Music Theatre Project for Young Musicians

Gulliver’s Travels – A Journey of Humanity Four incredible stories to tell Lemuel Gulliver, an ordinary surgeon turned reluctant adventurer, is swept from one extraordinary world to another, each encounter revealing a different face of humanity. His tale begins when he is shipwrecked and awakens in Lilliput, a kingdom of tiny people consumed by a trivial war over which end of an egg should be broken. What seems laughable at first soon becomes unsettling: the Lilliputians’ petty quarrels mirror the absurdities of human politics, where pride and dogma fuel division while larger, pressing needs are ignored. From there, Gulliver finds himself in Brobdingnag, a land of giants where the balance of power is reversed. Now reduced to a plaything and curiosity, he is forced to confront the cruelty, jealousy, and exploitation that flourish whenever the strong view the weak as mere tools for amusement or profit. This world magnifies the distortions of inequality and greed, themes as resonant today in the face of global economic injustice as they were in Swift’s time. His next voyage carries him to Laputa, the floating island of dreamers and mathematicians. The Laputans lose themselves in endless abstract theories and experiments while the lands beneath them suffer exploitation and deprivation. This sharp satire exposes the danger of knowledge divorced from compassion, recalling the modern tendency of political and technological elites to obsess over systems and profit while ignoring the human cost—climate change, famine, and social collapse. Finally, Gulliver reaches Houyhnhnmland, where noble, rational horses govern with serene order, while brutish human-like Yahoos embody unrestrained greed and violence. Here, Gulliver’s disillusionment deepens: if the Yahoos reflect humanity’s true nature, what hope is there? Yet even in this bleak vision, a question remains—whether reason and empathy can overcome corruption and brutality, and whether humans can choose to live differently. Throughout these adventures, Gulliver wrestles with his growing disgust for mankind. But he is not alone. Don Pedro, a compassionate ship captain who rescues him, offers an alternative perspective. He reminds Gulliver that, despite weakness and depravity, there is also perseverance, kindness, and the search for meaning. This counterpoint is crucial: Swift does not leave us only with satire and despair but challenges us to ask how we might still live better lives. Seen through the lens of today’s world, Gulliver’s Travels is more than an eighteenth-century fantasy. It is a mirror reflecting our global crises—polarisation and culture wars, rising inequality, blind technocracy, environmental collapse. Swift’s allegories warn of what happens when pride, power, and abstraction overwhelm empathy. Yet the story’s enduring philosophy is that hope lies in compassion, humility, and solidarity. As Don Pedro urges, the true purpose of life is not to surrender to cynicism but to “journey on,” honouring love and seeking a more humane way of living.