Gulliver's Travels

Although written centuries apart from each other, Gulliver’s Travels and Slaughterhouse Five possess various similarities. Both Jonathan Swift and Kurt Vonnegut manifest themselves through a character in the novel. Kilgore Trout and the Yahoo (Gulliver), although writing stories about fantastic adventures, claim to be narrating true events. “If I wrote something that hadn’t really happened, and I tried to sell it, I could go to jail. That’s fraud.” (Vonnegut, p. 171). “…I would strictly adhere to the truth; neither indeed can I be ever under the least temptation to vary from it.” (Swift, 15).

Both novels are also trying to create awareness among the human race. Slaughterhouse Five, as mentioned in the previous entry, uses the character of Billy Pilgrim to portray how the loss of identity can lead to failure and denial in one’s life. Gulliver’s travels is a little more straightforward in the sense that it directly condemns mankind for being a corrupted race that makes “…no other use of Reason, than to improve and multiply those Vices whereof the Brethren in this Country had only the Share that Nature allotted them.” (p.6). Both books, therefore, reveal to us that the world that we live in is a dystopia. It is very peculiar, though, how Swift acknowledges the superiority of horses, a race other than mankind. This really reminds me of the Epic of Gilgamesh.

Like many texts, including Slaughterhouse Five, Gulliver’s Travels presents a strong reaction to the historical context of that time. Huxley, and Irish writer, condemns the Europeans (especially the English) as creatures full of “Vices and Follies” (p.18). The Divine Right is objected, as well as the Europeans’ search for lands to colonize. This novel was written in 1776, time when Ireland was an English colony. Due to religion and other factors, the Irish were treated terribly by their English subjects. Maybe this is what inspired Huxley to write a book in which the main character is permanently manifesting his hatred of the human race. Unlike Billy Pilgrim, though, Gulliver is considered a hero because, amidst all the circumstances, he still preserves his individuality…