Socrates stated, "The unexamined life is not worth living." From the beginning of a man's life, he looks for a purpose or a calling that he has been placed on the earth to fulfil or become. Authors throughout the ages, aware of this knowledge, write with the intent helping man search inside his self to examine the purpose of his existence. Swift uses many techniques to spark this analysis. One technique Swift uses in Guliver's Travels is juxtaposition. An example of juxtaposition comes when Swift lands Gulliver on an island of giants. The comparison of the giants to Gulliver causes the reader to realize what small importance a single man has in the world. "...showing how diminutive, contemptible, and helpless an animal was man in his own nature..." (141). As Gulliver explains what he reads in an giant book, he explains how man cannot effectively protect himself from his surroundings. "...unable to defend himself from the inclemencies of the air, or the fury of wild beasts..." (152). Gulliver then reads that the author believes that man should have originally been made larger and more robust. Swift explains this to show that one man is a very small fish in a very large pond. Another example of juxtaposition lies when Gulliver and the Houyhnhnms are compared. This comparison illustrates how inhumane and savage mankind can act. Gulliver tries to explain the concept of war to his master. "Millions of Yahoos might have been killed in the whole progress of it, and perhaps a hundred or more cities taken, and thrice as many ships burnt or sunk" (265). The master did not understand this concept and could not believe that man could kill his own kind such as they do. "He asked me what were the usual causes or motives that made one country go to war with another" (265). Swift attacks the ridiculousness of war here. "Difference in opinions hath cost many millions of lives..." (265). Examples of Gulliver as the ingenuous narrator...
