They are completely incompetent in practical affairs and don't even notice that their wives are notoriously unfaithful. Swift uses the whoring wives of the Laputans to suggest that immorality accompanies abstract, proud reason.
The story from Juvenal relates these licentious women directly with national morality and English politics. In addition, Swift also takes a poke at Walpole, the leader of the Whigs. The woman who runs away to live with a slave has reference to the stories that circulated about Walpole's wife.
Incorporating other political allusions, Swift chides George I by means of the Laputan's king's hospitality to Gulliver. George I was notorious for filling his administration with illiterate Germans from Hanover. The tailor's mistake in calculation applies to Isaac Newton, a mathematical theorist who dabbled in politics. Newton suffered ridicule because a printer made a mistake in one of the figures Newton used in computing the distance of the earth from the sun.
Swift, however, had yet another quarrel with Newton. Newton recommended a scheme to debase Irish coinage that Swift believed was immoral and callous. Newton was a convenient model for Swift, who believed that he incorporated the essence of the immoral, abstract reasoning scientist.
Swift also makes satirical use of the Laputan anxiety about the health of the sun and the comet theories. Many of his contemporaries were so interested in astrology, Swift believed, that they might worry over a comet and not notice their wives' infidelity.
A teacher is sent to instruct Gulliver in the language of the island, and he is able to learn several sentences. The language of the Laputans relies heavily on mathematical and musical concepts, as they value these theoretical disciplines above everything. The Laputans despise practical geometry, thinking it vulgar—so much so that they make sure that there are no right angles in their buildings.
They are very good with charts and figures but very clumsy in practical matters. They practice astrology and dread changes in the celestial bodies.
SparkTeach Teacher's Handbook. Themes Motifs Symbols. Page 1 Page 2. Gulliver visits Glubbdubdrib because he is delayed on the way to Luggnag. What is unusual about Laputa food and clothing? Laputa is a flying or floating island, moving above the ground.
Laputan food is shaped like geometrical figures or musical instruments and their clothing is similarly decorated. Their clothing is also decorated with astronomical figures.
How does Gulliver get transported to Laputa? How did Gulliver get to Laputa? He set out on the Hopewell as ship's surgeon on a trip to the East Indies. A storm drove them off course and pirates took the ship. Pirates were going to kill him but instead set him adrift in a canoe. How long did Gulliver stay in Brobdingnag? He returns to England. Who do the Lilliputians represent? The Lilliputians, a tiny race of people, represent much of what is petty and small-minded about the English and humankind in general.
They are physically and morally smaller than Gulliver. They are pompous, self-important, self-serving, hypocritical, and surprisingly dangerous and cruel in spite of their small size.
How does Gulliver's Travels relate to today? Gulliver's Travels is still relevant today because it presents a variety of social critiques and condemnations of branches of human activity that still exist today.
0コメント