Name: Vũ Hạnh Trang

Troy ID: 1605136

Class: ENG2206 – IVAB

Session 3: The Enlightenment in Europe

I. Jonathan Swift
“Introduction”
1. The first book takes him to Lilliput, where he learns about the
customs and traditions of a race of six-inch-tall people. The story of
their preoccupations and procedures mocks the English pettiness,
though Gulliver, who is caught up in the intrigues of his tiny hosts,
fails to notice the resemblance between Lilliput and his native land.
The Lilliputians represent humanity's excessive pride in its strange
existence in the story of Lilliput. There is more support and
conspiracy in Lilliput than anywhere else, much more the pettiness of
small minds who believe they are great. Lilliputians, in general,
represent misplaced human pride and Gulliver's inability to correctly
diagnose it. Gulliver sees no parallels between Lilliput and his own
hometown. From there, he mocked England's pettiness.
Gulliver argues in the Brobdingnag story that when examined closely
and in detail, Brobdingnag represents the private, personal, and
physical side of a person. Gulliver encountered giants, whose
benevolent king remarked after hearing Gulliver's patriotism, "I
cannot but conclude the bulk of your natives, to be the most
pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever permitted to
crawl upon the surface of the earth." Gulliver then mocked the
cruelty of the majority of England.

2. What is the main content and tone/voice of part IV of the novel?

The main point of part IV is a disturbing allegory that tells of
Houyhnhnms’ journey to the Country and Swift’s imagination of the
absolute separation between animals and the rational aspects of
human nature. Gulliver's Travels reflects the conflicts in English
society of the early 18th century. By narrating Gulliver's adventures
 in Lilliput, Brobdingnag, Laputa, and Houyhnhnm, the novel reveals
and critiques the guilt and corruption of the modern era. England’s
domination and their ruthless exploitation of England and
neighboring countries during the capitalist accumulation period of
England’s history.
The author masterfully uses profound satires and his tone of
rationality and compassion. He creates the maximum satirical effect
by using satirical, contrasting, and symbolic techniques. He was not
only satirical about British politics and religion at the time, but also
on a deeper level, about human nature.

Quotations of Gulliver’s Travels

3. In chapter 1 of part IV: who are Gulliver’s companions in his journey
this time? What is the main purpose of his journey this time? How do
his sailors treat him?
Gulliver’s companions in his journey this time are Robert Purefoy – a
skillful young man and Captain Pocock.
The main purpose of the journey is to travel and explore the world.
Their job was to trade goods with residents of the South Seas. Many
of his sailors died of ‘calentures,’ fever of the Tropics, so he had to
recruit more sailors along the way. His crew members mutinied
under the influence of these new sailors and became pirates. They
kept Gulliver a prisoner in his own cabin as they sailed around,
trading with the locals. His men conspire against him, confine him to
his cabin for a long time, and set him on shore in an unknown land.

4. What does Gulliver do when he is left in the island? What are the
characteristics of the island? What creatures does he encounter in
the island? What are their features?
He delivered himself to the first savages he should meet, and
purchase his life from them by some bracelets, glass rings, and other
toys, which sailors usually provide themselves within those voyages,
and where of he had some about him.
 The land was divided by long rows of trees, not regularly planted, but
naturally growing. There was great plenty of grass and several fields
of oats.
On the island, Gulliver saw animals with long hair, goat-like beards,
and sharp Claws, which they used to climb trees. He emerged from
his hiding place to see that the beasts had been scared away by a
horse. The horses appeared to be so intelligent that Gulliver
concluded that they were magicians who had transformed
themselves into horses. In conclusion, Yahoos have a human-like
appearance but are hairy and have claws. And Houyhnnhnms are
basically like horses.

5. What is the horses’ attitude to Gulliver when he encounters them?

What does he think about them?
The horse observed Gulliver carefully, and then it neighed in a
complicated cadence. Another horse joined the first and the two
seemed to be involved in a discussion. Gulliver tried to leave, but one
of the horses called him back. What really seemed to surprise the
horses was Gulliver’s clothes, which they kept indicating and talking
over. The horses appeared to be so intelligent that Gulliver
concluded that they were magicians who had transformed
themselves into horses. He addressed them directly and asked to be
taken to a house or village.

6. When entering the building, which is the horses’ house, what does
Gulliver think of when he sees the hosts? Who else does he see in
addition to the hosts? What is the relationship between these
creatures to the hosts?
He thought that the house belonged to a person of great importance
and he wondered why they should have horses for servants. For the
first time, Gulliver suspected that he may be losing his mind. So
civilized were the Houyhnhnms that they disturbed Gulliver’s notions
of the characteristics applied solely to humans. When he saw that
the Houyhnhnms even had servants (sorrel nags), he concluded that
 they ‘who could so far civilize brute animals, must need to excel in
wisdom all the nations of the world.’
Gulliver was led out to a building far from the main house, which had
three of those gross, hairy animals Gulliver had seen chained to the
wall. They were eating roots and meat from animals that had died by
accident—donkeys, dogs, and cows. The horse leader ordered ‘the
sorrel nag’ to unchain one of the beasts and bring him to Gulliver.
When Gulliver saw this beast close up, he realized that the creature
did look quite human. Their hands had uncut nails, and they were a
bit hairier and their skin was rougher and more toughened than
Gulliver, but still, they were unmistakably human beings.
The relationship between these creatures to the hosts is master and
servant.

7. What is the food do the Yahoos eat?

They eat roots and meat from animals that had died by accident—
donkeys, dogs, and cows. “He brought out of the Yahoos' kennel a
piece of ass's flesh; but it smelt so offensively that I turned from it
with loathing: he then threw it to the Yahoo, by whom it was greedily
devoured.” So, the food that Yahoos eat ass’s flesh.

8. How does Gulliver finally find food for him? What are those kinds of
food?
He observed a cow passing by; whereupon he pointed to her, and
expressed a desire to let him go and milk her. This had its effect; for
he led him back into the house, and ordered a mare-servant to open
a room, where a good store of milk lay in earthen and wooden
vessels, after a very orderly and clean manner. She gave him a large
bowl full, of which he drank very heartily, and found himself well
refreshed.
To make the bread, he uses a generous amount of shelled oats. Then
he grinds and smashes them between two stones, then takes the
water. Then make it into a paste or cake, then bake it on a fire and
eat it with warm milk. This is a tasteless diet dish but very popular in
Europe.
II. Voltaire
1. What kinds of genre are Voltaire’s writings of? What genre is his
Candide considered to be?
Voltaire wrote in many important genres: tragedy, epic, history,
philosophy, and fiction. His Candide is considered to be a
philosophic tale, satire, and parody.

2. Who is the target Voltaire aims at to satirize in his Candide?

The person who is the target Voltaire aims at to satirize in his
Candide is Gottfried Leibniz – the German philosopher.
III. Rousseau
1. What is the similarity between Voltaire’s Candide and Rousseau’s
Confessions in terms of the characters described in their works?
The Confessions depicts its subject as a man (and boy) who is
constantly striving to express natural impulses while being
frustrated by society's demands and assumptions. The central
figure described here, however, resembles Candide, despite his
many psychic knocks. Voltaire's character's experience was more
important than his personality for Voltaire's didactic purpose; for
Rousseau, his own nature is far more important than anything
that happens to him. His account of that nature becomes
increasingly complicated as the Confessions progress and the
writer becomes increasingly preoccupied with the issue of his
place in society. His sense of alienation alternates with a wistful
longing for inclusion as he delineates the dilemmas of the
extraordinary individual in a world full of people primarily
concerned with accrete wealth and power. The characters in their
2 works both reflect the social reality of that time and through
that reflect more deeply about the human condition and human
experience.

2. What happened after the narrator was born? How does his father
react to that?
 Ten months later the narrator was born, a weak and ailing child,
he cost his mother her life. His father believed that he saw his
wife again in the narrator, he never embraced him without his
perceiving, by his sighs and the convulsive manner in which he
clasped him to his breast, that a bitter regret was mingled with his
caresses, which were on that account only more tender. His father
said “give her back to me, console me for her loss, fill the void
which she has left in my soul. Should I love you as I do, if you were
only my son?”

3. What happens to the narrator when he is a boy at the age of 8,

and what is the result of this situation? How does he become
cynical?
He inflicted child punishment on him when he was a boy of eight
years old. It disposed of his tastes, desires, passions, and self for
the rest of his life. When his feelings were inflamed, his desires
became so erratic that, limited to what he had already felt, they
did not bother looking for anything else. Despite his hot blood,
which had been inflamed with sensuality almost from birth, he
remained pure until the age when the coldest and most sluggish
temperaments began to develop.
He is a man of strong passions, and when they stir him, nothing
can match his zeal; he loses all discretion, all feelings of respect,
fear, and decency; he is cynical. Impudent, violent, and fearless,
no sense of shame holds him back, no danger frightens him, and
the universe is nothing to him except the single object that
occupies his thoughts.
4. What are the two contrasted characteristics the narrator feels
inside of him when he thinks of his own personality? What is his
activity affected by them?
A very ardent temperament, lively and tumultuous passions, and,
at the same time, slowly developed and confused ideas, which
never present themselves until it is too late, are two opposing
characteristics.
 This sluggishness of intellect mixed with such vivacity of sensation
does not just access his speech but helps him feel it even when he
is alone or at work. His ideas arrange themselves with almost
incredible difficulty; they circulate in it with uncertain sound and
bloom until they excite and make him burn and heartbeat fats.
When he is overexcited, he has to wait until his confusion goes
down, and then everything takes its proper place.

5. How does the narrator describe his feeling of uncertainty in his

mind? What is the action he uses to test his feeling one day when
he is having meditation on this subject?
The narrator wonders if he has ever harbored any of other
people's childish ideas. The fear of hell plagued him on a regular
basis. He was always asking himself, "What condition am I in?"
Should I die right now, must I be damned?" It wouldn't be wrong
if he was a Jansenist, but his conscience would be the opposite:
full of terror and entangled in that uncertainty. To put his
emotions to the test, he practiced throwing stones at tree trunks
while meditating on this sad subject. It forced him to make a
series of predictions while practicing, which calmed his fears. "I
will throw this stone at the tree in front of me; if I hit it, I will
consider it a sign of salvation; if I miss, I will consider it a sign of
damnation." When he spoke, he threw the stone with trembling
hands and a beating heart, but so happily that it struck the body
of the tree, which was not a difficult matter because he had
chosen one that was both large and close to him. He never
doubted his salvation after that.