An identity is something that determines an individual character, often representing ‘who’ and ‘what’ that individual stands for. It is often the case that many aspects of life make up your identity, those including; religion, cultural beliefs and the society in which we live in, all of which contribute towards are own individual perception of life. In this essay my main prerogative is to establish how those foreign lands within the chosen texts, affect the views and attitudes of the travellers persona and if so, how it changes their lives and their understanding of their own original upbringing. If this is the case I also aim to establish how those foreign lands interpret change and if so, do they threaten the traveller’s identity or do they merely enforce the traveller’s original values and beliefs.

Throughout the novel ‘Gulliver’s Travels’, Swift challenges the contemporary values of human nature, using the many visited lands and those creatures within them, to represent every single corner of human progression and the forever changing views in human belief. For example, Swift uses the land of ‘Laputa’ to question

The ‘Houyhnhms’ themselves represent the pure and decent aspect of humanity. Their primary objective is to demonstrate that form and appearance is completely irrelevant, and that it is the humanity inside a creature that is the defining characteristic, and it is only human- kind that can reason.

In this case, ‘Houyhnhms’ (horses) are completely rational, resulting in complete confusion for Gulliver. Everything in his society that is considered both feasible and probable is turned upside-down, hence his reason for branding them ‘magicians’. Due to the ‘Houyhnhms’ vast sphere of influence and knowledge, Gulliver changes and begins to recognise that there is a significant connection in physicality between himself and the ‘Yahoo’s’. However, this comparison is somewhat dangerous to him, threatening and ridiculing his very existence.

‘He had been eight years upon a project for extracting sun-beams out of cucumbers, which were to be put into vials hermetically sealed’ (Page 196, Paragraph 3)

‘That if it had been my good fortune to come into the world a Struldbrug, as soon as I could discover my own happiness by understanding the difference between life and death’ (Page 229, Paragraph 2)

Some topics in this essay:
English’ Page, Adam Eve, Travels’ Swift, , paragraph 2, human nature, paragraph 1, foreign lands, establish foreign lands, ‘who’ ‘what’, gulliver teaching, establish foreign, human society, believes god, themselves represent,