by Poppy Matt

Created on: September 18, 2011   Last Updated: September 19, 2011

Lemuel Gulliver is the narrator and protagonist of the novel Gulliver Travels written by Jonathan Swift, who was also known as Dean Swift. The novel is mainly centered on Lemuel Gulliver and rarely makes reference to the people in his nuclear family. From his narration, it is very obvious that Gulliver is an intelligent and well educated man; a surgeon by profession, Gulliver had a solid educational background studying in the renowned universities in England and Leiden in Holland as well as practicing as an apprentice under the popular surgeon James Bates.

He came from a middle-class family and found it necessary to associate with “people of quality” as he called it and was very detailed in the narration of his exploits often giving the reader a clear picture of what he was doing at a particular time. Gulliver was a very curious man who tried to observe and scrutinize almost every new object he found around him which led to him discovering more about the places he visited, he was very good at observing people which was one of the things that prompted him to go on the voyages and he also adapted easily new conditions often learning to communicate with the inhabitants of the new communities in a short while.

Gulliver was also a practical man and not unnecessarily gullible and these characteristics saved his life on different occasions. Also, he was very resourceful and courageous in a way successfully providing food, shelter and clothing for himself. During his travels, he found himself in situations were he could not find any decent thing to stomach, had to defend himself against huge rats, in fact he found himself trying to avoid being stepped on or squeezed by the giants around him and still got through the whole ordeal. Gulliver was also not emotional, throughout his travels, he rarely showed any emotion to anything around him and even when surrounded by potential threats, he simply took it as a day’s job and went around doing his normal duties.

Unlike many novels where the protagonist has a heroic characteristic, it was very different in this one, Gulliver did not show any heroic tendencies and by the end of his voyage, he could not figure out what he had gained from his experience. He hardly puts any interest in things he discovered and by the end of the novel; he had lost his interest in everything.

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