, and scientific pursuits.
Swift uses a
matter-of-fact style
to create a realistic description of places and people, even in the details he offers the reader.
The novelist uses
irony
,
allegory
and
wit
to surprise his audience and forces it to recognise the deeper meaning of his stories.
Themes:
Relativity of opinions and cultural values.
Satire of human folly, politics, and the pursuit of utopian ideals.
Criticism of religious extremism and unchecked scientific ambition.