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Animals In Gulliver's Travels

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A variety of historical, philosophical and theological traditions have contributed to the way animals are treated in a society both tacitly and explicitly. This research paper shall explore how animals are treated in Gulliver’s Travels written by Jonathan Swift and Heidi written by Johanna Spyri with regard to language, literature and human/animal gaze, given that animals are excluded from discussions of language and power as they are not, themselves, participants in their own social construction through language. This research paper will also engage with the fact that how language is at the center of this generative process as language plays a critical role in shaping the very thought it purports to express. Language does not merely describe; it constitutes meaning and fundamentally shapes human experience. In illuminating the full capacity of how language shapes the domain of animality, I will shed light on the very question of what it is to be a human being.

Jonathan Swift, wrote Gulliver's Travels in the 18th century. Swift was a visionary as back in the 18th century when he wrote this prose, there existed no formal recognition of Animal Studies as a discipline. Swift spoke about the exploitation of animals through the perspective of satirical inversion in book four in Gulliver's Travels.
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It is during Gulliver's fourth journey that Swift's satire reaches its pinnacle, where 'Swift put his most biting, hard lines, that speak against not only the government, but human nature itself' (Glicksman,Perceptions of Satire in Gulliver's Travels, 120). In this journey, as Gulliver comes to the land of the Houyhnhnms, who are creatures that look like horses but have the ability

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The essay” A Modest Proposal” by Jonathan Swift was a controversial one during its time. The essay was written in response to the great possible the Irish kingdom had which was poverty. He wrote the essay to address it in his own way. This angered and disgusted the upper class who were being targeted. Swift makes an insightful argument with an abundance of satire, uses a parallel structure and a problem solution model to subtly put his point across Swift uses sarcasm as his main medium to communicate his idea while also utilizing other aspects of satire.

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First, he presents a problem, along with facts and calculations. Like for example when Swift discusses the “prodigious number of children” that were causing an “great additional grievance” especially in the “present deplorable state of the of the kingdom” (Swift 1200). He reels the reader in by describing images of extreme wretchedness and utter hopelessness, then he employs the use of rationalism to play down the reader’s moral considerations. He successfully uses logic to get the audience to subconsciously lower their moral defenses and seriously consider his proposal. Jonathan Swift’s use of sarcastic irony confuses the reader as to the essays true purpose, effectively causing them to put down all guards so that they will have no safeguards when he aims his penetrative

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