Gulliver's Travels

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Gulliver's Travels explores the human need to create order out of chaos through an internal system of knowledge that affirms the subjective self. In this study, I examine how Gulliver integrates elements of knowledge from the native and the host-societies into an operative system of self-knowledge. Gulliver's self-knowledge threatens the status quo within these societies by placing him at the solipsistic center of the narrative, orchestrating his observations to maintain the subjective self. If Gulliver was successfully indoctrinated in England, then why does he exhibit such an imperfect understanding of the complexities that define the principles which shaped Western society? Furthermore, if Gulliver is brainwashed by his hosts, then by what authority does he continually transgress the rules of law that govern their societies? Specifically, why does he knowingly commit acts of disobedience and heresy if he has been successfully indoctrinated into their social systems? My study concludes Gulliver's empirical search for an answer to the question "Who am I?" fails because he is unable to harmonize subjective truths within the objective world.