Swift and Equiano

Jonathan 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.

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gh trade with local chiefs or outright kidnapping. Thus, various intra-African wars erupt periodically with the sole point of battle being the acquisition of slaves or other booty. However, Equiano suggests that this behavior might have been incited by the European goods brought into his region from the Oye-Eboe merchants, “Perhaps they were incited to this by those traders who brought the European goods I mentioned, amongst us. Such a mode of obtaining slaves in Africa is common; and I believer more are procured this way, and by kidnapping, than any other. When a trader wants slaves, he applies to a chief for them, and tempts him with his wares. It is not extraordinary, if on this occasion he yields to the temptation with as little firmness, and accepts the price of his fellow creature’s liberty, was as little reluctance as the enlightened merchant” (Equiano 40). Like Swift, this work shows the need for ration among men who will sell their fellow man into slavery and abuse for profit. However, the nature of mankind is such that men and women are often tempted into such behavior against their ration and morality. As one critic notes of Gulliver’s Travels that applies equally to Equiano’s story, “Rule by pure reason is som
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Approximate Word count = 2250
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)