After the Journey Essay

Steve Clark, who wrote Travel Writing and Empire believes that the traveller is alter, sometimes changed utterly when he or she journeys in an unacquainted(predicate) environment some stories from real vivification do prove this statement.  There argon also well-known pretended travellers who open fire show how significant and life-changing journeys can be, and this is where we focus.  However, before dealing with these characters, compute travelling to inappropriate countries, immersing in a nonher(prenominal) cultures, and either fighting against or indulging in the new experiences.  These experiences, negative or positive, become dowry of the travellers life, however little the found may appear.Robinson Crusoes wanderlust has led him to an experience that he has never thought possible.  all(prenominal) he has longed for is a taste of adventure, but what he has to give in exchange for this adventure is practically his whole life.  Meanwhile, Lemuel G ulliver only wants to relate his travels to separate hoi polloi. He professes that I rather chose to relate plain matter of occurrence in the simplest spellner and style, because my principal design was to inform, and not to amuse thee. (Swift, 1962)            Robinson Crusoes plot begins with disobedience.   Both Robinson Crusoes pargonnts have opposed his desire to go on a voyage.He asked me what reasons, more than than a mere locomote inclination, I had for leaving puzzles house and my native country, where I might be well introduced, and had a prospect of raising my draw by application and industry, with a life of ease and pleasure. (Defoe) Crusoe is reminded by his father that he does not need to seek his fortune or win honour of some kind.  His later wretched condition reminds him of his fathers warnings.Robinson Crusoe is believed to be based on the life of Alexander Selkirk who has fertilize away to sea in 1704.  He has made a pass to be remaining alone in an uninhabited island before existence rescued after five years. (Biblio musical compositionia) Crusoes experience is of course 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 level after a perilous first base voyage has led him to a similar fate.  Surviving the first voyage, Robinson Crusoe has continued his adventures and has ended up life in an uninhabited island alone.Crusoe has started the voyage as an inexperienced young man who has lived in comfort he cannot have gone through his voyages without cosmos changed in some manner.  Crusoes love for travel is undeni subject.  He has risked not only a secure livelihood in order to result the adventure, but also his life.  As a mortal, he already does not conf orm to what the society expects of him.  Nevertheless, the castaway experience is still extreme rase to an adventurer. Crusoe has to do things that he wouldnt normally do given his former(prenominal) comfortable lifestyle.  A man who has not been trained to practice a trade, he has learned to create necessary tools and gear ranging from clay containers and clothes, to raze a canoe.He has become very self-sufficient and resourceful as needed by the situation.  His daily experiences also range from peaceful inventions to discovering cannibals, legal transfer a native whom he has named Friday and has purge earned himself a fortune.  These experiences themselves can affirm that Robinson Crusoe is not the same man who has left his home for the first time.  Robinson Crusoe, who has been expected to live comfortably and without much risk, has proven himself to be overt 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 must or must not do in society.Through his example, people are able to see that it can be profitable, although difficult, to go outside of the recession that people of Crusoes time seem to have locked themselves in.  Crusoe experiences changes in his status towards religion.  Even though there is no longer a sensible church to attend a mass in, it is in his solitude and with a Bible in hand that he is able to commune with paragon 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.  world still long for the company of early(a) human worlds.  He does follow 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 cultur es because of his immersion into their worlds.  He even tries to make the cannibalistic ways of the natives.Now, we locution at Gullivers Travels.  Gullivers adventures are more fantastical than Crusoes.  He encounters little people and giants, and other strange communities.  There must be a change in Gulliver after years of travelling to such(prenominal) places.  In fact, Gulliver has to adapt in each of the four places that he visits. want Crusoes first voyage, Gullivers first venture is met with dangerous weather.  This results to his existence shipwrecked in Lilliput, where he describes the people to be less than six inches tall. (Swift, 1962)  Gulliver has to persuade the Lilliputians that he is harmless.  He later gains their trust and has become the community hero, having been able to help the little people against their rival, the Blefescudans.Gulliver no longer wants to comply with the Lilliputians farther demands and has to flee to save his life.  After his stay in Lilliput, his numerous adventures embroil an encounter with giants who make him feel like a Lilliputian, and meeting horses who reign over Yahoos, who are uncivilized human beings. During the various encounters, Gulliver is introduced to different kinds of civilisations.  His perceptiveness of what an empire is broadens, as he encounters the various kinds of kingdoms, with their unique beliefs and practices.            Gullivers Travels is attach as a satire Critics believe in the need to pick up Jonathan Swifts background in order to fully understand the historical context in which he is writing the novel.  Swift is account to have prior political influence, when he was still supporting the Whig companionship.  He shifts his confederacy 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.&nb sp This is believed to have caused Swifts hostility against the presidential term 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 entirely 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 adaptation 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 ordinary people when he goes home.My wife and family received me with great surprise and joy, because they concluded me for sure dead but I must freely confess the order of battle of them filled me only with hatred, disgust, and contempt and the more, by reflecting on t he near 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 easy 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 best, and to make better their minds by the bad, as well as good, example of what they deliver 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 see foreign places come back with new beliefs that either blend with or altogether erase their old ones.  They may not be completely different people, because Robinson Crusoe still longs for the company of fellowmen, but there are defined changes.& nbsp Each experience in life leaves indelible marks 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 spent 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 concluded that the ii classic novels, Gullivers Travels and Robinson Crusoe support Steve Clarks idea that journeying into unfamiliar territory will alter or change the traveller completely.ReferencesBibliomania. (n.d.). Retrieved October 18, 2007, from Bibliomania trim 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 departed Men Tell No Tales http//www.deadmentellnotales.com/onlin etexts/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 separate 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