Gulliver's Travels

If one is fed up with greedy governments, oppressive capitalists, racism and hatred, and idiotic human beings one only has to read Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels to understand they are not alone. Swift is unparalleled in his ability to satirize society in a way that turns everything upside down upside down again and makes the abnormal seem normal and the normal seem not so. This is the case with his adventures for three years on the island of the Houyhnhnms (horse, The Perfection of Nature). Riddled throughout this section are Swift’s jabs at every aspect of society he believes keeps man from his true, noble nature and posits him into a universe fraught with ills that demonstrates, to anyone as sophisticated in reason as the Houyhnhnms, man’s lack of it. Nothing is spared in Swift’s biting satire of everything from imperialism to education of youth. By demonstrating the virtues of the Houyhnhnms this analysis will show the defects in mankind Swift perceived in all aspects of society in his fellow Englishmen.

Of course, the Houyhnhnms represent rational man perfected, devoid of human evil, lies, greed, and other unsavory emotions and weaknesses found in man. Because of their sophisticated reason and rational administration of their society, the Houyhnhnms represent t

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whole species, and it is reason only that maketh a distinction of persons, where there is a superior degree of virtue” (Swift 464). For all of their virtues, there are defects in the character of the Houyhnhnms, even if our narrator does not see them visibly the author who created him does. One of the worst defects of the Houyhnhnms is their pride. They are proud for its own sake. We see that Swift takes this to be a character defect more than once during the narration. For example, the lead Houyhnhnm is a braggart about his well-read nature. He claims he has read everything Dickens wrote and has memorized all the names of the kings and queens of England. However, we see him look foolish for this when he forgets the name of Queen Elizabeth’s husband during an intellectual competition, a feeling felt by many a Jeopardy viewer no matter how steeped in reason and virtue. We see another example later on that pride is a deep defect in the Houyhnhnm character, one that Swift felt prevented their absolutely rational nature from being much good to society. As one critic contends, we see this demonstrated during the moment when the Houyhnhnm gets cocky that he has solved the scientist’s years-old struggle to turn wine into water,
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Approximate Word count = 1769
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)

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