Sample Essay On The Butter Battle And Gullivers Travels - Gulliver Wow Essays

Should the physical, social and emotional differences between Gods own creatures create a great rift between the creatures? The Butter Battle a book by Dr. Seuss elucidates the story of two different races, Yook and Zook, that are in conflict over which side to batter the bread. This conflict rises to greater heights that it creates tension between the two races and each keeps arming themselves ready for any possible attack. Gulliver's Travels a short story by Jonathan Swift explains how Gulliver a surgeon from Nottinghamshire, England traveled to the Lilliputians islands a place where he finds tiny people of about 6 inches height. The emperor of England warmly welcomed him and told him to help in fighting various wars. Afterwards, he leaves to a distant island where he meets strange human like creatures namely Yahoos and Houyhnhn. He stays there until later on when he disagrees with the creatures. The two writers depict almost similar conditions despite the use of different creatures.
The two stories make a great use of satire. In The Butter Battle, the author uses satire to show how the two races fight over which side to butter the bread. It is also satire that the author uses the Yook and Zook, tiny creatures to depict human beings. In Gulliver's Travels, it is mockery and stupidity that the queen employs Glumdalclitch a young girl to teach Gulliver their language yet Gulliver was an adult. It is also satire that the Brobdingnagian Queen keeps Gulliver as a pet merely because he was very tiny as compared to the robust Queen or his subjects.
Food is seen as a source of conflict in both stories. In Gulliver's Travels, Gulliver gets two enemies, the admiral Skyresh Bolgolam and the treasurer Flimnap, who hate him due to the close relationship that he had with the emperor and plots to poison his food. Additionally, a monkey stuffs Gulliver for food and this makes him realize that he has lost his importance in Lilliput. He had to leave. In The Butter Battle, the Yook and Zook threaten to fight over bread. They do not agree which side to butter the bread.
Additionally, both stories illustrate the adversities of war where each part wants to preserve their own interests for selfish gains. The animosity makes the various groups to prepare themselves for any conflict that might arise.
The two stories have different groups. The Butter Battle presents the Yook and Zook, two conflicting groups while Gulliver's Travels presents the Yahoos and Houyhnhn two diverging groups with different characteristics.
The Butter Battle depicts the stern subject of cold war and the arms race between Russia and the US in the 1960s. It is this revelation that made the book to be banned in many libraries across the US and other countries. The bread and butter represent the conflict that the Russian block and the USA block together with their allies were in a great conflict over which economic policy between communism and capitalism should prevail and be embraced by all nations. This conflict can be attributed to lack of effective communication between Russia and USA or complete lack of it. It is this conflict that created the tension between the nations. The wall that separates the Yooks and Zooks represents the great berlin wall that was constructed by Germany and its allies to protect its people from being attacked by the enemies. The Yooks and Zooks both arm themselves and strive to obtain better weapons that will guarantee them success in aces of an attack. This is exactly what happened during the cold war when both blocks were strengthening their militaries to ensure that any attack from the enemy is immediately countered with a great success. It is this conflict that saw the development of nuclear weapons and other strong weapons of mass destruction. The story ends with Van Itch and Snickle-Berry-Switch going to the wall each having a treacherous Big-Boy Boomeroo. What will happen next is left for the readers to interpret. Currently, though the arms race between the then major superpowers, Russia and United States, does not exist anymore, the book clearly depicts one of the greatest problems that have ever faced the world and this problem might too happen in future. The world should be prepared to handle any challenges that might arise with time.
Gulliver’s Travels depicts a misunderstanding over what end to break the egg when eating it. The grandfather breaks the egg at the larger end while the emperor it should be cut at the smaller end. The feud between the two groups is stirred by the religious differences between the Catholics and Protestants both failing to agree on various aspects of culture. This conflict threatened the eruption of a deadly war. The yahoos are a satire and a mockery of the little people who lived in England during that are and the primitive kind of live that they lived.
As elucidated above, these two works were written by completely different authors who lived in entirely different countries 100s of years apart from each other, yet they brought up a similar idea. They depicted the idea of war and the fact that war remains a constant problem that needs utter attention.