书评
Gulliver's TravelsThe book I have read is Gulliver's Travels, written by Jonathan Swift, a greatest satirist in England in the 18th century.When we mention Gulliver’ travels, we can not mention its great feature “satire”. Swift gives his satire by four voyages to different places. Each part is the reverse of the preceding part — Gulliver is big/small/sensible/ignorant, the countries are complex/simple/scientific/natural, forms of Government are worse/better/worse/better than England's. Indeed, the deepest impression this book gives me is the satire both on England and human nature.
England is the main target Swift eagerly attack and satirize. The first place Gulliver travel is Lilliput, in which parties always have conflicts between each other. Next to Lilliput is a rival country Blefuscu. The two counties not only defeat but take control of the other. What is ridiculous in Lilliput is that you must get the reward of the couples of colourful silk threads by means of dancing in the rope to please the king if you want to engage in politics. All the offcials give their ridiculous performances like a clown. This corrupt court is the epitome of Great Britain of George I , even the customs and institutions in the court is exactly the same as those in the English government of that time. Swift uses a series of conflicts in the court of Lilliput to tease domestic two parties Tories and Whigs, taking on conflicts all the time rather than concerning people’s life. What is more, proud Lilliputians also represent the politicians in England.
In part two, Swift even criticize England directly by using the words of the king of Brobdingnag. Gulliver introduces in detail the history, policy and the situation of England as well excuses for his country at full steam. But the king, from her view, she indignantly points out England is “avaricious , compete , barbarous , hypocritical , lust , ambitious” and dirtiest and most contemptible in all kinds of aspects in a direct way.
In part three, he travels to flying island of Laputa, where people love doing boring and strange scientific researches like picking up sunshine from cucumber, which all disobey objective rules. What impresses me most is people make a clothes for Gulliver by calculate figures such as the distance between his eyes, between his ears etc. But to his surprise, the clothing they make does not suit him at all. So ridiculous is what they do. Look back to the England of that time, the situation is almost the same as that in the island of Laputa. That is to say, Swift actually satire the pseudoscience in England of his time.
Swift on only satirizes the social situation, but human nature. In part four, Gulliver has a voyage to the country of the Houyhnhnms. In this country, the horses (in their language “Houyhnhnm” or "the perfection of nature") are the rulers and the deformed creatures ("Yahoos") are human beings in their basest form. Yahoos eat everything even a dirty mouse that can be eaten just like a beast. They are savage without any ration. When compared with Yahoos, Gulliver is called a Yahoo by Houyhnhnms, for Yahoos look very like human beings. In this part, Swift actually use Yahoos to give satire on human nature: avaricious , compete , barbarous , hypocritical , lust , ambitious.
Swift believes “ Everyone has a monster in his mind and he must control it.” Seeing this kind of deformed creature Yahoo, readers can not help asking such a question: Am I a Yahoo? This is exactly what Swift wants. In this part, he still remains two questions: Who am I? And what is my nature?
The success of Gulliver’s Travels relies on its sharp satire by the combination of imaginary plot and real life. This book is about a specific set of political conflicts, but if it were nothing more than that it would long ago have been forgotten. The staying power of the work comes from its depiction of the human condition and its often despairing, but occasionally hopeful, sketch of the possibilities for humanity to rein in its baser instincts.
[ 本帖最后由 苏洪钊 于 2009-1-11 10:10 编辑 ]
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