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The Dubliners - Clavelitos

In the hostel in Dublin, there was a white board with suggestions of where to go next.

Shannon, Ireland

Swift is actually a crazy person. He uses biting Juvenalian satire in his works and is a coprophiliac. His writing is precise and clear and situationally ironic.

Gulliver’s Travels

• as a whole, divided into four books
• satire of men’s desires for scientific knowledge
• inventive travel through literature - plays around with perspective - makes insignificant things more important and unimportant things insignificant
• Gulliver is first a victim of a shipwreck and has lost his glasses so is concerned with his eyes because he lacks protection
• Swift wants the reader the see the emphasis on seeing clearly
• Gulliver has characteristics of every man - gullible - to gull someone is to trick them - he is easily gulled
• the Lilliputans are nasty and petty so we side with Gulliver - he is the gentle, well-meaning person who is not trusted
• the little people chain him to an abandoned church - they are small-minded, secretive, waspish, irritable and morally little
• they are representative of English people - religious quarrels, etc.
• the Lilliputans drug Gulliver while he is eating so they can move him to the church - satiric - fighting over religion
• Redrasol explains quarrels to Gulliver and warns him about what the court plans to do with him
• Gulliver is kept inside the church as if he is a big elephant - goes out to the end of his chain, as if he were a dog - Swift exaggerates our animalistic characteristics to us make us disgusted with being human
• Swift has nasty things to say about women throughout Gulliver’s - misogyny and misanthropy
• his works make you not proud to be a human
• Gulliver is accused of flirtations with some of the court officials’ wives - disproportionate and gross
• Gulliver is convinced to wade across the water to the Blafustus (France) to bring their fleet to Lilliput (Britain) and dispose of the people - he will not do it because he is too kind
• because he consumes too much, the Lilliputans plan to kill him off by slowly starving him
• progression of uncertainty to complete madness - satirizes Gulliver at the end
• progression of animalistic behavior and brutality
• being servile to the emperor, breaking the eggs, high heels and low heels (tories and whigs)
• with the Brobdingnads, Gulliver is now the small, morally little one
• the Brobdingnad king is horrified at the thought of all the animalistic tendencies of Gulliver’s nation
• the king realizes Gulliver has left things out and hates it
• Swift is famous for his lists of things - comic exaggerations
• satire of priests, counselors, lawyers, etc.
• last line of Brobdingnads insults human race - Gulliver is tortured in this book
• people are insects
• Gulliver tries to defend his country
• Brobdingnads are not all great - a girl finds Gulliver and gives him to her father who exploits Gulliver for money and keeps him prisoner in a doll house
• when Gulliver begins to wear out and get sick, he is sold to Brobdingnadian queen
• at the end of Book II, the little girl takes Gulliver to the seashore and Gulliver is dropped into the ocean by an eagle 
• Europeans see Gulliver in the doll house, rescue him and take him home
• Gulliver is bored and goes to a series of islands
• the island of Laputa - women’s husbands pay no attention to them and to get their husband’s attention, the men’s ears must be flapped
• the island floats above another island that the women climb down to to visit the men below
• Swift satirizes a number of projectors who are looking to make changes
• island of Strood Broogs - people are immortal on this island - satirizes instinctive hopes and beliefs
• there is sometimes a baby born with a mark on his head, signifying his immortality
• you would keep aging and aging and aging and as you aged, you got more decrepit 
• Book IV is the most satirical of human reason
• Gulliver arrives in the land of the Winnoms - reasonable horses who are so reasonable they do not feel any emotions
• surprised Gulliver can talk because the horses have slaves who are less-developed human beings called yahoos
• Gulliver is essentially a yahoo and makes sure he never takes off his clothes in front of them
• he is able to cook oatmeal and drink mare’s milk
• eventually, Gulliver is attacked by female yahoos one day while he is bathing - misogyny
• Gulliver is enamored with this society
• Winnoms believe yahoos came about by a sort of mock-Genesis story
• they are so rational they lack feelings - everything is very planned and they have countless theories
• racism of horses - mate according to color
• Winnoms decide Gulliver is dangerous and want him to leave because he is an educated yahoo ad might lead the yahoos in rebellion
• Gulliver leaves in a canoe and sees a European ship - he paddles away furiously to keep from being rescued by the ship
• he lands on an island of savages and the savages immediately attack him - he would rather be attacked than brought back to Europe
• the ship goes after him and the captain sees Gulliver has lost his mind - he tries to reason with Gulliver and brings him back to his family
• Gulliver goes to live in the stables with his horses because he cannot stand the smell of humans
• Swift’s satire is Juvenalian and extremely harsh

“Modest Proposal”

• narrator has come up with a “great idea”
• it cannot be right
• real proposal is given in italics - do not talk about those plans unless you are willing to carry them out
• saw the Irish as servile and too willing to cooperate - crass landowners
• Ireland is a cash cow
• rich Irish live pretentiously and exploit others
• Ireland had a lot of food but it is being exported - not available to poor
• eating of babies - got the idea from the Americans
• a problem with adolescents - too many - boys are not yummy, girls breed
• sold girl in roasts to a lady in Formosa
• animosity against women - frivolous and wasteful

Burren House, Ireland

Right now, I feel like cliff diving.

A Rَisيn nل bيodh brَn ort fé’r éirigh dhuit
[Little Rose, be not sad for all that hath behapped thee]