Quote 1
My
Father had a small Estate in Nottinghamshire; I was the Third of
five Sons. . . . I was bound Apprentice to Mr. James Bates, an eminent
Surgeon in London . . . my Father now and then sending me small
Sums of Money. . . . When I left Mr. Bates, I went down to my Father;
where, by the Assistance of him and my Uncle John . . . I got Forty
Pounds, and a Promise of Thirty Pounds a Year.
This introductory paragraph from Part
I, Chapter I, is often passed over as simply providing the preliminary
facts of Gulliver’s life, the bare essentials needed in order to
proceed to the more interesting travel narrative. But this introduction
is deeply significant in its own right, and it reveals much about
Gulliver’s character that is necessary to understand not just his
journeys but also his way of narrating them. Gulliver is bourgeois:
he is primarily interested in money, acquisitions, and achievement,
and his life story is filtered through these desires. The first
sentence means more than just a statement of his financial situation,
since the third son of a possessor of only a “small Estate” would
have no hopes of inheriting enough on which to support himself and
would be expected to leave the estate and seek his own fortune.
If Gulliver had been the first-born son, he might very well not
have embarked on his travels. But the passage is even more revealing
in its tone, which is starkly impersonal. Gulliver provides no sentimental
characterization of his father, Bates, or Uncle John; they appear
in his story only insofar as they further him in life. There is
no mention of any youthful dreams or ambitions or of any romantic
attachments. This lack of an emotional inner life is traceable throughout
his narrative until his virtual nervous breakdown at the very end.
