Analysis of William shakespeare's A Midsummer Night’s Dream

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Written by : Salimatum Muflicha

A Midsummer Night’s Dream act IV, scene I was published in 1796. It was Engraving from a painting by Henry Fuseli.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a romantic comedy written by William Shakespeare. It was suggested by “The Knight's Tale” from Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales and written around 1594 to 1596. It portrays the adventures of four young Athenian lovers and a group of amateur actors, their interactions with the Duke and Duchess of Athens, Theseus and Hippolyta, and with the fairies who inhabit a moonlit forest. The play is one of Shakespeare’s most popular works for the stage and is widely performed across the world.

Synopsis

This drama comedy was set simultaneously in the woodland, and in the realm of Fairyland, under the light of the moon. The play features three interlocking plots, connected by a celebration of the wedding of Duke Theseus of Athens and the Amazonian queen, Hippolyta.

In the opening scene, Hermia refuses to follow her father Egeus’s instructions for her to marry his chosen man, Demetrius. In response, Egeus quotes before Theseus an ancient Athenian law whereby a daughter must marry the suitor chosen by her father, or else face death. Theseus does not want this young girl to die, and offers her another choice, lifelong chastity worshipping the goddess Diana as a nun. (The word “nun” in this sense is an anachronism.)

Hermia and her lover Lysander decide to elope by escaping through the forest at night. Hermia informs her friend Helena, but Helena has recently been rejected by Demetrius and decides to win back his favour by revealing the plan to him. Demetrius, followed doggedly by Helena, chases Hermia. Hermia and Lysander, believing themselves safely out of reach, sleep in the woods.

Study for the Quarrel of Oberon and Titania

Meanwhile, Oberon, king of the fairies, and his queen, Titania, were in the forest outside Athens. Titania tells Oberon that she plans to stay there until after she has attended Theseus and Hippolyta’s wedding. Oberon and Titania are estranged because Titania refuses to give her Indian changeling to Oberon for use as his ‘knight’ or ‘henchman,’ since the child’s mother was one of Titania’s worshippers. Oberon seeks to punish Titania’s disobedience. So he calls for the mischievous Puck (also called Hobgoblin and Robin Goodfellow) to help him apply a magical juice from a flower called “love-in-idleness”, which when applied to a person’s sleeping eyelids while sleeping makes the victim fall in love with the first living thing seen upon awakening. He instructs Puck to retrieve the flower so that he can make Titania fall in love with some vile creature of the forest. Oberon streaks Titania’s eyes with the juice while she is sleeping to distract her and force her to give up the page-boy.

Having seen Demetrius act cruelly toward Helena, Oberon orders Puck to spread some of the elixir on the eyelids of the young Athenian man. Instead, Puck accidentally puts the juice on the eyes of Lysander, who then falls in love with Helena. Oberon sees Demetrius still following Hermia and is enraged. When Demetrius decides to go to sleep, Oberon sends Puck to get Helena while he charms Demetrius’ eyes. Due to Puck's drastic mistake of putting the juice on Lysander’s eyes, both lovers now fight over Helena instead of Hermia. Helena, however, is convinced that her two suitors are mocking her, as neither loved her originally. The four pursue and quarrel with each other most of the night, until they become so enraged that they seek a place to duel each other to the death to settle the quarrel. Oberon orders Puck to keep the lovers from catching up with one another in the forest and to re-charm Lysander for Hermia.

Meanwhile, a band of six lower-class labourers (“rude mechanicals”, as they are described by Puck) have arranged to perform a crude play about Pyramus and Thisbe for Theseus’ wedding, and venture into the forest, near Titania’s bower, for their rehearsal. Nick Bottom, a stage-struck weaver, is spotted by Puck, who transforms his head into that of a donkey. When Bottom returns for his next lines, the other workmen take one look at him and run screaming in terror. Determined to wait for his friends, he begins to sing to himself. Titania is awakened by Bottom’s singing and immediately falls in love with him. She treats him like a nobleman and lavishes him with attention. While in this state of devotion, she encounters Oberon and casually gives him the Indian boy. Having achieved his goals, Oberon releases Titania and orders Puck to remove the ass's head from Bottom. The magical enchantment is removed from Lysander but is allowed to remain on Demetrius, so that he may reciprocate Helena's love.

The fairies then disappear, and Theseus and Hippolyta arrive on the scene, during an early morning hunt. They wake the lovers and, since Demetrius doesn’t love Hermia anymore, Theseus over-rules Egeus’s demands and arranges a group wedding. The lovers decide that the night’s events must have been a dream. After they all exit, Bottom awakes, and he too decides that he must have experienced a dream “past the wit of man.” In Athens, Theseus, Hippolyta and the lovers watch the six workmen perform Pyramus and Thisbe. It is ridiculous and badly performed but gives everyone pleasure regardless, and afterward everyone retires to bed. Afterwards, Oberon, Titania, Puck, and other fairies enter, and bless the house and its occupants with good fortune.


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Theoretical approaches to literature

As the classification of genre and text types, the approaches in literature also classified into many kinds of methodologies, which has different characterization for each. All of the approaches in literature reflect a particular institutional, cultural and historical background. Historically speaking, the systematic analysis of texts developed in the magic or religious realm, and in legal discourse. In the past time in cultural history magic an religion indirectly furthers the preservation and interpretation of “texts” in the widest sense of the term. It really has the close relation with the oracles and dreams which is becoming the starting point of textual analysis and becoming the basic structures in the study of the holy texts in all religions.

In all religion, the interpretation of a certain code of text is very important; it usually counters on the analysis or exegesis of canonical texts such as bible, the Koran, or other holy books. As same as dreams and oracle which interpretations are consequently decode are considered to originate from a divinity and are therefore highly privilege. The interpretation of these kinds of texts deals with encoded information are very important, it can only be retrieve through exegetic practices.

Literary criticism derived its central interpretation from these two areas of textual study. The exegesis of religious and legal texts were based on the assumption that the meaning of a text could only be retrieves through the act of interpretation. Biblical scholarship coined the term heurmeneutics for this procedure, and it has been integrated into literary interpretation over the past several centuries. Within the field of literary studies, there also literary theory which has developed as a distinct discipline by philosophy. It analyzes the philosophical and methodological premises of literary criticism. While literary analysis is mostly interested in the analysis, interpretation, and evaluation of primary source, literary theory tries to shed light on the very methods used in those reading of primary texts.

Among the many diverse method of interpretation it is possible to isolate four basic approaches which provide a grid according to which most schools or trends can be classified.  They can be classified between text, author, reader, and context-oriented approaches. The following theoretical schools can be subsumed under these four basic rubrics:

Text                                                                            reader

Philology                                                                     reception theory

Rhetoric                                                                      reception history

Formalism and structuralism                                       reader-response criticism

New criticism

Semiotics and deconstruction                                    
                                                                                    context

Author                                                                       literary history

Biographical criticism                                                 Marxist literary theory

Psychoanalytic criticism                                              feminist literary theory

phenomenology               
                                                                    new historicism and cultural studies

1.                  Text-oriented approach.

Text-oriented approach has been applied in most of modern schools and methodologies in literary criticism. It is applied primordial textual science of religion, legal practice, and divination. All these traditions place the main emphasize on the internal textual aspects of a literary works. Extra-textual factors concerning the author (his or her biography, other works), audiences (races, class, gender, age, education) or larger contexts (historical, social or political conditions) are deliberately excluded from the analysis.

Based on the rubrics above, there are four approaches concerning with textual approach, they are Philology, Rhetoric, Formalism and structuralism, New criticism, Semiotics and deconstruction. All of these approaches have its own characteristic which can be identified as the explanation below.

a)              Philology

In literary criticism, the term philology generally denotes approaches which focus on editorial problems and the reconstruction of texts. Philology is firstly experienced in renaissance era by rediscovery of ancient authors. Informed by modern science, these philological approaches tried to incorporate advanced empirical methodologies into the study of literature. As the example is the accepted edition of James Joyce’s Ulysses(1922). In the 1980, a number of competing Joyce’s editions, all of which considered themselves to be the definite text, revived the interest in questions of textual edition and philological methodologies. These recent manifestations of traditional philology, which sometimes focus on such arcane aspects as typography, are often referred to as textual criticism.

b)              Rhetoric and stylistics

Today’s text-oriented schools focus on aspects of form (textual and narrative structure, point of view, plot-patterns) and style (rhetorical figures, choice of words or diction, syntax and meter), it remained the dominant textual discipline. Rhetoric introduced descriptive and analytical elements. Today’s text-oriented literary criticism derives many of its field from traditional rhetoric and still draws on its terminology.

In the nineteenth century, rhetoric eventually lost its influence and partially developed into stylistic, a field whose methodology was adopted by literary criticism and art history as well. Stylistics focused on grammatical structures (lexis, syntax), acoustic elements (melody, rhyme, meter, rhythm), and over arching forms (rhetorical figures) in its analyses of texts.

c)              Formalism and  structuralism

The term formalism and structuralism encompass a number of schools in the first half of twentieth century whose main goals lies in the explication of the formal and structural patterns of literary texts. It really attached with intrinsic value of literary criticism. Formalism tries to analyze structurally such textual elements as characters in plot. It concern with the form of literary itself.  While Structuralism concern with the structure of the literary works.

d)              New criticism

New criticism disapproves of what are termed the affective fallacy and the international fallacy in traditional analysis of text. In its analyses, new criticism focuses on phenomena such as multiple meaning, paradox, irony, word-play, puns, and rhetorical figures which – as the smallest distinguishable elements of literary work – form interdependent links with the overall texts. A central term usually used in new criticism is close reading. It denotes the meticulous analysis of these elementary features, which mirror larger structures of a text.

e)              Semiotics and Deconstruction

Semiotics and deconstruction regards a text as a system of signs. Semiotics and deconstruction use the verbal sign or signifier as the starting point of the analyses,  arguing that nothing exist outside the texts, i.e, that our perception of the world is of a textual nature. This cluster of text-oriented theories emphasize intrinsic dimensions of literary works. Their main objective lies in the analysis of basic textual structure (narrative techniques, plot patterns, point of view, style, and rhetorical figures)

2.            Author-oriented approaches.

In the nineteenth century, before the major formalist-structuralist theories of the twentieth century, biographical criticism evolved and become a dominant movement. This  Author-oriented approach established a direct link between the literary text and the biography of the author. It includes date, fact, and events in author’s life related to his or her literary works.

Autobiographical are suitable for this kind of approach, which compares the fictional portrayal with and figures from the author’s life. As the example from Mary Shelley’s life shows, many biographical approaches also tend to employ psychological explanations. This  psychological explanations led to psychoanalytic literary criticism. As the examples is Shakespeare’s Hamlet which can be analyze using psychoanalytic, and ask whether Hamlet is mad, if so, from which psychological illness he is suffering.

3.            Reader-oriented approaches

Reader-oriented approach developed in the 1960s called reception theory, reader-response theory, or aesthetic of reception. Reception theory is obviously opposed to a new criticism’s dogma of affective fallacy, which demands an interpretation free of subjective contribution by readers. These approaches assume that a text creates certain expectations in the reader in every phase or of reading. These expectations are then either fulfilled ar left fulfilled. The reader’s expectation plays a role in every sort of text, but it is most obvious in literary genres like detective fiction, which depend very much on the interaction between text and recipient. Edgar Alan Poe’s The Murders in the Rue Morgue is one of the example of this approach. It guides reader’s imagination and expectation in different directions.

4.            Context-oriented approaches

This term refers to heterogeneous group of schools and methodologies which do not regard literary texts as self-contained, independent work of art but try to place them within a larger context. It is divided into two parts, they are literary history and Marxist literary theory. Literary history divided into many periods, describes the text with respect to its historical background, dates, texts, and examines their mutual influences. Marxist Literary theory is based on the writing of Karl Marx (1818-1883). It examine the conditions of production in certain literary periods and their influence on the literary texts of the times.

a)              New historicism

New historicism arose in US in the 1980s. it builds on post-structuralism and deconstruction, with their focus on text and discourse, but adds a historical dimension to the discussion of literary texts. For example is Shakespeare’s works are viewed as a concern with the historical document on the discovery of America.

b)              Feminist literary theory and gender theory

Feminist literary theory born on the movement of people especially woman which has strongly establish academic discipline.  Feminist literary theory starts with the assumption that “gender difference” is an aspect which has been neglected in traditional literary criticism and, therefore, argues that traditional domain of literary criticism have to be re-examined from a gender-oriented perspective.

In the development, beginning in the late 1960s, thematic issues such as the portrayal of woman in literary texts by male stood in the foreground. It shows that men are dominated than woman.

In the interpretation of literary texts, it is important to decide the suitable for the text at hand and can lead to new results. Although a text might imply certain approach because of its thematic, historical, or structural qualities, different approaches may often produce more original and rewarding results.




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Psycological Analysis of Wallace Stevens' The Snow Man

The Snow Man

by Wallace Stevens (1879-1955)

The Snow Man
One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

Pharaphrase

                In the remarkable poem "The Snow Man," Stevens dramatizes the action of a mind as it becomes one with the scene it perceives, and at that instant, the mind having ceased to bring something of itself to the scene, the scene then ceases to exist fully. We, with the "one" of the poem, begin by watching the winter scene while in our mind the connotations of misery and cold brought forth by  the scene are stirring.

              But gradually, almost imperceptibly, we are divested of whatever it is  that distinguishes us from the snow man. We become the snow man, and we see the winter world through his eyes of coal, and we know the cold without the thoughts of human discomfort.

              To perceive the winter scene truly, we must have the mind of the snow man, until correspondence becomes identification. Then we see with the sharpest eye the images of winter: "pine-trees crusted with snow," "junipers shagged with ice," "spruces rough in the distant
glitter/ Of the January sun." We hear with the acutest ear the cold sibilants evoking the sense of barrenness and monotony: "sound of  the wind," "sound of a few leaves," "sound of the land," "same wind," "same bare place," "For the listener, who listens in the snow."

            The "one" with whom the reader has identified himself has now become "the listener, who listens in the snow"; he has become the snow man, and he knows winter with a mind of winter, knows it in its strictest reality, stripped of all imagination and human feeling. But at that point when he sees the winter scene reduced to absolute fact, as the object not of the mind, but of the perfect perceptual eye that sees "nothing that is not there," then the scene, devoid of its imaginative
correspondences, has become "the nothing that is."

Psycological Analysis

Psychology analysis is one of criticism which concern with the psychology of the author to express feeling, idea, and life experience. The good psychoanalysis poem is how the author can show the effect of psychology through art and lifelike. Beside appearing those terms author should also tell how far the contribution of the characters are.

Psychological analysis is actually refers to consciousness and unconsciousness of the author when he write master piece. But in this analysis I wouldn’t talk about those terms because it’s very difficult to be analyzed if we didn’t know directly from the author. So, in this discussion I prefer to choose some approach in criticizing this poem (Snow Man).

Basically, there are three approaches in psychological analysis. First, textual approach, it deals with the psychological aspect of narrator in the poem. Second, receptive-pragmatic approach, it discuss about psychology of reader as devotee of literature and process on how the literature effect their mind. Third, expressive approach, it deals with psychology aspect of author through creative process when he/she compose master piece.

I tend to use the third one as my analysis. That is expressive approach which deals with psychology aspect of author through creative process when he/she compose master piece. This poem is actually to give the strong feeling about the snow. It refers to change reader’s mind about the snow. The author really feel his psycology when he create this poem. He reaaly want to tell the readers that snow is not always good as common readers think about. Most of the readers especially for those who didn’t feel the fact how hard the snow on the winter is may feel that it will be very interesting sight to see. But for those who have been felt the winter every year may think that it’s very hard. We have to prepare many things, such as warm coat, food, etc.

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Executive Summary Example 1 (Gulliver's Travel)

I.1 Introduction

Basically, there are three things that we have to be concern in literary works. It refers to author, literary works, and reader. Those three parts can not be separated. Literary is actually represents the real life of society. To make it life like, it’s the power of good literary works. However imagination of author about something which is really fiction (doesn’t happen in real life) sometimes represent. If it exists, the author must use a symbol to criticize or describe his feeling or his society.

The novel Gulliver’s Travel written by Jonathan Swift is full of imagination. For some children it might be interesting. Talking about the voyage, drift ashore in Lilliput (the land of tiny people), going to Brobdingnag (the land of Giant), voyage to Laputa, and meet with Houyhnhnm. Those things give some interest to the children. So, how about an adult? Do they understand what the author is going to show?. In my opinion, from some adult who didn’t know how to value literary work, they will think that it’s just children story which never happen. But in a deep side the imaginary of the author plays an important role.

In this novel, Swift exploits his imagination to satire his social. As you can see in the biography of Swift, he was born in Dublin, England. He also the “Dean” of church in England. He became the product of Irish culture and learning. In this novel, he describes his disappointing toward England government. In it, Swift explores gender differences, politics, class, money, race, science, education, exploration, love, physical strength, physical beauty, and more, and forces stringent satirical commentary on each. Sociological approach is my interest to analyze this novel, because the content of this novel is talking about society. Moreover satire is used.

a.    Author’s biography

Jonathan Swift was born on November 30, 1667 in Dublin, Ireland, the son of Protestant Anglo-Irish parents: his ancestors had been Royalists, and all his life he would be a High-Churchman. His father, also Jonathan, died a few months before he was born, upon which his mother, Abigail, returned to England, leaving her son behind, in the care of relatives. In 1673, at the age of six, Swift began his education at Kilkenny Grammar School, which was, at the time, the best in Ireland. Between 1682 and 1686 he attended, and graduated from, Trinity College in Dublin, though he was not, apparently, an exemplary student.

In 1688 William of Orange invaded England, initiating the Glorious Revolution: with Dublin in political turmoil, Trinity College was closed, and an ambitious Swift took the opportunity to go to England, where he hoped to gain preferment in the Anglican Church. In England, in 1689, he became secretary to Sir William Temple, a diplomat and man of letters, at Moor Park in Surrey. There Swift read extensively in his patron's library, and met Esther Johnson, who would become his "Stella," and it was there, too, that he began to suffer from Meniere's Disease, a disturbance of the inner ear which produces nausea and vertigo, and which was little understood in Swift's day. In 1690, at the advice of his doctors, Swift returned to Ireland, but the following year he was back with Temple in England. He visited Oxford in 1691: in 1692, with Temple's assistance, he received an M. A. degree from that University, and published his first poem: on reading it, John Dryden, a distant relation, is said to have remarked "Cousin Swift, you will never be a poet."

Between 1696 and 1699 Swift composed most of his first great work, A Tale of a Tub, a prose satire on the religious extremes represented by Roman Catholicism and Calvinism, and in 1697 he wrote The Battle of the Books, a satire defending Temple's conservative but beseiged position in the contemporary literary controversy as to whether the works of the "Ancients" — the great authors of classical antiquity — were to be preferred to those of the "Moderns." In 1699 Temple died, and Swift traveled to Ireland as chaplain and secretary to the Earl of Berkeley.

The noise of the Drapier Letters had hardly died away when Swift acquired a more durable glory by the publication of Travels Into Several Remote Nations of the World, in four parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, first a surgeon and then a captain of several ships (Benjamin Motto, October 1726). The first hint came to him at the meetings of the Scriblerus Club in 1714, and the work was well advanced, it would seem, by 1720. Allusions show that it was circulated privately for a considerable period before its actual (anonymous) publication, on the 28th of October 1726. Pope arranged that Erasmus Lewis should act as literary agent in negotiating the manuscript. Swift was afraid of the reception the book would meet with, especially in political circles. The keenness of the satire on courts, parties and statesmen certainly suggests that it was planned while Swift's disappointments as a public man were still rankling and recent. It is Swift's peculiar good fortune that his book can dispense with the interpretation of which it is nevertheless susceptible, and may be equally enjoyed whether its inner meaning is apprehended or not. It is so true, so entirely based upon the facts of human nature that the question what particular class of persons supplied the author with his examples of folly or misdoing, however interesting to the commentator, may be neglected by the reader. It is also fortunate for him that in three parts out of the four he should have entirely missed "the chief end I propose to myself, to vex the world rather than divert it."

b.    Summary

This novel is written by Jonathan swift. He is a dean of church in England. This novel is published in London 1726. This book represents the social life at that time which full of satire. “Swifts” imaginary hero is a traveler and narrator named Lamuel Gulliver. Incidentally, he is a well educated, ship surgeon, who sails off to tell us about four fascinating voyages. He travels to four different places, they are Voyage to Lilliput, Voyage to Brobdingnag, Voyage to Laputa, Bilnibarbi, Luggnagg Glubbdubdrib, and Jappan. The last is Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms. From those voyages, he got many experiences. He learns about new world and new cultures. Those four voyages can be described as follows:

Part I: A Voyage to Lilliput

The book begins with a short preamble in which Gulliver, in the style of books of the time, gives a brief outline of his life and history prior to his voyages. He enjoys travelling, although it is that love of travel that is his downfall.

On his first voyage, Gulliver experience on shipwreck which drift ashore into the strange land. When he awakes, he has found himself a prisoner of a race of people 6 inches size of normal human beings who are inhabitants of the neighboring and rival countries of Lilliput and Blefuscu. After giving assurances of his good behavior, he is given a residence in Lilliput and becomes a favorite of the court. From there, the book follows Gulliver's observations on the Court of Lilliput, which is intended to satirize the court of George I (King of England at the time of the writing of the Travels). Gulliver assists the Lilliputians to conquer their neighbors the Blefuscudians (by stealing their fleet). However, he refuses to reduce the country to a province of Lilliput, displeasing the King and the court. Gulliver is charged with treason and sentenced to be blinded. With the assistance of a kind friend, Gulliver escapes to Blefuscu, where he spots and get backs an abandoned boat and sails out to be rescued by a passing ship which takes him back home.

Part II: A Voyage to Brobdingnag

After trying to escape from Lilliputians, he efforts to sail with his boat. He has been sailing for seven days and finally he found land where the giants live there. Gulliver is abandoned by his companions and found by a farmer who is 72 feet (22 m) tall. He brings Gulliver home and his extremely smart and strong daughter cares for Gulliver. The farmer treats him as a curiosity and exhibits him for money. The word gets out and the Queen of Brobdingnag wants to see the show. She loves Gulliver and he is then bought by her and kept as a favorite at court.

Because Gulliver is too small to use their huge chairs, beds, knives and forks, the queen built small house for Gulliver so that he can be carried around in it. This box is referred to as his travelling box. In between small adventures such as fighting giant wasps and being carried to the roof by a monkey, he discusses the state of Europe with the King, who is not impressed. On a trip to the seaside, his "travelling box" is seized by a giant eagle which drops Gulliver and his box right into the sea where he is picked up by some sailors, who return him to England. The story doesn’t end. Then he voyage to Laputa, Bilnibarbi, Luggnagg Glubbdubdrib, and Japan.

Part III: A Voyage to Laputa, Bilnibarbi, Luggnagg Glubbdubdrib, and Japan.

Gulliver's ship is attacked by pirates, the malice of Dutchman, he arrived at the island called Laputa. A kingdom dedicated to the arts of music and mathematics but completely unable to use these for practical ends. The device described simply as the Engine is possibly the first literary description in history of something resembling a computer. Laputa's method of throwing rocks at disobedient surface cities also seems the first time that aerial bombardment was imagined as a method of war. While there, he tours the country as the guest of a low-ranking courtier and sees the ruin brought about by blind pursuit of science without practical results in a satire on the Royal Society and its experiments. He travels to a magician's dwelling and discusses history with the ghosts of historical figures, the most obvious restatement of the "ancients versus moderns" theme in the book. He also encounters the struldbrugs, unfortunates who are immortal and very, very old. Gulliver is then taken to Balnibarbi to await a Dutch trader who can take him on to Japan. The trip is otherwise reasonably free of incident and Gulliver returns home, determined to stay there for the rest of his days.

Part IV: A Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms

In this voyage, Gulliver returns to sea as a captain. On this voyage he is forced to find new additions to his crew who believes to have turned the rest of the crew against him. His crew then rebell and after keeping him contained for some time decide to leave him on the first piece of land they come across and continue on as pirates. He is abandoned in a landing boat and comes first upon a race of (apparently) dreadful deformed creatures to which he regards a violent antipathy. Shortly thereafter he meets two horses. The horse in this novel described as peculiar horse, this horse can speak (in their language Houyhnhnm or "the perfection of nature") are the rulers and the deformed creatures ("Yahoos") are human beings in their base form. Gulliver becomes a member of the horse's household, and comes to both admire and imitate the Houyhnhnms and their lifestyle, rejecting humans as merely Yahoos endowed with some equality of reason which they only use to worsen and add to the vices Nature gave them. However, an Assembly of the Houyhnhnms rules that Gulliver, a Yahoo with some equality of reason, is danger to their civilization and he is expelled. He is then rescued, against his will, by a Portuguese ship, and is surprised to see that the captain, a Yahoo, is a wise, well-mannered and generous person. He returns to his home in England. However, he is unable to reconcile himself to living among Yahoos; he becomes a remaining in his house, largely avoiding his family and his wife, and spending several hours a day speaking with the horses in his stables.

I.2 Analysis

Sociological analysis

Sociological approach is branch of social research as the reflection. It is the reflection of society where the literary written. The basic assumption of sociological literary works is birth of literary work is not representing inanition of society. In fact, social life will be the main part of the literary works appearance. The successful of sociological literary works is the appearance of word view reflection.

It has been phenomena that most of the sociological researcher tends to built up the connection between author and his social life. The content of literary works will be formed by the representative of world view. That’s why the social life of author can be an important part in the research. In literary works, the point of imagination cannot be deleted and the social description can too. It is because the author’s imagination usually reflects to the world view of his life.

The concept of mirror will be the important part. Literary works consider as mimesis (the imitation of social). It is not only represent the copy of fact but also represent the fact that has been paraphrased. It reflects to Hall’s statement (11979:32) “the concept of literature a social referent is, however, perfectly viable since it takes into account the writer’s active concern to understand hid society”

Basically, there are three perspectives concern with sociological literature. First research that paraphrase literary works as the social document which reflect to situation where the literary works created. Second research that express literary works as the mirror of author’s social life. Third research which reveals literary works as the manifestation of history and the condition of culture and social.

Based on Albert Memmi (Segers, 2002: 70), there are three approaches of sociological analysis. They deal with the author, literary texts, and readers. The author approach emphasize on economic status and author’s professional, social class, and author’s generation. Literary texts emphasize on sociological genre, form, theme, character, and style. While readers refers to readers opinion whether the literary works are received or not by common readers.

In analyzing novel “Gulliver’s travel”, I used sociological approach because most of the voyage done by the narrator reflects the social condition of England where the story takes place.  I didn’t analyze for all four voyages, but I only analyze two of four voyages that are VOYAGE TO LILIPUT (Part I) and VOYAGE TO BROBDINGNAG (Part II). In my opinion, those two voyages is the most interesting thing to be analyzed; the content of it is close to the real life.

I would like to use the combination between those two thoughts. What I want to analyze is the literary texts whose functioned as the social document which reflect to situation where the literary works created.

Sociological genre

Gulliver’s Travel perhaps the most interesting and the most famous novel of Jonathan Swift. It represents the satire or parody of English government in 1726 era. The four travels describe by the narrator and the narrator’s meeting with unusual people and place, talked about that. Actually, the imagination which is reveal in this novel is full of symbol. Gulliver’s Travels is a parody of the genre of “travel narrative”. It realizes as the representation of society, government system in that era. I’m sure the social genre of this novel is parody.

Form and structure

The novel is written in the form of a travel book. Swift chose this device because travel tends to change our perspective on the world around us. As Gulliver’s voyage and we voyage with him. What he wants to shows to reader is how reader can open their mind about something and how readers can change it. Swift also satirizes travel books in Gulliver's Travels.

The characters

The characters shown in the novel sometimes represents the character of author. In the novel Gulliver’s travel we can see some of the narrator’s character which is the same with Swift’s character. His characters are allegorical; that is, they represent something- an idea, an attitude, - or someone else. It's never simple with Swift. Gulliver, for instance, represents different things at different points in the novel. In Part I Gulliver decent, and responsible. At times in Lilliput he represents other people. In Part II Gulliver represents a man who becomes as cruel and trivial as the Lilliputians. Swift's allegories are not "black and white". Even the Lilliputians have their good points- they are very clever. Keep in our mind that in Gulliver's Travels there's no character we can follow as we can a traditional omniscient (all-knowing) narrator. Swift's satire is designed to keep us as independent reader; the characters are meant to stimulate us, not to lead us. Here are some characters in Gulliver’s travel.

LEMUEL GULLIVER is the most important character in this novel. He's the "author" of the Travels, he's your tour guide but also a complex, changing character.

THE LILLIPUTIAN EMPEROR the Lilliputians emperor represents George I of England. The tiny emperor represents tyranny, cruelty, desire for power, and corruption. He is a timeless symbol of bad government.

THE LILLIPUTIANS IN GENERAL The Lilliputians are tiny creatures, clever and cunning. They have a love of ceremony, and bureaucracy. They are very refined in their manners, but this doesn't prevent them from being small-minded, mean, and revengeful.

THE BROBDINGNAGIAN FARMER He is a poor man who catches on Gulliver as a way to earn money. He asks Gulliver to make show, and brings him to all people to get money.

THE BROBDINGNAGIAN KING This man represents Swift's idea of a just, wise, and strong ruler. For him, force is a measure of absolute last resort, and the idea of gunpowder (of which he'd never heard until Gulliver described it to him) horrifies him. The king has other admirable characteristics- he's curious, eager to learn, not afraid of the unknown. He spends long hours with Gulliver asking him questions about English and European domestic and public ways, politics, religion, and history.

GLUMDALCLITCH she is daughter of the brobdingnagian farmer. She is Gulliver’s nursemaid who desperately loves him and cares for him as her sweetheart doll.

THE BROBDINGNAGIANS IN GENERAL The Brobdingnagians in general are as ugly to Gulliver as the Lilliputians were physically attractive. However the Brobdingnagian character is better compared to the Lilliputian.

Theme

The major theme is this novel can be covered in three terms:

• A satirical view of the state of English, European government, and trivial differences between them.
• An examination into whether governments are inherently corrupt or whether they become corrupted.
• Good governance. Here describes that good government must be contrast to Lilliput and Brobdingnag.

This book basically talked about those three major. Lilliput in this novel described as the place of tiny people with only 6 inches. It eventually represent microcosmic of British politics when the Whigs and Tories were fighting bitterly for control of the country. In my opinion, British government in that era just like a play, who always concern on money, glory and victory. It can also be described that they never give a chance to middle, low class to have their right. The big people (described as Gulliver, also described as high class) as the superior while Lilliputians (described as the tiny people) is inferior.

Gulliver’s second voyage is Brobdingnag. Brobdingnag is the place of Giant. It is contrast to Liliput where Gulliver becomes a giant there, but in Brobdingnag he becomes tiny as tiny as Lilliputians. This second part also represents British politics. In this part, he talks much about the politics of his country which is very deferent from Brobdingnag. Brobdingnag political system is based on the principal of fair where the king and queen collect the harvest then divided fairly to Brobdingnag citizen. This shows us that author compares the English government with European government. That the way they draw the political party, law, military affairs, and parties in the state are different.

Style

Swift's style is composed chiefly of satire, allegory, and irony. Satire consists of a mocking attack against vices, stupidities, and follies, with an aim to educate, edify, improve. Allegory is a device in which characters, situations, and places have a significance that goes beyond simply what they are in themselves.

I.3 Conclusion

The novel Gulliver’s Travel written by Jonathan swift is amazing novel. His imagination described in this novel is the great thing. He can explore the amazing idea that satire the government in different ways. Even the imagination emerged in this novel seem not real in real life but it’s actually have deep meaning that describes the social condition in that era. From one voyage to another voyage, author describes in brief those satires, such as voyage to Lilliput (place for tiny people) and voyage to Brobdingnag. Those two voyages clearly represent the England government that is cruel, conservative, and bring the power of class. He also criticized England government that they are superpower and mistreat their people.


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