After the Journey Essay

Steve Clark, who wrote Travel Writing and Empire believes that the traveller is departed, sometimes changed suddenly when he or she journeys in an unfamiliar environ workforcet some stories from authentic life do prove this statement. There argon as well known fictional travellers who posterior show how bulls eyeificant and life-changing journeys can be, and this is where we focus. However, in advance traffic with these characters, imagine traveling to foreign countries, immersing in another(prenominal) cultures, and either fleck against or indulging in the unexampled experiences. These experiences, negative or positive, choke part of the travellers life, however little the effect may appear.Robinson Crusoes wanderlust has guide him to an experience that he has never eyeshot possible. All he has longed for is a taste of adventure, but what he has to take a shit in exchange for this adventure is practically his whole life. Meanwhile, Lemuel Gulliver only(prenominal ) wants to restore his travels to other muckle. He professes that I rather chose to relate plain take of fact in the simplest manner and style, because my principal design was to inform, and not to beguile thee. ( quick, 1962) Robinson Crusoes plot begins with disobedience. Both Robinson Crusoes pargonnts have opposed his intrust to go on a voyage.He asked me what reasons, more than a sheer wandering inclination, I had for leaving fathers house and my aborigine country, where I might be well introduced, and had a prospect of tiptop my pot by application and industry, with a life of ease and joy. (Defoe)Crusoe is reminded by his father that he does not occupy to seek his fortune or win honour of some kind. His later wretched tally reminds him of his fathers warnings.Robinson Crusoe is believed to be based on the life of horse parsley Selkirk who has run away to sea in 1704. He has made a request to be left alone in an uninhabited island before being rescued later five y ears. (Bibliomania) Crusoes experience is of lineage more imaginative and more complex, as Daniel Defoe adds in more adventures for the castaway.Although Crusoes situation is not contrived like Selkirks, who has clearly requested to be left alone, his strong desire to continue setting out to sea even after a perilous first voyage has led him to a similar fate. Surviving the first voyage, Robinson Crusoe has continued his adventures and has ended up living in an uninhabited island alone.Crusoe has started the voyage as an inexperienced spring chicken man who has lived in comfort he cannot have gone by means of his voyages without being changed in some manner. Crusoes love for travel is undeniable. He has risked not only a secure livelihood in parliamentary law to pursue the adventure, but also his life. As a person, he already does not conform to what the society expects of him. Nevertheless, the castaway experience is still ingrained even to an adventurer. Crusoe has to do thin gs that he wouldnt normally do given over his former easy lifestyle. A man who has not been trained to implement a trade, he has learned to create necessary tools and gear ranging from system containers and clothes, to even a canoe.He has become very self-sufficient and resourceful as needed by the situation. His daily experiences also range from peace-loving inventions to discovering cannibals, saving a native whom he has named Friday and has even earned himself a fortune. These experiences themselves can affirm that Robinson Crusoe is not the same man who has left his topographic point for the first time. Robinson Crusoe, who has been expected to live comfortably and without much risk, has proven himself to be capable of seeking his fortune on his own. He not only changes himself in the process, but he also changes the perceptions of what a person essential or mustiness not do in society.Through his example, people are able to see that it can be profitable, although diffic ult, to go remote of the box that people of Crusoes time seem to have locked themselves in. Crusoe experiences changes in his attitude towards religion. crimson though there is no longer a physical church to attend a mass in, it is in his loneliness and with a Bible in hand that he is able to pass along with God and nature. Some critics have noted this as a sign that Robinson Crusoe is a morality story which begins with disobedience and results to conversion. (The Development of the Novel) What cannot be changed in Crusoe, however, is his humanity. Humans still long for the company of other human beings. He does meet and obtain the companionship of the native, Friday, but he is unused to the other mans culture. Crusoe later develops a more open-minded attitude towards other cultures because of his immersion into their worlds. He even tries to understand the cannibalistic ways of the natives.Now, we look at Gullivers Travels. Gullivers adventures are more howling(a) than Crus oes. He encounters little people and giants, and other strange communities. There must be a change in Gulliver after years of travelling to such places. In fact, Gulliver has to adapt in each of the four places that he visits.Like Crusoes first voyage, Gullivers first venture is met with insidious weather. This results to his being shipwrecked in Lilliput, where he describes the people to be less than sextuplet inches tall. (Swift, 1962) Gulliver has to convince the Lilliputians that he is harmless. He later gains their trust and has become the conjunction hero, having been able to help the little people against their rival, the Blefescudans.Gulliver no longer wants to accompany with the Lilliputians further demands and has to flee to save his life. After his stay in Lilliput, his numerous adventures include an encounter with giants who make him feel like a Lilliputian, and face-off horses who rule over Yahoos, who are uncivilized human beings. During the various encounters, Gu lliver is introduced to various kinds of civilisations. His understanding of what an empire is broadens, as he encounters the various kinds of kingdoms, with their unique beliefs and practices. Gullivers Travels is tagged as a satire Critics believe in the need to study Jonathan Swifts background in order to to the full understand the historical context in which he is writing the novel. Swift is reported to have prior policy-making influence, when he was still support the Whig Party. He shifts his alliance to the Tory Party upon hearing that the Whig Party is opposed to the Anglican Church. When the Whig Party gains more influence, Swift loses his. This is believed to have caused Swifts ill will against the government in London. (Glasgow University Library) The different characters within the various communities Gulliver encounters in the story are said to be based on real political figures.Lemuel Gulliver is altered by his many adventures. He has learned that there is not just one type of community for which the others are based. For each new place, he has to adapt in order to fit into the norm. Each interlingual rendition is a change in Gulliver. In fact, his immersion into the world of Houyhnhnms, which are horse-like creatures, has even created a dislike for humans in him. Gulliver has to re-accustom himself to life with usual people when he goes home.My wife and family received me with great surprise and joy, because they conclude me certainly dead but I must freely own the sight of them filled me only with hatred, disgust, and contempt and the more, by reflecting on the progress alliance I had to them. (Swift, 1962)This is proof enough that journeys can totally alter the traveller, as is with Gulliver who not only changes a bit but drastically.It is tardily for us who travel into remote countries, which are seldom visited by Englishmen or other Europeans, to form descriptions of wonderful animals both at sea and land. Whereas a travellers chief aim should be to make men wiser and better, and to improve their minds by the bad, as well as good, example of what they verbalise concerning foreign places. (Swift, 1962)The above declaration by Gulliver signifies his belief that the traveller can effect a change in how other people think. Even in real societies, people who have experience living in, or visiting foreign places come back with new beliefs that either portmanteau word with or completely erase their old ones. They may not be completely different people, because Robinson Crusoe still longs for the company of fellowmen, but there are definite changes. Each experience in life leaves indelible label in the person who goes through it.Moreover, Gulliver has to undergo an adjustment period after being almost chameleon-like in his adjustments in different civilisations. Robinson Crusoe has to transition from his comfortable and secure life to a life that is at times spend in solitude and sometimes spent in danger. He also becomes better in touch with his spiritual side, while becoming a person who can survive anywhere. It can be then reason out that the two classic novels, Gullivers Travels and Robinson Crusoe support Steve Clarks idea that trip into unfamiliar territory will alter or change the traveller completely.ReferencesBibliomania. (n.d.). Retrieved October 18, 2007, from Bibliomania Free Online Literature and Study Guides http//www.bibliomania.com/0/0/17/31/frameset.htmlDefoe, D. (n.d.). Robinson Crusoe. Retrieved October 17, 2007, from Dead Men Tell No Tales http//www.deadmentellnotales.com/onlinetexts/robinson/crusoe.shtmlGlasgow University Library. (n.d.). Special Collections Department. Retrieved October 18, 2007, from http//special.lib.gla.ac.uk/exhibns/month/jan2006.htmlSwift, J. (1962). Gullivers Travels and Other Writings. (M. K. Starkman, Ed.) New York Bantam Books.The Development of the Novel. (n.d.). Retrieved October 18, 2007, from University of St. Andrews http//www.st-andrews .ac.uk/cjmm/Crusoelec.html