Pride in Gulliver´s Travels´characters

Through the history, Gulliver´s Travels has been considered, for some critics, a parody of the popular traveller´s tales dated from Swift´s lifetime. As well as criticising those wrong things Swift sees in people, the principal criticism Swift makes in Gulliver´s Travels concerns pride. It is shown the reader through each of the several areas Gulliver stops and stays in. "Though the people displaying the pride may change the pride is always there."

 

In part I, pride is shown in the inhabitants of Lilliput. They extends their tiny empire to the ends of the word, although the tallest member of the Lilliputian community has a height of six inches and the perimeter the country occupies is of twelve miles. The Lilliputians have in their king the best representation of exhibing pride. The king says that he behaves according to the god who chose him. In addition, to emphasize the importance and honor that he thinks he merits, the king stresses his eight part name. The Lilliputians know perfectly that their only and best weapon to defeat Gulliver is a matter of pride.

 

Gulliver has to obey the King of Lilliput

 

In part II, the own Gulliver is the embodiment of pride when he is abandoned in Brobdingnag. The inhabitants of this country, who are twelve times taller than Gulliver, would be able to show their control over Gulliver. However, they did not do it. On the contrary, he is Gulliver who truly has power over the thoughts of Brobdingangs. The king thinks he even might get some knowledge from someone as tiniest as Gulliver, unlike the Lilliputian emperor. Such influence is one Gulliver has over his new mates, he dares to criticises them for their backwardness in diplomacy and warfare.

 

Women surrended to Gulliver

  

In part III, pride is represented by the natives of two of the places Gulliver visits in his third aventure: Laputa and Balnibarbi. In the island of Laputa, pride is mainly represented by those people who are always thinking and not listening to anyone else. Then, they have to employ the known "flatters," who accompany important people, touching them in the ear when they must listen and on the mouth when it is time to speak. In Balnibarbi, the Academy of Lagado constitues the essence of pride. The scientists belonging to this group are characterized by attempting to impress by affecting greater importance to their ridiculous experiments than they actually possess. They hope these investigations help science to advance. "Their pride in these experiments displays the ridiculousness of the whole Academy."

 

In the final part of Gulliver´s Travels, as Gulliver as the Houyhnhnms embody pride. Gulliver´s pride comes from the Houyhnhnms and their instructuion against the deformed creatures called Yahoos. They consider themselves better than the rest of the existing world and an example of moral behaviour. However, it does not occur with their pride. Once they have got to change Gulliver´s mind against his fellow humans, he is sent back to England where he will live the rest of his life as a recluse, avoiding his family and his wife and spending several hours a day speaking with the horses in his stables. The sin that he cannot stand above all else is the sin of pride and he is blind to the amount of it that he has himself. In this way, Swift criticizes the way we hate pride in others without noticing it in ourselves.

 

In conclusion, Swift was telling us the many different faults that come with begin human, addressing specially pride as the motive of the first sin. The sin of pride provoked Adam and Eve to want to be just like God, so they gave in to temptation of the snake and ate the apple of the forbidden tree. For Swift, pride is the cause of all troubles in the world and that is why he decided to focus specifically on it.

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