Analüüs Swifti kirjandusest inglise keeles (0)

These two chapters highlight the kinds of commentary Swift makes throughout the novel . By describing a society that chooses its highest officials with silly competitions like seeing who can jump the highest on a tight-rope, Swift is poking fun at the way officials are chosen in England. He is also commenting on the disturbing trend of politicians who are willing to do whatever it takes to gain favour in the court -including humiliating themselves. The danger of ambition is also figured here ; jumping badly can lead to death.
Having Gulliver stand with his legs apart so that the Lilliputian armies can walk through is also a ridiculous idea . It is a comment on the pomp and circumstance of English armies. To Swift it seems that armies are often more concerned with looking impressive than with being impressive. This scene might also be an allusion to the Colossus of Rhodes, described in Julius Caesar  by Shakespeare as a larger-than-life figure that men could walk through the legs of.
The war between the English and the French is parodied in the conflict between the Lilliputians and the Blefuscudians. Their conflict over which end of the egg to break reflects the centuries-old conflict over how to practice religion -as Protestants or Catholics. While the wars over religion certainly were very serious , Swift suggests that what was being fought over (at least on the religious rather than the political side) really was not very important . In Swift's eyes, fighting over religion is as pointless as fighting over which end of an egg to break.
Swift also parodies the political parties within England. The Tory party is represented by the Low Heels while the Whigs are represented by the High Heels. Considering that Swift himself changed parties, he must have understood that political allegiance was important. Yet, political bickering is often about such unimportant matters as the height of one's heels.
It is interesting to note that even though lying is seen as a terrible offense in Lilliput , Flimnap tells a huge lie (that Gulliver slept with Flimnap's wife) and gets away with it. Apart from the ludicrous physical implications of a giant having relations with a Lilliputian, the problem here is that the society must be able to enforce its norm against lying for the law to matter . This may also be a commentary on the seeming ability of those in positions of power to get away with breaking the law. When the law comes down unfairly on Gulliver, he has actual rather than statutory power to leave, so he simply leaves Lilliput to live with their enemies.
Furthermore, satire is shown through the plot of journey and return . The Lilliputians symbolize humankind's widely excessive pride in its own puny existence because, in spite of the small size of the Lilliputians, they do not consider the notion that Gulliver is enormous compared to them and could kill them with just a flick of his finger . Gulliver has learned that their society suffers from the same flaws inherent in the English society (rebellions over relatively minor issues ), but their society is more utopian compared to the English society.
WIKI
Lilliput and Blefuscu were intended as, and understood to be, satirical portraits of the kingdom of Great Britain  and the kingdom ofFrance, respectively, as they were in the early 18th century . Only the internal politics of Lilliput are described in detail; these are parodies of British politics, in which the great central issues of the day are belittled and reduced to unimportance.
For instance , the two major political parties of the day were the Whigs and the Tories. The Tories are parodied as the Tramecksanor "High-Heels" (due to their adhesion to the high church  party of the Church of England, and their exalted views of royal supremacy), while the Whigs are represented as the Slamecksan or "Low-Heels" (the Whigs inclined toward  low church views, and believed in parliamentary supremacy). These issues, generally considered to be of fundamental importance to the constitution of Great Britain, are reduced by Swift to a difference in fashions.
The Emperor of Lilliput is described as a partisan of the Low-Heels, just as  King George I  employed only Whigs in his administration; the Emperor's heir is described as having "one of his heels higher than the other ", which describes the encouragement by the Prince of Wales (the future George II) of the political opposition during his father 's life; once he ascended the throne, however, George II was as staunch a favorer of the Whigs as his father had been.
The novel further describes an intra-Lilliputian quarrel over the practice of breaking eggs . Traditionally, Lilliputians broke boiled eggs on the larger end; a few generations ago, an Emperor of Lilliput had decreed that all eggs be broken on the smaller end. The differences between Big-Endians (those who broke their eggs at the larger end) and Little -Endians had given rise to "six rebellions... wherein one Emperor lost his life, and another his crown ".
The Big-Endian/Little-Endian controversy reflects, in a much simplified form, British quarrels over religion. England had been, less than 200 years previously, a Catholic (Big-Endian) country ; but a series of reforms beginning in the 1530s under King Henry VIII (ruled 1509- 1547 ), Edward VI (1547–1553), and  Queen Elizabeth I (1558– 1603 ) had converted most of the country to Protestantism (Little-Endianism), in the episcopalian form of the Church of England. At the same time, revolution and reform in Scotland ( 1560 ) had also converted that country to Presbyterian Protestantism, which led to fresh difficulties when England and Scotland were united under one ruler, James I (1603–1625).
Religiously inspired revolts and rebellions followed, in which, indeed, one king, Charles I (1625–1649) lost his life, and his son James II lost his crown and fled to France ( 1685 –1688). Some of these conflicts were between Protestants and Catholics; others were between different branches of Protestantism. Swift does not clearly distinguish between these different kinds of religious strife.
Swift has his Lilliputian informant blame the " civil commotions" on the propaganda of the Emperor of Blefuscu, i.e. the King of France; this primarily reflects the encouragement given by King Louis XIV of France to James II in pursuit of his policies to advance the toleration of Catholicism in Great Britain. He adds that "when (the commotions) were quelled, the (Big-Endian) exiles always fled for refuge to that empire (Blefuscu/France)". This partially reflects the exile of King Charles II on the Continent (in France, Germany , the Spanish Netherlands, and the Dutch Republic) from 1651 to 1660, but more particularly the exile of the Catholic King James II from 1688-1701. James II was dead by the time Swift wrote Gulliver's Travels, but his heir James Francis Edward Stuart , also Catholic, maintained his pretensions to the British throne from a court in France (primarily at Saint- Germain -en-Laye) until 1717 , and both Jameses were regarded as a serious threat to the stability of the British monarchy until the end of the reign of George II. The court of the Pretender attracted those Jacobites, and their Tory sympathizers, whose political activity precluded them staying safely in Great Britain; notable among them was Swift's friend, the Anglican Bishop of Rochester  Francis Atterbury, who was exiled to France in 1722 .
Swift's Lilliputian claims that the machinations of "Big-Endian exiles" at the court of the Emperor of Blefuscu have brought about a continuous war between Lilliput and Blefuscu for "six and thirty moons" (Lilliputians calculate time in 'moons', not years; their time-scale is apparently also one-twelfth the size of normal humans .) This is an allusion to the wars fought underKing William III and Queen Anne against France under Louis XIV, the War of the Grand Alliance (1689–1697) and the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1713). In both cases, the claims of the exiled House of Stuart were marginal to other causes of war, but were an important propaganda point in Great Britain itself, as both James II and James Francis Edward were accused of allying with foreigners to force Catholicism on the British people.
One of the first traditions that appear in the chapter is rope-dancing. Rope-dancers are Lilliputians who are seeking employment in the government , for the performance , as a competitive examination, the candidates dance on ropes, or "a slender white thread, extended about two foot , twelve inches from he ground " (73); whomever jumps the highest earns a position in office. The people who currently hold office continue this tradition as well, in order to show that they have not lost their skill . There does not seem to be any desire for modification of this tradition; on the contrary, Gulliver seems to be entertained by the tradition. 
  Swift further illustrates satire of the country vs. court distinction by comparing English government to Lilliput. In the early eighteenth century, the English government was under the Whig's political party. Swift represented himself as Gulliver as being a Tory, and the Lilliputians as being power-hungry Whigs. Their heels of their shoes identified these parties. In Lilliput the High-Heels represented the Tories and the Low-Heels represented the Whigs. George I favored the Whigs, so the Lilliputian emperor favored the Low-Heals. But the Prince of Whales favored both parties, and thus the Lilliputian heir to the throne wore one High-Heel and one Low. When Gulliver started learning about the Lilliputians government he noticed that their government officials were chosen by rope dancing. To Gulliver and the reader these practices seem ridiculous and idiotic, but to the Lilliputians they see these practices as normal. Swift uses this scene to satire the British government at this time. The British government also elected their ministers in a same foolish manner .