著者

山内 暁彦

出版者

徳島大学

雑誌

言語文化研究 (ISSN:13405632)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.4, pp.1-36, 1997-02-20

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A Voyage to Lilliput, part one of Gulliver's Travels, contains three 'documents'; the 'Inventory' of Gulliver's belongings, the 'Instrument' of the conditions for his liberty, and the 'Articles of Impeachment'. According to the whole setting of the book, we may suppose that Gulliver incorporated these documents that had been written by others in the Lilliputian language into his Voyage. The documents are very conspicuous on the pages of the text because of their different form and style. We can imagine the whole process concerning the incorporation of them provided that we make some efforts to compensate some contradictions in the narrative. When reading, we can appreciate the story through paying attention to the details of the narrative, especially to the element of humour that is remarkable on the surface of the work. One of the most fascinating ways of reading the Voyage is to suppose the Lilliputian documents are composed according to their peculiar manner of writing, to write letters aslant from one corner of the paper to the other. This is imitated in the letter from Mrs Howard, who understood the element of humour of the Voyage. Lilliput is a country that is dominated by law. There is a close relationship between the legal documents and Gulliver's fate. In particular, the affair concerning Blefuscu greatly affects his fate. Gulliver's obligation to fight with Blefuscu is stipulated in the 'Instrument'. His refusal of the emperor's command to conquer Blefuscu is pointed as evidence in the 'Impeachment'. From the view-point of Gulliver's fate, which is determined by these legal documents, we can identify a coherence in the narrative of A Voyage to Lilliput.