Englishmen in the Contact Zone: A Close Reading of Gulliver’s Travels and The Rover

Abstract

This essay examines Aphra Behn's play The Rover (1677) and Jonathan Swift's novel Gulliver's Travels (1726) with a focus on how, and to what ends, the texts engage with the world beyond England's borders. Focusing on the characters of Gulliver and Willmore, the essay argues that the texts display a way of engaging with cultural and geographical ‘others’ that speaks to an English exploitation of asymmetries of power. Despite the character development throughout the texts, it is found that both characters are ultimately unwilling to change themselves and their behaviours in favour of a more equitable power balance in the foreign social spaces they enter.