Humanity In Gulliver's Travels Essay

In today’s modern day and age it is hard to see beneath the human skin of appearance, to see a person’s real flaws or abilities. What is the real reason for the flaws of humanity? Is it nature that forms a man’s personality and morality or is it nurture? John Locke suggested that man was born with no particular inclinations toward good or evil and that life “writes” a man’s personality and character on that slate. Others argue that man is born either “good” or “evil” and that his personality is formed before his first breath. In Gulliver’s Travels, man’s imperfections are revealed as Gulliver visits and learns from the new people and lands. Throughout the story, Gulliver’s personality changes from his initial naive innocence, to critically reactive and responsive, and finally Gulliver ends his days living separate from humans in bitter alienation.
Gulliver’s personality has been formed by his life experiences; the man at the start of his journey is naive and innocent. At the start of his story, …show more content…
The flaws in humanity are progressively shown throughout all of these personalities, and changes. His journeys to all the different islands made Gulliver realize how bad the humanity and society he is living in is. The one mistake Gulliver makes in book four is the mistake of replacing reality with fantasy. Fantasy can overtake everyone, it is always nice to dream of new things and happier places. But in the end reality is what you go back to at night and wake up to in the morning. Fantasy is only there for those few hours in between. Gulliver let his fantasies of what his humanity should be alienate him and pretty much ruin his life. He forgot that he was part of the human reality, and became disgraced by it, but little did he know that no matter what he was a product of society. Fantasy is good, but it can also ruin your life for as long as you live, just like it did