Question: ( 1 ) : Discuss the satire on science in the ‘Book- III’ of “Gulliver’s
Travels”
Answer: To remind people
about the fundamental moral duties to society and fellow beings, Jonathan
Swift has brought science in ‘Book- III’ of “Gulliver’s Travels”. In
this book Swift satirizes the scientists science and the intellectuals. It does
not mean that he was against scientific experiments. Many of Swift’s critics misunderstand
when he ridicules scientist and science. He was adequately aware of the values
of pure science. He has attacked science for a moral purpose. If we read,
analyse and justify the third book of Gulliver’s Travels, we will be able to
understand the fact.
Gulliver makes his third voyage to a flying land called Laputa which is
a satire on science. It is governed by scientific rules rather than moral ones.
As it is a flying land, it shows how far it is from the concrete values and
reality. Thus Swift is not satirizing reason but the wrong use of reason. This
is an island inhabited by men who are able to put their island into a
progressive nation as they please. The Laputans’ pride in their scientific
progress is quite vain since they are totally detached from common humanity,
normal standard of life and reality.
The science that perverts man from his normal self and moral self is not
wanted by Swift. The people of Laputa are very strange as regarding their
shapes are faces. Their hands are all reclined whether to the right or the
left. One of their eyes turns inward and the other directly up to the zenith.
The first one signifies their engrossment in their won theories and abstract
speculation. The latter shows their absorption in the stars and space. Their
chief preoccupations are science, mathematics, astronomy
and music. These intellectual pursuits make their outlook narrow and
insensible. These pursuits engross even their practical life so much that they
love their aesthetic sense. They express everything in terms of rhombus, circle
and parallelograms so on. They are so unmindful and callous to the realities of
life that their wives leave them to seek physical gratification. In this regard
we can remember the wife of the prime minister who lives with a footman.
Next we find Gulliver in Lagado, the capital city of Balinbarbi. He finds no difference between
Laputa and Lagado. The people of Lagado are also run by the system of science.
Here he visits the “Academy
of Projectors” where
he finds a man who has been engaged in a project for eight years for extracting
sun beam out of cucumbers and finds another man who has been employed for a
long time to restore human excrement to its original food and other meaningless
projects. But Gulliver is quite surprised that although the people are
starving, the lands are left uncultivated. By mentioning the absurd
experiments, Swift has created an atmosphere of useless activities, aimless researches,
perverted causes and distorted reason.
Here swift is pointing out the crimes committed against humanity. The
moral teaching of Swift is that intellectual pursuit is not governed by
self-control and humanitarian zeal for public care. The scientist will easily
forget his moral responsibility. They will think for thinking sake, not for human
sake. They will work only to satisfy their vanity causing a huge loss of money,
energy and time. These kinds of activities are sure to be destructive and damaging
to human potentialities.
Swift is very much realistic when we see that the progress of science
ushers in a moral decadence. With the advancement of science the age of Swift
began to lose her ground on moral strength. Swift portrays this moral decadence
with the example of the immoral life of the Laputan women.
Swift also satirized the astronomical researches of his time without
becoming aware of the future success of the astronomers in exploring different
stars and planets and ascending the moon. Moreover, he ridiculed those scientists
who pretended to be scientists but they are actually vain, dull and
non-creative.
In conclusion, it is clear that Swift’s satire on science is perfectly
realistic. He feels that science deserves moral contempt for its neglect of
social and moral duties. Therefore, he condemns it by witty manipulation of the
scientists and their experiments which amuse us. He perfectly exposes the futility
of the scientific activities which are far from reality of life.
Md. Saiful Alam
B. A. Honours and M. A. in English
Lecturer of English
Queen’s College, Dhaka
E-mail: suman64924@gmail.com
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