Misogynist In Gulliver´s Travels

“. . . among people of quality a wife should be always a reasonable

and agreeable companion, because she cannot always be young”.

Gulliver´s Travels (59)

Critics and scholars state that the misogynistic attitudes are evident and obvious in Gulliver´s Travels and in addition to the whole work of Jonathan Swift. As a matter of fact, Swift by means of Gulliver writes that “I see myself accused of . . . degrading human nature . . . and of abusing the female sex” (3). However, did these words belong only to the author´s own convictions?, Were the words shared with his contemporaries?. Did Swift only write against the woman or instead of misogyny it would be better talking about misanthropy?.

Swift was a man in his time and the perception about the woman in the 18^th century was not very different from the role that women play in Gulliver´s Travels. Moreover, if Swift parodies travel literature in his work, it stands to reason that the way in which he will show us women in the story will also be a caricatured way. 

In other words, as Jacques Lacan wrote in Ecrits, "A word is not a word except in so far as someone believes in it" (264). And Swift makes use of the words in order to change the perception of the reality. Satire is a question of points of view and Swift was above all a satirist writer, a writer from the 18th century where the female role had nothing to do with the role of women in our time.

In 1782 a British judge, Sir Francis Buller declared that it was “Perfectly legal for a man to beat his wife, as long as he used a stick no thicker tan his thumb”. This sentence was passed in an English court 37 years after Swift´s death. Taking a look at English men´s behaviour in the century we are dealing with, we will realize that the female role in Swift age is very close to the female role in Gulliver´s Travels. In this way, the following quotation can be considered as a general opinion about the lack of influence of the woman in England and not as a personal opinion of Swift, “But my wife protested I should never go to sea any more, although my evil destiny so ordered that she had not power to hinder me” (161).

 

Moreover, an English tory, John Shebbeare states in 1758 that “The woman was the companion in the hours of reason and conversation in France, but in England she was only the momentary toy of passion”. According to this statement, it could be posible to consider that the Swift´s thoughts are quite justified when he writes “A wife should be always a reasonable and agreeable companion, because she cannot always be Young” (59).

However, the English society was not only the civil society. Swift was a cleric and became Dean of St. Patrick in Dublin. In other words, he belonged to the Church of England with an important office. And the role of the woman in the Anglican Church was not different from the role in the society. Women could not speak in terms of Theology and they were considered as the beginning of the sin. The Anglican Church did not considerer the woman capable of having virtues and in this way it is possible to understand something wrote by a cleric like Swift “The women were proposed to be taxed according to their beauty and skill in dressing . . . but constance, chastity, good sense and good nature were not rated, because they would not bear the charge of collecting” (208).

In this context, it is important to point out that one of the most important moments in the Swift´s career as a clergyman was performed by a woman, the Queen Mary II in her role of head of the Anglican Church did not allow the presence of Swift in an English parish and he was appointed to a little church near Belfast. However, he do not argue against the Queen, but he writes in Gulliver´s Travels “Her Majesty the late Queen Anne, of most pious and glorious memory” (1).

Swift did not know his father and his mother did not educate him. The first images of a woman are related with his nanny. In his adult life, it is thought that the woman he loved did not correspond him. In addition we have seen the episode with the Queen. Nevertheless, his thoughts about women were not negatives at all. Specially, in terms of education he was a follower of giving the same education to men and women and this position was not very common in his time. In this way, the episode of the Project for abolishing all words could be regarded with the Swift´s irony “And this invention would certainly have taken place . . . if the women, in conjunction with the vulgar and illiterate, had not threatened to raise a rebellion” (203).

It is important to insist on the concept on satire while we are dealing with Gulliver´s Travels, because it could be possible that the thoughts Swift had about women were close to the thoughts he stated about kings, politician, scientists and so on. Taking this fact into account, we can speak about misanthropy instead of misogyny as he recognized at the very beginning of his work “I see myself accused . . . of degrading human nature” (3).

Gulliver is a satire. A satire where is deformed the reality of both, women and men. The woman in Gulliver´s Travels is satirized as bitterly as other characters in his whole work.

A deeper reading of Gulliver´s Travels can bring us a different visión of Swift and the woman. If the reader comes near the age in which Swift lived and worked, it will possible to understand some clues for thinking in Swift not only as in a misogynistic but in a person who lived in his time.

Sources

Boddington, Andy,  "The Dukes of Buckingham and Chandos", 2009 

Miami University, "Women´s Lives in Eighteenth Century England", 2010 

Slavoj, Zizek; How to Read Lacan; Granta Paperbacks, NJ, USA; 2006.

Swift, Jonathan; Gulliver´s Travels; Penguin Popular Clasics; London, 1994