Defoe's contemporaries in England gave birth to another famous writer, his name was Jonathan Swift.
Jonathan Swift
Swift was an Irish political commentator and satirist (we usually say that Britain includes England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, but they are inherently conflicted and even now have calls for division).
His representative works mainly include "The Story of the Barrel" and the world-famous "Gulliver's Travels". Before introducing this book, it is necessary to introduce the political situation at that time, otherwise it will be mistaken for a fairy tale book like many people.
After the restoration of the Stuart dynasty, two strange political parties appeared in British history, one called the Whig Party and the other called the Tory Party. The origin of the names of these two parties needs to be explained.
The word "Tory", derived from the Irish word, originally meant Catholic bandits who specialized in house robbery. Because the royalists supported catholics to succeed to the throne, they were ridiculed by the opposition as "Tories".
The word "whig", derived from the Scottish word, originally referred to robbers who slaughtered Catholics. Because the opposition hated the Catholic Church, it was falsely accused by the royalists of the "Whig Party".
To put it bluntly, the royalists are called tories, and the parliamentary faction is called the Whigs. Then their names changed, becoming the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party respectively, the Conservative Party is still an important force in British politics even now, but the Liberal Party has disappeared into the long river of history after restructuring and change.
The names of these two parties are not elegant at all, but the British, who are good at humor and self-denial, have used this kind of contempt given to them by the other side. Their appearance marked the establishment of the rudimentary form of the two-party system in Britain and was an important historical and political phenomenon.
Swift was embroiled in partisan struggles during his time in London, and was heavily influenced by the leader of the Tories. After the Tories came to power in 1710, he served as the editor-in-chief of the party's examination of the Pao. This period gave him a clear picture of the political essence of partisan struggle, and was one of the sources of material for his creation of Gulliver's Travels.
From 1701 to 1714, due to the extinction of the Spanish Habsburg dynasty, the Bourbon royal family of France and the Habsburg royal family of Austria competed for the Spanish throne, which triggered a major war involving most of the European countries, the essence of which was the struggle and control of the colonial sphere of influence by the imperial powers. Of course, Britain was also involved, taking the side of France in the war against Spain. The war was opposed by the Tories in England, who were the owners of large lands, and the social unrest and land decay caused by the ongoing war were not good for them, and Swift wrote various pamphlets against the war, but the war was in favor of bourgeois colonial plunder and overseas trade, in the interest of the Whigs, and supported by them.
Speaking of "Gulliver's Travels", the most talked about is the story of the villain country and the adult country. Like Robinson Crusoe, we were exposed to this kind of fantasy adventure story at a very young age, and it was also loved by children and became a pillow book for many people in their childhood.
However, Gulliver's Travels is in fact a political satire novel, and the behavior and personality of the characters in the novel can be found everywhere in the British political arena of the time. Those who know Swift well will understand that he is a political radical who has spent his life crying out for various injustices, especially Irish social problems, and sometimes even calling on the Irish people to rise up and rebel, so that he cannot write warm and sweet fairy tales.
Gulliver's Travels is mainly divided into four parts, namely "The Kingdom of the Little Man", "The Kingdom of the Adults", "the Kingdom of Lapu", and the "Kingdom of Huiyin" (some versions are translated as the Kingdom of Hui). The first two parts are more narrative, the last two parts are more argumentative, and the ideas that Swift wants to express are mainly concentrated in the last two parts.
Villain Country:
Gulliver, who likes to travel and adventure, accidentally came to the villain country because of a shipwreck. The whole country of villains, including kings and commoners, was interested in this behemoth, and they called Gulliver the Taishan people (Shanghai Translation Publishing House, translated by Sun Yu, the same below).
The highest position in the villain kingdom is determined by jumping rope (not based on human ability and morality), and whoever jumps the highest will get the highest position. Political parties are divided into high-heeled factions and low-heeled factions (the high-heeled faction is in line with the ancient constitution, referring to the Tories, and the low-heeled faction refers to the Whigs) and the two factions are constantly fighting for their own interests.
Gulliver's meals were staggering during his time in the Villain Kingdom, consuming a lot of food in the kingdom every day, which was hated by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and because of the war that broke out with the kingdom of Bryfoscu on where to eat eggs. (Before eating eggs, knock on the big end, the Big End, referring to the Catholic Church, and the knock on the little end, the Little Endian, refers to Protestantism.) This heresy of mutual opinion is rather ridiculous, and it also shows that religious struggles are actually worthless)
Gulliver helped the villain kingdom defeat them when the navy of the kingdom of Brivescu invaded, which was hated by the Admiral, but the king was temporarily satisfied with him. But once the palace caught fire, Gulliver was anxious to pour it out with a soak of urine, which made the queen angry. Finally, after rejecting the villain king's request to destroy the kingdom of Brivescu, Gulliver offended the king again and was sentenced to death, but considering his contribution, he finally made the decision to blind him. (The partisan struggles in Britain, the brutality of the ruling class, the insidiousness and hypocrisy are implied here; the war between the villains is a mockery of the religious wars.) ）
A scene from the movie Gulliver's Travels
Upon learning of this, Gulliver fled to the Kingdom of Bryfoscu and returned to London with the help of King Bryfoscu.
Adult country:
Gulliver, who had experienced the adventures of the villain kingdom, did not settle down, and after a short repair he began a second adventure, and fate seemed to deliberately trick him, and he mistakenly entered the adult country this time.
He was picked up by a peasant who showed him around like a circus animal for profit, and when he thought he was about to squeeze out his value (thinking he was going to die), he sold it to the queen at a high price. In the royal palace, Gulliver was treated with friendly hospitality and good protection, and the peasant's daughter, Grumdalklidge, became his little nanny and good friend.
By chance, Gulliver and the King of the Great Kingdom talked about the British political system, the religious system, the justice system, the military system, and military technology, and the King seemed to be deeply prejudiced against this.
Once, when Gulliver went to the beach to play, his box room (referring to the house that the adult kingdom made for him with a box) was taken away by an eagle, and then fell into the sea, met a British ship, and was finally saved.
The adult nation is actually the idealized state that Swift had in mind. It is a monarchy of political purity, where the king loves the people, where all classes do their duty and civilize.
The series of questions, borrowed from the king of the kingdom, are Swift's hatred and ridicule of the institutions of British society at that time, and in the words of the book, the series of historical events that took place in England "were nothing more than a series of conspiracies, rebellions, murders, massacres and purges, and the result was greed, factionalism, hypocrisy, treachery, cruelty, rape, madness, hatred and ambition." "It fully demonstrates the decay and evil of the British ruling class. The kingdom of man expresses these ideas only in the penultimate chapter (eight chapters in total), but the core is also here.
The giant in the movie "Dream Giant"
Laptha:
Gulliver's third trip was hijacked by pirates, who abandoned him in a small boat, and this time, he came to Lapta Island (also known as Flying Island).
The behavior of the flying islanders is based on music and mathematics. Their male nobles were proud of their knowledge of music and mathematics, but in fact they did nothing but think about these two things every day, and it was even more exaggerated that every person of status had a pat servant (the servant's main job was to tap the mouth and ear of the person standing near them with a urine bubble to remind them to pay attention to something, because as mentioned earlier, these people are people who are focused on thinking. ）
Other people who are not accomplished in music or mathematics or who do not like them are at the bottom of society and are looked down upon by the upper classes. And their women choose their lovers among these low-level people. But what is not fun is that their fornication is too easy and not dangerous, because when the husband is always indulged in thinking, as long as he is given a piece of paper and the necessary tools, and the servant who is responsible for slapping him is not by his side, then the wife and her lover can enjoy intimacy in front of him (this passage mocks the filth and filth of British high society at that time).
Flying islands fly and stop with the help of the interaction between magnets and the earth, and the king and a group of ministers live mainly on the island, but the rest of the kingdom is on land. Clashes often broke out between the king and his subjects on land over heavy taxes, and the people of the Flying Island often intimidated them with threats of smashing them to death (alluding to the conflict between the British and the colonial people, including the brutal exploitation of Ireland).
Coming down from Flying Island, Gulliver came to a country called Barney Babi who had submitted to the King of Flying Island, and he visited the Academy of Lagardo, the capital of the country, which was full of scientists who carried out some ingenious and extremely magical scientific experiments.
A project that scientists spent eight years working on was to extract sunlight from cucumbers, put it in a sealed bottle, and wait until a storm breaks out during the harsh summer months to release the sunlight and warm the climate.
What followed was a group of scientists working on how to reduce human feces to their original food.
I also met a researcher who worked on burning ice forging into gunpowder.
There was also one of the most talented architects who invented a new way to build houses, that is, from the roof to the foundation.
I met a man who was blind at birth and brought several apprentices like him. Their work was to make paints for painters, and their teachers taught them to use touch and smell to distinguish between different colors.
There are also all kinds of strange things like ploughing the land with hundreds of pigs to save time and effort, softening marble as a pillow, using bellows to convulse and inflate to treat diseases, eating things with mathematical propositions and formulas to gain knowledge, and so on. (These examples satirize the boredom and disconnected absurdity of some scientists.)
Swift's time was the Age of Enlightenment in Britain, when world-class scientists like Newton emerged, but because modern science was just beginning, there was a group of scientists who only buried their heads in thoughts and thoughtlessness and humanity, and Swift used Gulliver's mouth to ridicule these actions.
In the real society, although there are few scientists like ladoga academy, but unlimited elevation of science, more and more scientists are influenced by capitalism, only need to pull the broken flag of dedication to mankind, you can design something anti-human. To limit the power of the bourgeoisie, to some extent it is necessary to limit the situation in which the scientific and technical workers and their mutual exploitation are made.
The flying island in Miyazaki's film Castle in the Sky may have been inspired by Gulliver's Travels
School of political visionaries
They pioneered a number of other policies, to name a few below.
For example, they taxed all kinds of people of this kind, such as wisdom, courage, courtesy, and so on, in order to ensure the stability of the kingdom.
Also, they let members of the House of Representatives obtain positions by drawing lots. In this way, people always have hope and expectations, and no one will complain that the imperial court does not keep its promises, but will completely blame their failures on fate.
Leaving Lagardo, Gulliver and his party wanted to go to Maldonada because there were no ready-made boats. He sailed a short distance to Gruber du Dreb (meaning Wizard Island). He was received by the local head of state.
Their leader has an excellent ability to resurrect the dead and summon them here. Gulliver thus summoned many famous thinkers, kings, generals, etc. of antiquity that he could know, and from the dialogue with them he found that they never possessed the great qualities that posterity preached, but were purely created by luck, the sneaking of posterity, and random speculation.
Gulliver leaves Wizarding Island and arrives at Ragnarg in Maldonada, where there are a small number of strange people who have immortal bodies but will grow old just like normal people. Gulliver saw a twist on human nature on this island.
Hui Yin Guo:
Only five months after returning to London, Gulliver's restless nature began to stir again, this time he was driving a ship to overseas trade, and on the way the crew mutinied and kidnapped him, leaving him on a strange island, and he came to Huiyin. In the country of Huiyin he met Yehu and Huiyin, two rather peculiar creatures in the country.
Huiyin
Appearance: Like a horse
Language: Elegant, beautiful, infectious, but much like the hiss of a horse
Status: The ruler of the Huiyin Kingdom
Character: Morally high, pure in thought, free of the concept of evil, friendship and charity are the two main virtues of the Wise Causes.
Rank: Divided into different levels, the upper huiyin is mainly engaged in leadership work, and the lower huiyin is mainly acting as a labor force. But they are not of an exploitative nature, and the difference is like a different division of labor.
Marriage: Their union was not primarily out of love, but to allow the race to reproduce. The young couple meets and combines, mainly by their parents and friends.
Fertility: Generally the upper huiyin has a child, and the lower layer will have more. Whenever The mother Huiyin gives birth to a child, the couple will be separated, unless the child dies prematurely or has an accident. If the little Hui yin in one family dies, the other families will inherit one for him. Similarly, if a family has two female Huiyin, he will also exchange with another family with two Male Huiyin.
Education: abstinence, diligence, exercise and cleanliness.
Political system: Every four years on the day of the spring equinox, the whole nation holds a congress to discuss and find solutions to the problems encountered by the Huiyin.
Attitude towards death: At the end of life, after death, they are buried in the most hidden place they can find, and when they say goodbye to the deceased, friends and relatives are neither happy nor sad.
Yehu
Appearance: Like a person, but without clothes, strange and ugly.
Language: clutter, more noisy.
Status: A slave domesticated by Hui Yin, with a low status.
Character: One of the dirtiest, evil, depraved and despicable creatures in the Kingdom of Huiyin
Marriage and Procreation: Without a fixed spouse, unbridled promiscuity and procreation, both men and women have a commonality, extreme debauchery and shamelessness.
Education: There is no education, it is good to eat and lazy, it is aggressive, and it can only work under the control of Hui Yin.
Hobbies: Like to look for a glowing stone in the field, or suck on a grass root that can make it crazy. (Alluding to gold worship and drug use)
Political system: There are also their own leaders, and the leaders also have their favorites. After these favored subjects are abandoned by their masters, they will be humiliated by the whole race.
Huin and Yehu
I think that the worst and worst person in the world can't jump out of the womb like this, he must have had a hellish experience before he became a devil.
Swift, who can write people as inferior to animals, has had a bitter childhood, an unhappy middle age, and a tragic old age. Although he was an Anglican pastor, he was quite dissatisfied with the practices and bad habits of the church, and he spent his life battling corruption, hypocrisy, and evil, with little respite. He had experienced so much suffering and tears, and had long been unfamiliar with the sun, that he had written his own kind as the most evil, stupid, ugly creature in the world.
Yehu of the Kingdom of Huiyin, a creature that looks like a human being, is ruled by a creature that looks like a horse called Huiyin. Gulliver, baptized in the kingdom of Huiyin for five years, began to be fascinated by this country, and to some extent the author's own expectations, a harmonious, moral, orderly and developed and rational state under the patriarchal system.
Its opposite, of course, is the reality of eighteenth-century Britain.
Expose the evils of capitalism: Remember, as a time of the Eighteenth-Century Enlightenment, a considerable number of pioneers cheered for capitalism, hoping that the emerging bourgeoisie, though it did succeed in the end, would come at the cost of the bourgeoisie becoming a dragon. Many enlighteners at the time didn't see this, but Swift found it.
Against colonial aggression: When Defoe, his contemporary, was still encouraging the slave trade, Swift borrowed Gulliver's words: "If a king sends an army into a country where the people are poor and ignorant, he will put half of them to death according to the law and make the other half slaves, so that they can get rid of their barbaric way of life and gradually make them civilized." When an animal thinks itself rational can do such a vicious thing, it makes him think that the degeneration of reason may be more terrible than its barbaric nature. ”
Mocking lawyers: Laws in capitalist economies undoubtedly serve the rich, and Swift describes lawyers as "among us there is a social group that has been trained from a young age to learn how much to pay according to others, and then use his own words to achieve the purpose of saying white into black and black into white." In the eyes of this gang, the rest of society are their slaves. ”
The sarcasm of the judges: "They were chosen from among the most skilled lawyers who were old or lazy. These are people who have spent their lives distorting the truth and opposing justice, who desperately need to defend fraud, perjury and oppression, and I know that some of them would rather refuse to accept a large bribe from the just side than do anything against their nature or their profession to the detriment of their peers. ”
Exposing the nature of the rich clique: "The rich like to deprive the poor poor of the fruits of their labor, and the number of the rich is only one-thousandth of the poor. The vast majority of our people are forced to work hard every day for meager wages, leaving a few to live a life of spending time and drinking, while living a miserable life themselves. ”
A mockery of the magnates and high-ranking officials: "The first ministers or prime ministers of a country of this kind which I intend to describe are a group of men who are completely freed from mood and sorrow, from love and hate; to say the least, they have almost no emotion except a strong desire for wealth, power and fame. He can speak his mind about any issue without revealing what he thinks; he never tells the truth, and you should treat everything he says as a lie. ”
The mockery of the nobility: "Our young nobles grew up in a luxurious and laid-back environment, and at a certain age they expended their energies in the intercourse with lascivious women and contracted disgusting diseases, and when their possessions were almost exhausted, they married a woman of humble, nasty, and flawed origin, and though they hated and despised them, they had to do so for the sake of money." ”
"A weak and sickly body, a gaunt face and a grayish complexion are the true marks of nobility."
Swift's fiery satire set a precedent for British satirical fiction (to be examined) and offended a considerable number of people. At the same time, he actively called on the Irish people to fight for freedom and independence, and was loved by the people and became a hero of the Irish people. He was good at using anti-verbal and suggestive techniques to reflect the social reality of the time through the exposure of various phenomena in the virtual world.
On the surface, "Gulliver's Travels" resembles a fantasy and witty children's book, but in fact it is a deeply exposed and highly militant realist work that exposes the Politics, society, law, customs and habits of The British at that time. Swift once made a literary proposition that "there are many things which cannot be punished by law, and neither religious nor moral constraints are sufficient to correct these evildoers; only by making their sins known to the world in the strongest words can they be hated." (I quote this phrase from "Celebrity Wealth")