Argument
Orwell declares that Gulliver's Travels is an attack on humanity, the aim being to "humiliate Man by reminding him that he is weak and ridiculous, and above all that he stinks". He notes that Swift's political affiliations were perversely reactionary and were partly driven by personal disappointment. Orwell also finds fault with Swift's highly critical attitude to pure science and discovery. Nevertheless there appear to be moments when Swift loses hold of the satire and introduces some constructive political thought - particularly in identifying the dangers of totalitarianism.
had much in common with Tolstoy in incuriosity and intolerance. A third criticism is Swift's constant harping on disease, dirt and deformity - and Orwell introduces his view of these as particular horrors of childhood. He concludes that Swift is a diseased writer, riven with disgust, rancour and pessimism. Although against Swift in a moral and political sense, he nevertheless admires Gulliver's Travels highly. Arguing that enjoyment can overwhelm disapproval, he rejects the argument that a book cannot be good if it expresses a palpably false view of life and concludes that in spite of its author, Gulliver's Travels is a great work of art.Read more about this topic: Politics Vs. Literature: An Examination Of Gulliver's Travels
Famous quotes containing the word argument:
“If this phrase of the “balance of power” is to be always an argument for war, the pretext for war will never be wanting, and peace can never be secure.”
—John Bright (1811–1889)
“Because a person is born the subject of a given state, you deny the sovereignty of the people? How about the child of Cuban slaves who is born a slave, is that an argument for slavery? The one is a fact as well as the other. Why then, if you use legal arguments in the one case, you don’t in the other?”
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“Argument is conclusive ... but ... it does not remove doubt, so that the mind may rest in the sure knowledge of the truth, unless it finds it by the method of experiment.... For if any man who never saw fire proved by satisfactory arguments that fire burns ... his hearer’s mind would never be satisfied, nor would he avoid the fire until he put his hand in it ... that he might learn by experiment what argument taught.”
—Roger Bacon (c. 1214–1294)