The Importance Of Gulliver's Travels

François Rabelais was as important to Swift as was Lucian. This can be understood by going through their writings. The extraordinary voyage mentioned by Rabelais in his writing about unknown lands and strange ports had a great influence on people like Swift. It has been found that Swift had read the writings of Rabelais in English. Swift mentioned Rabelais on many occasions too. In one such mention of Rabelais, Swift refers to a giant who fed upon wind mills but died due to choking due to a small lump of butter.
The invention of languages or the tongue twisting humour that one can find in Gulliver’s Travels had much to do with Rabelais’s utopia. He gave an account of the population, described them. This showcased the lies that the travellers …show more content…
This is the reason why Swift stayed away from using many imaginary creatures whose references could have been found in the writings of the other writers. Giant with two heads and four eyes, giant cannibals, monsters with dog heads are such examples of creatures which abound in the other travelogues. However, Swift uses a bit of the bigger creatures in the book when he uses them in the journey of Gulliver to the Kingdom of Brobdingnag. Mandeville is one other writer whose writings may have had an impression on the writings of Swift. This is so because the using of such huge creatures happened in the writings of Mandeville. He even borrowed the idea of the giant rat which Gulliver kills with his Hanger from writing by Mandeville. Gulliver in the book bruises himself against a big snail. Many critics feel that this is a figment of imagination of the writer while many believe that he might have remembered what he read and wrote it accordingly. The huge creature which Gulliver described in the book which followed them in the sea could refer to the cannibal giants mentioned by Mandeville in his