Social hierarchy in "Gulliver's Travels"
Gulliver's travels is written by jonathan swift.it is prose satire on human nature and political situation jonathan swift by putting gulliver in dofferent place and society, he satirised deeply the human nature.
Let's first see the definition of hierarchy.....
1) A graded or ranked series.
2) The classification of a group of people according to ability or to economic, social or professional standing.
Here we only focus on social hierarchy that gulliver wants to reach. It is not only about earning more money if he want only that he can be robber that is easy way then to go on voyages but with money he also want reputation or respect in society thatis the reason why gulliver decides to go on voyages.
He also says that his father has small estate that shows that gulliver belongs to middle class family he also not able to attend university he just complete his collage in emanuel college while in 18th century england was a place in which education was a key to certain position in society. He says that he want positin i society and for that he want money and this is the reason he decides to go on voyages.
In his first voyage to lilliput, when he arrives in lilliput he was a prisnor but because of his size, he is usefull to the king he also starts learning lilliputian language to converse with them and also starts taking parts in their social customs like rope dance or stick dance. He want some special place in lilliputian society and king himself given him a title after he won the war and his possition become higher then the treasurer filmnap and he make him to leave the lilliput. He also want his reputation stainless he argues on false rumours of gulliver's afair with higher rank lilliputian lady. So in this first voyage he achieve social hierarchy by won the war against blefusku.
After returning from lilliput he has some money and also good house that shows he is moving towards upper class from middle class. Hs son is going to school now and his daughter is on needlework. After stay at home for some time he again ready for new voyage and he also says that he does voyage for improving his future. Here we can see that he only does voyages for making money he has no intention to get knowledge about new world or land.
On his second voyage he reach to brobdingnag. At here he is like jester. The situation is reversed when he is in lilliput he has power but in this land of giant he is like unnoticable for them. Here again he starts learning new language to communicate with queen. This is his first step to live in palace rather then with farmer. He also feel great when he make farmer's daughter in palace as his caretaker he feels that it is better to live in palace as servent rather then in small house. He feel power and possition when he hasmany servents around him to take care of him. In this voyage also he managed to reach social hierarchy as he works for farmer and then by his language he make his place in royal palace.
He returns england more by accident than by choise. When he reaches home one servent open door for him now they have one servent also this again shows that he kee trying to make his level up in society.
In third voyage to laputa where he met people who is same as his size but they all are busy in finding or thinking on some stupid questions and they don't notice that gulliver can learn language very quick and they don't value gulliver's knowledge and skills. So here he fails to reach social hierarchy. Soon he leave that place and then at lagado where he also can't find place for him in their grand academy. He returns home and stay for five months with his wife and children happily.
In his fourth and last voyage he reaches to the land of houyhnhnmns who are rational horses and there is yahoos also who are describe as savage humans. Again here gulliver try to learn language and start understanding common rules of houyhnhnmns society. Here he also try to convince houyhnhnmns that he is not yahoo and he use cloths to hide his body which is look like yahoo. This is also his attempt to achieve social hierarchy as he afraid to be in lowest possition of houyhnhnmns society.
At last he says that he is rational yahoo and told houyhnhnmns about his country houyhnhnmns don't understand the concept of cloths. In this society of horse gulliver also observe the real nature of humans and now he starts hating the human society now he don't want to make his possiton up in society he also want to live with this horses but they don't allow now gulliver returns home and now he don't care about his social status and he now live away from humans and starts live and talk with horses.
So, here we can conclude that he starts his journey or voyage with the intention of being up in society but he ends his journey with living away from society.
