Blog #2 Gulliver Meets Little People

 

To no surprise, from today's reading in Gulliver’s Travels I found my self confused. I for some reason had this idea planted in my head from the previous pages that Captain Gulliver was a noble intelligent man with a lot of education and now he is telling the stories of being captured by miniature people no larger than someones hand. 

The most significant passage I found in this weeks reading was about his first reactions to being captured. 

“In a little time I felt something alive moving on my left Leg, which advancing gently forward over my Breast, came almost up to my Chin; When bending my Eyes downwards as much as I could, I perceived it to be a human Creature not six Inches high, with a Bow and Arrow in his Hands, and a Quiver at his Back. In the mean time, I felt at least forty more of the same kind ( as I conjectured ) following the first. I was in the utmost Astonishment, and roared so loud, that they all ran back in a Fright; and some of them, as I was afterwards told, were hurt with the Falls they got by leaping from my sides upon the Ground.” ( Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Smith, p.g. 23-24)

I thought this passage was significant because his story is based around being captured by these little people and being treated like a captured Godzilla. Even-though it is clearly obvious that this story is made up, it makes me wonder if he was talking him self up to be all that and a bag of chips in his story. For example, earlier in the story his ship wrecks and he just happens to be the only one who survives, he also brags and boasts about his education and his financial endeavors. I am picturing Gulliver as that guy who goes fishing and says he caught a huge fish when he probably never even caught anything, in other words he is coming off as a cocky pretentious doushebag. 

I’m predicting that in the next few chapters and in the rest of this book Gulliver will continue to make up extraordinary stories that make him look like the greatest explorer that has walked this earth. 

Maybe It's Best Some Don't Marry.

After reading Gregory Corso’s poem Marriage I was left wondering what this strange man had experienced in his life that made him have such an odd guesstimation about marriage compared to the norm.  I enjoyed reading this poem, it opened up my mind by covering many strange ideas. For example, a passage that stood out to me. 

“No, I doubt I’d be that kind of father

not rural not snow no quiet window

but hot smelly tight New York City

seven flights up, roaches and rats in the walls

a fat Reichian wife screeching over potatoes Get a job!

And five nose running brats in love with Batman

And the neighbors all toothless and dry haired

like those hag masses of the 18th century

All wanting o come in and watch TV

The landlord wants his rent

Grocery store Blue Cross Gas & Electric Knights of Columbus

Impossible to lie back and dream telephone snow, ghost parking--

No! I should not get married I should never get married!

But--imagine If I were married to a beautiful sophisticated woman 

tall and pale wearing an elegant black dress and long black gloves 

holding a cigarette holder in one hand and a highball in the other

And we lived high up in a penthouse with a huge window

from which we could see all of New York and ever farther on 

Clearer days

No, can’t imagine myself married to that pleasant prison dream-- “

-(Gregory Corso, Marriage, pg. 63-64)

I thought this passage was a good reputation of what he is venting about the whole poem which was his indecision on weather to be typical or different.  He is vulgar with his language as he describes a dark unhappy vision of what he would be like as a father, yet then talks about what if he found a sophisticated woman and lived a rich life.   Throughout the poem he sets the mood of a dark world by mentioning death and alcohol as a part of every day life. 

If he is really asking us if he should marry or not my vote is for no, I believe he will be happy just living the rest of his days as a delusional lonely man. Throughout the poem he gives us no reason to trust him as a good father, rather he creeps us out and realized he is not capable of being loved. It made me wonder if his childhood was a bad experience and he didn’t have a father to raise him properly, so rather he grew up not understanding how to be a real man and how to act.  If he was my neighbor in the future I would keep my family away from him at all times.