A Comparison Between Swifts Gullivers Travels And

A Comparison Between Swift?s ?Gulliver?s Travels? And Orwell?s ?Animal Farm? Essay, Research Paper

????????? In many ways ?Gulliver?s Travels? is a

unique work. There is little to compare it to in world literature and at first

glance, ?Animal Farm? appears to be a very different kind of book.? The authors are separated by over two

centuries, yet there are a surprising number of similarities between ?Animal

Farm? and ?Gulliver?s Travels?. Some of the most intriguing similarities can be found when you examine

the two authors, George Orwell and Jonathan Swift.? They are perhaps the most prolific political writers of their

time and? share likenesses that occur

throughout their upbringing, to the publication of their books. Orwell, like Swift, felt a deep sense of isolation throughout his

childhood especially in 1911, at a preparatory boarding school.? There he was distinguished among the other

boys for his poverty and intellectual brilliance.? Orwell grew up a morose, withdrawn, eccentric boy, and told of

the miseries of these years in his autobiographical essay, ?Such, Such Were The

Joys? (1953). ????????? Orwell and Swift both received an

excellent education, Orwell at Eton and Swift at Trinity College, and found

themselves as editors later in their lives.?

In 1943-45, Orwell became the literary editor of the Tribune, having

contributed several articles to the Observer and Manchester Evening News.? Swift (as noted in ?Swift and his Satire In

?Gulliver?s Travels? And ?A Modest Proposal??), had been editor of The Examiner

two hundred and fifty years earlier. The authors? backgrounds heavily influenced their purpose for writing

their novels.? Jonathan Swift was Irish

and, in ?Gulliver?s Travels?, satirised George I?s court and the English

landowners in Ireland.? George Orwell

was English and satirised political power including Communism, in the Russian

revolution and its aftermath. ?Animal Farm? is also an attack and analysis of

the search for power and the ways in which corrupt figures can gain and

manipulate power for their own purposes.?

Lord Acton observed that: ?Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts

absolutely?. Orwell stated that ?Totalitarianism has abolished freedom of

thought to an extent unheard of in any previous age?.? He believed that this was achieved not only by preventing or

forbidding certain thoughts or ideas but also by telling people exactly what to

think.? This is demonstrated from the beginning of ?Animal Farm? when Snowball

simplifies Major?s ideas into slogans, in an effort to make the less

intelligent animals understand the principals of animalism.? For example, Major?s statement that

?Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy? is reduced to the slogan ?Four legs

good.? Two legs bad?.? This simplification can lead to a loss of

meaning and become dangerous as we see when the sheep use the chant to drown

any opposition to Napoleon in the meetings.?

Both Orwell and Swift made their intentions in writing their novels

clear in the preface, which created great difficulties for their publication

namely because of the controversial satire within them.? ?Animal Farm?, for instance, was veiled a

criticism of the regime in the Soviet Union at a time when the regime was

Britain?s ally.? In order to avoid any further delays in the publication of the two

books, they were subtitled ?fairy stories? to obscure the true purposes behind

the writing of the two books.? In

?Animal Farm?, however, this also drew the readers? attention to the artificial

nature of the story line.? ?Animal Farm? and ?Gulliver?s Travels? are both political allegories and

can be read on different levels.?

?Gulliver?s Travels? can be read as a travel book, diary, fantasy and

satire of the time.? ?Animal Farm,

however, can be read on fewer levels: as a fable and a satire of general human

nature and the Russian Revolution. Besides satire, ?Gulliver?s Travels? can be considered as having many

genres whereas ?Animal Farm? has been classed as a fable.? These works (such as Aesop?s Fables) utilise

animal characters to make serious moral points.? Characters do not behave in a naturalistic or realistic way but

are symbolic of certain attitudes or view points e.g. Anthropomorphism as seen

in ?Animal Farm? and ?Gulliver?s Travels?. ?George Orwell?s novel satirises