In Gulliver’s prefatory letter to his cousin Sympson, he insists, like Robinson Crusoe, that his travel account is not “mere Fiction” and that everything he wrote is empirically true and factually based.  He, like Crusoe, insists that he’s a real person, the author of this book full of fabulous voyages.  Clearly, Swift is having fun with his readers: there is no way that the imaginary islands and people Gulliver visited are true. Swift is mocking the kind of realism we saw at work in Defoe’s novel.

Question prompt:

Choose a particular passage from Part 1, “A Voyage to Lilliput,” that satirizes the conventions of realist fiction present in Defoe’s novel.  Compare the characters of Gulliver to Crusoe; how do their descriptions of themselves and their respective oversea voyages differ? To help you think through the silliness of Gulliver’s character, I’ve included a YouTube video clip of the latest movie version of the novel below.

Please remember to categorize your post under “Gulliver: the butt of a Joke” and to create specific and relevant tags (as many as you want).  The post is due by Thursday (9/28) 11:00am.  And please include your full name, as your TA and I won’t be able to identify you through your blog username alone.