Jonathan Swift Essay Research Paper Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift Essay, Research Paper

Jonathan Swift: An Enlightenment for the Masses

In an age of where rationality and morals were held to the accepted values, Jonathan Swift stood out as a champion of humanism. All his life he attacked pretense and begged people to see that life is not always what it seems when you look harder and think deeper. In addition, Swift was one of the most powerful writers of his time; able to rally people and nations around the caustic and moral views expressed in his works. His political writings for the Tories exposed the corruptions of government and paved the way for his acclaimed satires. Swift’s great strength lied in impressing people into believing his ideals without blatantly professing them or becoming preachy.

Swift was raised in Dublin, and was schooled well despite getting just average grades. After getting a job as a secretary, he moved on to being a priest in Ireland. By this time, Swift was already approaching thirty, but still had not published anything of much worth. His years of reading in the church libraries and his growing acute eye for the vices of society were honed at this time, and his great works were about to come.

Swift had the power to easily implement new ideas and insights into people with his writings. A great satirist has explicit convictions about right and wrong, but he must be able to make these convictions sound convincing in words. Swift had a sharp perception into the delusions and hopes of people’s everyday lives, so he often filtered his ideas through characters and tales that were easy for common people to relate to. When we read Gulliver’s Travels, it almost seems like a straightforward adventure story, filled with tales of new creatures and distant countries. On further inspection, it can be seen as a biting satire on society, an attack on the Whigs, or a tale of the foolishness of human nature.

Swift’s genius lies in the way he weaves his satirical motives into stories like Gulliver’s Travels indirectly. We do not merely agree with the moral evaluations implied; we have lived, in our imaginations, through a moral experience (Williams 4). Swift doesn’t simply tell us his beliefs; he makes the reader sort it out through the context of the story. By placing his ideas and morals upon other characters, Swift himself stands distant from these scenes he writes about. In doing so, he artistically, yet implicitly, defines the interval between the normal and the absurd. We attain normality by guarding against pride, and this we could do easily by observing the distorted figures in comedy and satire (Quintana 39).

An example where Swift uses his satire in a crafty, implicit way is in one of his first major works, A Tale of A Tub. The book is about exposing the corruption and abuses of religion at the time. In section VI of the book, Swift takes the form of an earnest storyteller but in fact he is telling the history of the major Christian Churches. The three main characters are obviously personas for the three main churches at the time. There is Peter, who in truth represents the Roman Catholic Church; Martin, who is named after the Protestant/Lutheran/Anglican Church; and Jack, who is named after Calvinism and the other nonconformist Christian religions. Swift, as the narrator, is asserting to be telling this story just like it happened, and not drawing any conclusions or seeing any symbolism. The actions of the three brothers, however, are in direct reference to the actions of the church.

In this story, the will (which represents the gospel) left by the father of the brothers instructs them not to decorate their plain coats that they wear. Over time, Peter, the eldest and leader of the brothers, ornaments and adds layers of embroidery over the coat. This is a sly reference to the way Christian religions have gotten increasingly worldly over the years. For example, they were having lavish ceremonies, selling indulgences, and becoming more and more involved in political and government matters. The story continues by saying that Jack becomes furious with the new flashy coat and tears off all the decorations on it, ripping off most of the original fabric as well. This symbolizes the Calvinist break from the Christian Church, but it also represents the destruction of necessary and rudimental Catholic beliefs and practices (the fabric being destroyed). Martin is shown as being very sedate and reserved, and his resistance to follow anything infuriates Jack to a point where he leaves the house and is later reported to be in the mental home. Swift is making fun of how Anglicans are strictly middle of the road, not willing to do anything. Martin is dull compared to his two brothers, who are more extremist in nature. The notion of Jack going crazy is Swift laughing at the pomposity and stupidity of Calvinism. In general, Swift is mocking all the Christian religions, indirectly showing the limits of each religion in a masterful way.

Swift’s personal ethics were now fully developed after the satirical writing found in A Tale of a Tub. He is notoriously known for his constant indictments on human life, nature and society. It was well known that Swift despised the rationalism that people had in his time, because people’s feelings and instincts were mostly made up of “innate ideas” and other moral “ideas” from past philosophers. With all ideas coming from the senses