VEDA’S JOURNAL OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE (JOELL)

An International Peer Reviewed (Refereed) Journal

Impact Factor (SJIF) 4.092           http://www.joell.in

Vol.6,Issue 2,2019

EXPOSITION OF CORRUPTION IN “GULLIVER’S TRAVELS” BY JONATHAN SWIFT: A TEXTUAL ANALYSIS

Muhammad Naeem Ahmed,M.A in Corruption & Governance (UK) & M.A in English (PU)

(Lecturer of English, College of Science & Humanities, Rumah, MajmaahUniversity, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.)

Email: m.rasheed@mu.edu.sa

doi: https://doi.org/10.33329/joell.62.20

ABSTRACT

              Jonathan Swift enjoys a unique place in English prose as a master of satire, sarcasm and irony. In him reflects a great social critic of all times. Gulliver’s Travels is a Swift’s magnum opus that appeals the readers of all ages, classes and intellects for its style, themes and panoramic setting. It also attracts the attention of readers globally for its blunt description of unscrupulousness of various types found in the society ranging from political, moral and intellectual to academic. The research critically analyses various instances of corruption revealed in Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift. The qualitative content analysis method of textual analysis has been employed to describe and interpret various characteristics of the text in terms of its exposition of corruption. The research systematically investigates all the four parts of the novel and concludes that the description of political and moral aspects of corruption is dominant in the text, though traces of intellectual and educational unscrupulousness can also be found. Furthermore, instances of political corruption are recurrent in the voyages to Lilliput, Brobdingnag and Houyhnhnms whereas the voyage to Laputa is distinguished for the account of intellectual corruption. The study, which is unique in its analysis of the exposition of human vices and follies in the novel under the definition of corruption rather than satire, will not only deepen an understanding of the instances of corruption in the eighteenth-century English society but also add to the appeal of the novel to the students of English Literature.

Keywords: Corruption, Political Corruption, Intellectual Corruption, Extortion,

                     Exposition

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