Welcome to the course blog for Engl 206/CWL 257: Enlightenment Literature and Culture!
Friday, March 18, 2011
For Credit: Final Thoughts on Gulliver's Travels?
Feel free to post them here. Then go have a great spring break.
Posts before Saturday (3/19) at midnight count towards Week 9. Posts after that but in advance of Monday (3/28), start of class, count towards Week 10.
7 comments:
Celeste
said...
I think it was difficult to get a good understanding of Gulliver’s Travels because we only read one of the four parts of the story. Had we read the whole book, we most likely would have learned more about Gulliver’s character through the story’s progression. Perhaps the first three parts of the story would have opened up new understandings regarding the Enlightenment time period as well.
My last comment is on the way to interpret what to believe by and from Gulliver. His perception of everything he explain is something that seems to become mixed up with the authors view and the characters perception. We already consider his story and some of the things that he describes as things we can not completely believe. But how are we able to pick out the things that are believable by way of the author and not the character? The story just seemed to resemble the author feelings during that time. That was the only issue I had with the story.
I think that both of the previous two posts bring up good points. I too felt that mroe could have been gained had we read the other three parts of the story. As it is, our understanding is incomplete at best. As regards the confusion between author/narrator and character, I think this is a fairly common issue when reading any novel, especially one told in the first person. I think that it would be a mistake to completely align the opinions expressed by Gulliver with the accurate opinions of the author. There is nearly always a distinct divide between narration and authorship and it cannot be assumed that the narration accurately reflects the beliefs of the author. That being said, I think that Gulliver himself as a character is a commentary by the author on the nature of society and it's often deluded or imperfect view of the world in general.
One final thought I'd like to get out is about Gulliver's emulation of the Houhnym society. Someone said in class that gulliver had seen 4 different, exotic cultures, and yet this was the only one that he decided to try and recreate at home. They were citing this as support for Gulliver's love of the houhnym society, but I'm not too sure that this is the case. It could be that Gulliver is trying to relive all of his travels, but the only one he CAN emulate is the houhnym society because horses are readily available in England. Where are all of the little people that can fit in our pockets or giants that can crush us in society? While it could be that Gulliver loved the houhnym's society, it could also be that Gulliver is nostalgic for his travels.
I agree with Steve's post. Because we did not read the other three stories of Gulliver's Travels, we cannot really be sure that Gulliver only tried to imitate the Houhnym culture. It was definitely read as though that was the case, but how do we know that he did not incorporate other elements of the other societies into his eventual actions towards the English society? There may have been little pieces incorporated into his actions that we just did not catch or realize because we had not read those chapters. Also, like Steve said, there are not readily avaliable giants or small people to use in England, so reverting back to the culture of horses would be the only viable way to live if living like another society in England.
My final thought on Gulliver's travel is that like the previous post have stated without any knowledge of Gulliver's previous expeience we are not able to see how they affected his way of thinking and what actions he does at the end of the stories. For all we know Gulliver could have been influenced in a way that was profound, and he could have kept this lessons in mind while being with the society of horses. We assume that when this man went back home he only followed the teachings of the horses, but it could that through his encounters with all of the unknown socities in the previous parts before the horses, he had already become disillusioned with reality. Like others have stated another reason that Gulliver may have had such a hard time adjusting to his life in England could be because he really missed the time that he spent in his travels, or he simply could have been away so much time from England that it seems like a new exotic country that he can no longer be apart of.
I found Gulliver's travels to open some interesting conversation about who we are a s humans. It was not so much the story that intrigued me, but the interpretations and discussions in class instead. I love when i hear how people can read between the lines so well and point out things that make complete sense once you can see them. I'm not as good at that skill myself so it was fun. The Yahoos comparison remains my favorite because of how high and mighty humans think we are, but the beginning of the story where you can tell he' about to tell a story of untrue events talking about his teacher is a close second.
7 comments:
I think it was difficult to get a good understanding of Gulliver’s Travels because we only read one of the four parts of the story. Had we read the whole book, we most likely would have learned more about Gulliver’s character through the story’s progression. Perhaps the first three parts of the story would have opened up new understandings regarding the Enlightenment time period as well.
My last comment is on the way to interpret what to believe by and from Gulliver. His perception of everything he explain is something that seems to become mixed up with the authors view and the characters perception. We already consider his story and some of the things that he describes as things we can not completely believe. But how are we able to pick out the things that are believable by way of the author and not the character? The story just seemed to resemble the author feelings during that time. That was the only issue I had with the story.
I think that both of the previous two posts bring up good points. I too felt that mroe could have been gained had we read the other three parts of the story. As it is, our understanding is incomplete at best. As regards the confusion between author/narrator and character, I think this is a fairly common issue when reading any novel, especially one told in the first person. I think that it would be a mistake to completely align the opinions expressed by Gulliver with the accurate opinions of the author. There is nearly always a distinct divide between narration and authorship and it cannot be assumed that the narration accurately reflects the beliefs of the author. That being said, I think that Gulliver himself as a character is a commentary by the author on the nature of society and it's often deluded or imperfect view of the world in general.
One final thought I'd like to get out is about Gulliver's emulation of the Houhnym society. Someone said in class that gulliver had seen 4 different, exotic cultures, and yet this was the only one that he decided to try and recreate at home. They were citing this as support for Gulliver's love of the houhnym society, but I'm not too sure that this is the case. It could be that Gulliver is trying to relive all of his travels, but the only one he CAN emulate is the houhnym society because horses are readily available in England. Where are all of the little people that can fit in our pockets or giants that can crush us in society? While it could be that Gulliver loved the houhnym's society, it could also be that Gulliver is nostalgic for his travels.
I agree with Steve's post. Because we did not read the other three stories of Gulliver's Travels, we cannot really be sure that Gulliver only tried to imitate the Houhnym culture. It was definitely read as though that was the case, but how do we know that he did not incorporate other elements of the other societies into his eventual actions towards the English society? There may have been little pieces incorporated into his actions that we just did not catch or realize because we had not read those chapters. Also, like Steve said, there are not readily avaliable giants or small people to use in England, so reverting back to the culture of horses would be the only viable way to live if living like another society in England.
My final thought on Gulliver's travel is that like the previous post have stated without any knowledge of Gulliver's previous expeience we are not able to see how they affected his way of thinking and what actions he does at the end of the stories. For all we know Gulliver could have been influenced in a way that was profound, and he could have kept this lessons in mind while being with the society of horses. We assume that when this man went back home he only followed the teachings of the horses, but it could that through his encounters with all of the unknown socities in the previous parts before the horses, he had already become disillusioned with reality. Like others have stated another reason that Gulliver may have had such a hard time adjusting to his life in England could be because he really missed the time that he spent in his travels, or he simply could have been away so much time from England that it seems like a new exotic country that he can no longer be apart of.
I found Gulliver's travels to open some interesting conversation about who we are a s humans. It was not so much the story that intrigued me, but the interpretations and discussions in class instead. I love when i hear how people can read between the lines so well and point out things that make complete sense once you can see them. I'm not as good at that skill myself so it was fun. The Yahoos comparison remains my favorite because of how high and mighty humans think we are, but the beginning of the story where you can tell he' about to tell a story of untrue events talking about his teacher is a close second.
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