Post 3: Gulliver's Travels

In Gulliver’s Travels, Gulliver includes himself in the story as a character by using first person point of view in order to take the audience with him through the story. This perspective allows the reader to see through his eyes, even if the lenses are a bit tinted or distorted, or maybe not showing the whole view. This first person point of view also allows Gulliver to show himself as an authoritative figure. His is the only opinion that the reader really gets to experience, and this allows his opinion to overshadow other possible ones. For instance, when in Brobdignag, Gulliver makes no effort in trying to hide his disgust toward the people, which would not have been such a powerful experience had there been a third person narrator.

In Brobdignag, Gulliver watches a giant woman breastfeed her baby. He talks in disgust about her giant nipple and narrates, “I must confess no object ever disgusted me so much as the sight of her monstrous breast, which I cannot tell what to compare with, so as to give the curious reader an idea of its bulk, shape, and colour" (Swift 85). He describes her breast as “monstrous” which takes away the humanity of these rather large people. Gulliver is also taking a nurturing, motherly action (feeding the baby) and turning it into a twisted, horrible experience. Because he is the first person narrator, he has the authority to put his opinion in whichever way he desires.

Gulliver is the one who experiences all of these places and various people. Because he is the first person narrator, he is allowed to make this experience into whatever he wants and the reader has to take his word for it. The reader can be skeptical of his narration, but there is not an omniscient narrator to question his credibility or make readers doubt him.

Works Cited

Swift, Jonathan. Gulliver’s Travels. London and New York, The Bodley Head, 1900.