Assignments for Session 3.

The Enlightenment in Europe

I. Jonathan Swift
“Introduction”
1. What does Swift allegorically imply in the narrative of Lilliput and of Brobdingnag?
In the story of Lilliput and Brobdingnag, the author alludes to the whole of England
in his time. The image of the Lilliput court was full of nasty, selfish, petty, and mean
things like their stature and that also reflected the immoral society of England at that
time. For the Brobdingnag giants - giants in both form and soul, the people reveal
even more trivial and small aspects.
2. What is the main content and tone/voice of part IV of the novel?
- The main content of part IV is the voyage of Gulliver to the strange island, where is
the home of two strange things: Yahoo and Houyhnhnm. Going through this
adventure and also the other, the novel conflict in English society of 18 th century.
Tone in this part is cynical and bitter.
Quotations of Gulliver’s Travels
3. In chapter 1 of part IV: who are Gulliver’s companions in his journey this time? What is
the main purpose of his journey this time? How do his sailors treat him?
- Gulliver's companions on this journey is Robert Purefoy - a killfull young man.
- The main purpose is trade with the Indians in the South Sea and making discoveries.
- Gulliver was betrayed by the whole boat and they took the boat. He was mistreated,
threatened, imprisoned for a long time. After that, they left him on a strange island.
4. What does Gulliver do when he is left in the island? What are the characteristics of the
island? What creatures does he encounter in the island? What are their features?
- He kept going forward in the desolate island to find a place to rest and think about the
best thing to do. Besides, he kept looking for a place to live or aboriginal.
- The author described the characteristics as follows: “The land was divided by long
rows of trees, not regularly planted, but naturally growing; there was great plenty of
grass, and several fields of oats.”
- He encountered Yahoos and Houyhnhnms
- Yahoos: Head and chest covered with thick hair, beards like goats, brown buff skin,
no tail, long dugs on the feet to climb tall trees. Females are slightly smaller than
males, and are covered with sparse hairs. Moreover, hair color also varies between
males and females (brown, black, red and yellow). They are always running and
jumping quickly.
- Houyhnhnms: It is described as a type of horse with special intelligence, language
and society of its own.
5. What is the horses’ attitude to Gulliver when he encounters them? What does he think
about them?
- The horses feel surprised, curious about humans like Gulliver and unlike the people
living in this faraway country when he encounters them.
- Gulliver thinks these are very intelligent horses. Moreover, they can even understand
what he says. He even thinks that they are magical creatures that gradually turn into
horses for some reason.
 6. When entering the building, which is the horses’ house, what does Gulliver think of when
he sees the hosts? Who else does he see in addition to the hosts? What is the relationship
between these creatures to the hosts?
- Gulliver was surprised, then scared and thought it was a dream, but in the end he
thought it was all magic and ghosts. He thinks the host is disgusting to him
- He met Yahoos - hideous animals met before.
- The relationship between Houyhnhnms and Yahoos are master and servant. While
Houyhnhnms is the master of the land, to be served, and Yahoo is nothing more than
beasts that must serve Houyhnhnms.
7. Yahoos eat the hay and flesh.
11. How does Gulliver finally find food for him? What are those kinds of food?
- When the dinner was done, horse master took Gulliver aside and expressed in
gestures and words his displeasure over his not eating. After that, he tried to make a
kind of bread from oats, which could be eat with milk to keep him alive. The master
immediately ordered a white mare to bring buckwheat in a wooden bowl. He just
roasted buckwheat on the stove and then rubbed them to peel off the skin. He
continued to grind buckwheat seeds between two stones into powder, mix water and
make a bread, baked it on the stove and ate it warm with milk.
- Those foods (oats, milk, bread) were popular dish in many European countries.
II. Voltaire
1. What kinds of genre are Voltaire’s writings of? What genre is his Candide considered to
be?
Voltaire wrote many important genres: tragedy, epic, history, philosophy, fiction.
Voltaire used philosophy, satire, genre in Candide.
2. Who is the target Voltaire aims at to satirize in his Candide?
The primary target of Voltaire's satire in Candide is the German philosopher Leibniz who
claimed that our world is "the best of all possible worlds". Leibniz argued that, in spite of
its many imperfections, our world must be the best of all possible worlds because he
believed that in the present world, above all possible worlds can have, our planet must be
the best.
III. Rousseau
1. What is the similarity between Voltaire’s Candide and Rousseau’s Confessions in terms of
the characters described in their works?
The characters of the two authors' works learn valuable lessons from the tragedies that befell
mediaeval France. They all have faith that the future will be better.
2. What happened after the narrator was born? How does his father react to that?
- The narrator was born and at the same time, his mother died. That is one of his first
misfortunes.
 - His father felt sad, hopeless, desperate because he loved his wife so much but his
wife's death happened shortly after the child was born, leaving he did know what to
do with his child whom his wife gave her life for.
3. What happens to the narrator when he is a boy at the age of 8, and what is the result of this
situation? How does he become cynical?
- When the narrator is a boy at the age of 8, he was punished by a young woman of
thirty, disposed of his tastes, his desires, his passions, and himself for the remainder
of his life.
- The result of this situation, he spent his life in idle longing, without saying a word, in
the presence of those whom he loves the most.
- He becomes cynical through none of his prevailing tastes centre in things that can be
bought. He wants nothing but unadulterated pleasures, and money poisons all.
4. What are the two contrasted characteristics the narrator feels inside of him when he thinks of
his own personality? What is his activity affected by them?
- The two contrasted characteristics the narrator feels inside of him when he thinks of
his own personality are a very ardent temperament, lively and tumultuous passions,
and, at the same time, slowly developed and confused ideas, which never present
themselves until it is too late. His activity affected by them is his writing. That
difference made it difficulty which he found in writing.
5. How does the narrator describe his feeling of uncertainty in his mind? What is the action he
uses to test his feeling one day when he is having meditation on this subject?
- In the mind of the narrator, he wanted to know, whether the same childish ideas ever
enter him. He was frequently tormented by the fear of hell. He struggles between
happiness and pain. To test his feeling, when he is having meditation on this subject,
he practiced throwing the stones at the tree trunks. While doing that, it occurred to
him a series of predictions to calm his anxiety. He said to himself that “I will throw
this stone at the tree opposite; if I hit it, I am saved; if I missed it, I am damned” (in
the passage of Book VI, p.677). When speaking, he threw the stone with a trembling
hand and beating breast but it's actually not a hard aim since he picked a large stone
and is close to him. From that time, he never dounted his salvation.