Chapter 5 Summary

Orwell begins this essay by speaking of the four-way split in Gulliver's character in the four parts of "Gulliver's Travels." In Part I, Gulliver is a forty-year old adventurer, with two children at home, a practical disposition and the incipient signs of aging, as reflected by his spectacles, which show up from time to time in the narrative. In Part II, Gulliver, according to Orwell, seems to show the same character, but from time to time launches into inexplicable rantings on behalf of his country's noble and great qualities, peppered with all types of injudicious disclosures about scandal-ridden England. In Part III, again, he is much the same but seems to be possessed by a higher social and cultural ranking, as evidenced by his consorting with men of education and position. In Part IV, there is a kind of transformation and he becomes...