People’s opinions regarding any kind of public policy may be the same or different. So, the authors of the works of Jonathan Swift called Gulliver’s Travels and Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, agreed in their view of the imperialistic system. The authors criticize this kind of state policy and demonstrate the inefficiency of this type of policy. Although the opinion of the authors is limited by their ideas, they still use various arguments in their works to support their opinions about imperialism and colonialism.
Jonathan Swift uses satire to mock the arrogance of English notions of superiority. Gulliver arrives in a country where horses behave respectfully and civilly, and he does not understand how “rude animals” can behave like that (Swift, 2020, p. 107). This phrase demonstrates the author’s ironically satirical opinion about the arrogance that became part of the society of that time. To describe peaceful and rational beings, Swift uses the word “rude”, which has connotations of violence and irrationality. Gulliver reflects that the people who own these horses must be “the wisest people on earth” (Swift, 2020, p. 112). People in the Houyhnhnm country are called yahoos, and these are the most disgusting animals Gulliver has ever seen. One of the tropes of the book is the phrase “a fish out of water” and means that a person is placed in an environment with which he is not familiar, as was the case with Gulliver (Swift, 2020, p. 56). With the help of some literary elements, readers can feel the ironic mood of the author.
The work also uses a scheme, namely parallelism, when the speaker sees such species of individuals as Yahoos and Houyhnhnms. The author writes: “The ugly monster…started as at an object he had never seen before… (Swift, 2020, p. 78). In parallel, the author asserts: “We stood gazing at each other for some time; I at last took the boldness to reach my hand towards his neck, with a design to stroke it…” (Swift, 2020, p. 89). This demonstrates the parallelism by which the author wants to demonstrate to the reader a comparison of two types of previously unknown creatures.
Johnathan Swift builds his work based on his ideas about imperialism and also adds elements related to the peculiarities of English society. These features are successfully described by Swift because he lives in such a society and sees it as it is at present. Male horses are the heads of their household, and they command the lady horses. Rich horses have servants working in their homes, and Gulliver calls the horses “quality”, which makes it seem that some horses are substandard. That is, society is divided into rich and poor, which is the determining factor of “quality”.
Conrad’s criticism focuses more on the ineffectiveness of European efforts to restore order in the colonized regions. He uses a frame narrative, which is his genre, to give readers an idea of his main character. Marlowe, who is the main character of the book, reflects on the fact that the Romans invaded the British Isles in ancient times. He sympathizes with the Romans, but he also says they did their job with brute force. Still, he believes that this strength is not worth “… bragging about when you have it, because your strength is just an accident arising from the weakness of others” (Conrad, 2010, p. 98). His descriptions of colonists are brutally honest, but he rarely criticizes colonialism itself.
In conclusion, Jonathan Swift and Joseph Conrad, in their works Gulliver’s Travels and Heart of Darkness, try to show their rejection of the current structure of their society. They criticize the cultural beliefs of their communities, but they also make typical assumptions about white European men of their time. Authors cannot tell the whole truth about their attitude to the colonial system and its functioning. They still give readers the opportunity to get acquainted with this phenomenon and form their idea about it.
References
Conrad, J. (2010). Heart of Darkness. Tribeca Books.
Swift, J. (2020). Gulliver’s Travels. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.