Gulliver’s Travels Book I, Part I: Comfort zones & Ignorance

     Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver’s Travels wrote this book to be sarcastic. It’s supposed to shed light on issues of the human condition in ridiculous ways. Book I is focused on one of Gulliver’s many different journeys. This journey is when he met the Lilliputians.

     The Lilliputians live in Lilliput, and they were at war with the neighboring island nation of Blefuscu. The people here were comically small compared to Gulliver, he was seen as a giant. The Lilliputians thought that they made up the entire universe along with Blefuscu, and that the universe hadn’t been around that long but their king was great and mighty to rule the bigger of the two kingdoms of the universe. When Gulliver tried to explain things like time, the little people thought that he was referring to his God or gods, and when Gulliver tried to explain where he came from the Lilliputian scholars were convinced Gulliver was making up stories. Since there was no record of something like him or the place he described in all the history books in all the universe clearly the giant had dropped from the moon.

     From chapters 1-3 Book 1, Gulliver is treated with kindness, but is chained like a prisoner. So why is Gulliver treated as a prisoner by the Lilliputians? 

     He is unknown. 

     You interpret the world through a value system that creates your values and goals. All human beings have the known and the unknown.This has to do with how your left brain and right brain work differently, but they work together. Your left brain is trying to categorize any anomaly in the world as quickly as possible. However, in the evolution of the human brain, you need to not get eaten while categorizing, so the context of the world has to matter that’s what the right brain does for you.

     The known is a finite place we are comfortable with. Everything good and useful is in the unknown, and everything that will eat you is also in the unknown. Things don’t advance you if you already know them. To get the treasure for your right now you have to face the dragon or giant and learn what is out of your comfort zone. There is a treasure to safety and a treasure to the unknown.

    A giant is in the unknown, so the Lilliputians are trying to shift the chaotic situation to the controllable situation. The novelty zone; everybody loves novelty. It’s a little bit on the edge, but it doesn’t kill you. The Lilliputians are trying to take a giant and move it into that area.

     In order to be in charge of anything there has to be a tyrannical element. The Lilliputians chain Gulliver up in the “nicest way possible” to stay enough within their comfort zone they can learn the unknown in a way they feel safe. So the mindset of the Lilliputians is always changing, but their tactics stay the same. First, Gulliver might try to kill them, but killing him would cause a large enough carcase that it could cause plague. Then, he is entertaining, something to amuse the citizens. By the end of Book I chapter 3, he is let go with conditions to “make himself useful.” Gulliver is treated like a constant obstacle or tool.

     Gulliver being a giant is himself the unknown, and therefore creates chaos. His presence itself is out of the comfort zone of the Lilliputians, but it is Gulliver's behavior towards them that creates a substantial balance between the unknown and the known.