Gulliver
is an adventurous soul, possessed with an insatiable wanderlust that makes it impossible for him
to settle down in any one place for too long. No sooner is he back in the bosom of his family
than his feet start getting itchy, and he yearns to head out to sea once more. Gulliver's
undoubtedly a good man, as he shows on any number of occasions, but if one had to venture a
criticism, one would say he's a tad immature, a man whose boyish taste for adventure often gets
him into trouble.
Nevertheless, Gulliver's basic decency means that he's
someone we'd always want to have on our side in a conflict. Observe how he expertly sends the
Blefuscans packing when they try to invade Lilliput. And yet this episode also illustrates the
man's decency. He'll happily deter the Blefuscans from invading, but what he won't do, even at
the Emperor's express insistence, is wade over to Blefuscu and wipe out their entire fleet.
Gulliver is much too good a man to contemplate doing something so wantonly
destructive.
Another of Gulliver's positive traits is his intellectual
curiosity. He loves nothing more than finding out about all the many weird and wonderful customs
of the various lands he visits. In learning about other cultures, he also learns a lot about
himself, about his strengths, weaknesses, and limitations. Not only that, but as his encounter
with the Houyhnhnms ably demonstrates, he also gains a unique insight into the manifest
deficiencies of the human race.
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