Satire And Humour In Gulliver’s Travelsfrom The Theories Of Semiotics And Structuralism

Swift is a master of satire, his masterpiece Gulliver’s Travels but also a satire of the landmark works. There are countless research on Gulliver’s Travels and research methods also varied. In this paper, I will use the symbol-structure poetics method to discuss satire and humour features in Gulliver’s Travels..Most people after reviewed Gulliver’s Travels, they found it full of satire and humor, however, most people focus on study its art of satire, barely have hierarchical level study of satire and humor. This paper use symbol-structure poetics try to figure out satire and humour features in Gulliver’s Travels,that is the presentation of satire and humor at different levels. This Paper divided into two parts:The first part: this paper starts from minimal literary techniqueto study minimum technique characteristics. Through study the 2 fragments in "Gulliver’s Travels" via minimum literary technique, we can see the 2 fragments most use narrative and discussion techniques, barely use lyrical techniques.Narrative and discussion not only use frequently, but also have varied types, also has he most ironic sense of humor. In the first fragment, it focus on absurd and humor narration. In the second fragment, it focus on ironic narration and discussion.The second part: this paper starts from integrate literary techniqueand text literary techniqueto study the whole technique characteristic in the entire text and text structure,character image. Through integrate literary technique, Gulliver’s Travels in four sections, the first 3 sections mainly focus on events, the last section also focus on events but have a lot of psychological activities.The satire and humor methods in the first two sections are focus on use humor events to make people laugh, only a little satire. In the third section is focus on use absurd and ironic, psychological and discussion events for the purpose of ridicule, more focus on satire. The last section is is focus on use ironic, psychological and discussion events, full of satire. Through text literary technique, as a travel article, Gulliver’s Travels use U structure of Leaving home-Traveling- going back home, its event are not develop like a straight line, but inthe fourth section have some changes, the protagonist Gulliver’s emotional attitude also changed along with travel for long time,it changed from praising the United Kingdom,humanity to criticizing them.