Family Neglect in Gulliver's Travels and Frankenstein

Introduction: Two Novels, One Theme

Two of the most enduring works in the English literary canon — Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift and Frankenstein: Or the Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley — share a surprisingly intimate thematic concern: the neglect of family. Both authors create characters who are far from ordinary, and who abandon their families in pursuit of selfish pleasures and personal ambitions. During the Enlightenment, the bonds of family and society were considered essential to both the necessity and enjoyment of life. Yet Gulliver and Victor Frankenstein inhabit chaotic and almost unbelievable worlds of their own making, worlds that pull them ever further from domestic responsibility. Through these characters, Swift and Shelley affirm the importance of family to society by creating protagonists who are its very opposite — flawed, self-absorbed men whose neglect serves as a pointed commentary on human nature, society, and what is truly natural in human relationships.

The Enlightenment Context

Both of these works use family ties — and the conspicuous lack of them — to advance their authors' distinct views on the Enlightenment, the intellectual movement that dominated the 18th century, when both writers were working and creating. Swift captured the spirit of the movement succinctly in another essay: "Thus God and Nature link'd the gen'ral frame, / And bade Self-love and Social be the same" (Swift and Williams 71). The movement celebrated intellectual thought and posed perennial questions about the nature of God, man, nature, society, and history. These unusual novels entertain, but they also enlighten, as they subtly — and sometimes not so subtly — attempt to answer these questions, particularly as they relate to family and society of the time.

Both authors create characters that are far from "normal," by both contemporary and period standards. Shelley creates a monster who terrifies the countryside, and Victor, the monster's obsessive creator who is consumed by the desire to generate life from death. Swift creates a traveler who visits imaginary lands and brings a particular brand of satire to a work that initially resembles a children's story. Both writers invented unusual characters in order to construct alternate worlds in which they could genuinely comment on the world we live in. By having their characters abandon their families for personal wants and needs, both authors deliver a biting satirical commentary on the Enlightenment: while they may sympathize with its premises, their characters take themselves and their ambitions far too seriously, and the authorial commentary suggests that society will suffer whenever its members abandon all convention in their quest for fuller self-understanding.

Fantasy, Science Fiction, and Believable Characters

Chaos is an important theme in both works, and it connects directly to the theme of familial neglect. Frankenstein's creature creates chaos and fear when he is unwittingly set loose by Victor, while Gulliver's travels take him through lands where chaos and fear reign — most notably the land of the Yahoos, whose brutishness contaminates his perception when he returns home to what he now sees as the European "Yahoos." Significantly, chaos is also what would result in any society if all conventions and moral codes were abandoned in favor of selfish pleasures. Both novels begin with familial neglect, and their implication is clear: if everyone abandoned their families as Gulliver and Victor do, chaos and unending unhappiness would follow.

Today, these works would be classified as at least partially fantasy or science fiction. An editor of Swift's book notes that "throughout the narrative Swift uses the science-fiction technique of describing fantastic events with so much circumstantial detail that they seem perfectly credible" (Swift and Turner ix). The monster in Frankenstein is equally a work of science fiction: larger than life, created from death, possessed of unusual strength and a drive to kill, he is the perfect model for the modern horror film, and Victor's laboratory is the archetypal mad scientist's lair. At the time these works were written, they must have seemed even more fantastical than they do today. Yet their main characters, for all their faults, remain believable, because they were drawn from the men of their era — and because humankind has always been animated by the quest for something more, something better, and a deeper understanding of what lies within us all. This, ultimately, is what the Enlightenment and its thinkers urged others to pursue.

Gulliver's Abandonment of His Family

One of the most entertaining aspects of Swift's novel is how readily Gulliver adapts to the wildly different situations he encounters on his voyages. He does not question what happens to him; he simply records it. This is another of Swift's perceptions of mankind and its generally non-questioning nature. Swift satirizes what he does not believe in, placing Gulliver in situations where he reacts as most men would, but learns from his surroundings — which Swift believed most men failed to do. Victor, too, learns from his mistakes and is ultimately freed from the monster that consumes him, but at a terrible price: he has lost his wife. By putting his own needs ahead of his family's, Victor created the very being that would generate the worst chaos and evil in his life.

Gulliver likewise returns home from his adventures a changed man, and, just as Victor's life is devastated by the chaos he created, so is Gulliver's. He finds that "civilization" is often more than he can bear, and he is most offended by the pride of other men. He observes: "But, when I behold a Lump of Deformity, and Diseases both in Body and Mind, smitten with Pride, it immediately breaks all the Measures of my Patience; neither shall I ever be able to comprehend how such an Animal and such a Vice could tally together" (Swift and Turner 288). Gulliver has glimpsed what he considers a better life, and returns to what he now perceives as chaos, while Victor has witnessed pure terror and returns to a life bereft of his two great attachments — Elizabeth and the monster.

Family ties and the neglect of family are key issues in both novels, outweighing all other concerns in their importance and meaning. Early in the narrative, Gulliver resolves to give up life at sea and remain home with his family, but this resolution does not last. His finances dwindle, and he returns to the sea to support his household — a voyage that takes him far from home and farther still from his family bonds. He encounters extraordinary beings and returns with almost unbelievable tales. He also discovers a profound aversion to his own family: "During the first Year I could not endure my Wife or Children in my Presence, the very Smell of them was intolerable; much less could I suffer them to eat in the same Room. To this Hour they dare not presume to touch my Bread, or drink out of the same Cup" (Swift 281–282). Clearly, his many adventures and their effect on him have rendered him unable to tolerate his family, who represent the "normal and decent" society that Gulliver can no longer accept. Indeed, he cannot remain with them even on his first return, for he misses the sea more than he needs his family: "I stayed but two Months with my Wife and Family; for my insatiable Desire of seeing foreign Countries would suffer me to continue no longer. I left fifteen Hundred Pounds with my Wife, and fixed her in a good House" (Swift and Turner 68). In other words, he abandons them for his own enjoyment and need — a posture entirely typical of the Enlightenment man, who was encouraged to place his own needs above those of others. Swift's portrayal of Gulliver is pure satire of the predictable and self-congratulatory thinking of humankind, and it seems to urge readers to think for themselves and reach their own conclusions, however unusual those conclusions may seem to conventional society.

Conclusion: The Cost of Self-Indulgence

Family ties are an important part of society, and they can be a very important part of developing the self and one's self-awareness. In these two novels, the characters ignore and neglect their families on their own voyages of self-improvement and self-indulgence. The authors seem to be saying that while journeying to find oneself is admirable and even desirable, returning home is equally so. One should learn from one's adventures, but understand that home and hearth are an important part of the learning process as well. Both Gulliver and Victor return home too late — they have learned too much, and they have altered their lives forever. Thus, neglecting the family while searching for oneself may be something a man feels compelled to do, but in the end, he must return home to be truly enlightened and truly satisfied.

References

Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft. Frankenstein Or, the Modern Prometheus. New York: Collier Books, 1961.

Swift, Jonathan. Turner, Paul, ed. Gulliver's Travels. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Williams, Kathleen. Jonathan Swift and the Age of Compromise. Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 1958.