The Nature of Man in Gulliver's Travels
Swift uses many personae to sketch the nature of man in Book 4 of Gulliver's travels. The problem with this is that none of the personae give us the same definition of the nature of man. First of all, there is Gulliver himself, who bases his judgments on the ways in which the Yahoos behave and the way the people from his country behave. He ties it all together at the end in his reflections. Most of all, throughout the book, we get an idea of the nature of man through Gulliver's behavior. The Yahoos cannot comment on the nature of man, however, they display it in the ways they behave and interact. Lastly, the Houyhnhnms give us some ideas on the nature of man, through their observations of the Yahoo's and Gulliver.
Swift creates the personae of the houyhnhnms as ignorant, and therefore open to interpreting Gulliver's stories. Gulliver is created to be knowledgeable of the ways of civilized man. The yahoos, on the contrary, are created as something primal to compare Gulliver to. The way in which all of these personae interact, represent, and explain the nature of man, is the one way you can get a somewhat clear idea of Swift's ideas on the subject. It seems that the obvious observation to be made about the nature of man in this account, is that man is innately a lazy and greedy consumer.
In the beginning of the book Gulliver discovers that he is much like a Yahoo, and quickly despises them because of how disgusting he finds them. This is interesting, because in essence he is despising his own kind. Gulliver explains to his master houyhnhnm the ways of Englishmen; their "desire of power and riches, (and the) terrible effects of lust, intemperance, malice and envy" (1081) and then goe...
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... already lost some of his virtue. He despises his wife and cannot deal with the idea that he fathered children on the yahoo race. This is not the type of behavior one would expect from such a newly enlightened man.
In conclusion, the nature of man is expressed in book four of Gulliver's Travels through three different personae. Each personae has a different role to play in describing what might be Swift's beliefs on the inherent nature of humankind. It is obviously not possible to know for sure what exactly Swift was trying to say, but from as much as one can gather from his writing, he seems to be suggesting that humans are essentially greedy, lazy and careless unless they are trying to better their personal situation.
Works Cited
Swift, Jonathan. Gulliver's Travels. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 7ed. W.W. Norton and Co. New York: 2001.
A major theme that is seen during the Gulliver’s final adventure is the reversal of roles. For the first time in the novel, Gulliver’s crew forms a mutiny and throws him overboard. On this island, we are introduced to Houyhnhnms and Yahoos. Gulliver first meets the Yahoos; a group of humans that act like farm animals and have the brain equivalent of a horse. Meanwhile, the Houyhnhnms are an intelligent race of horses that have their own language and use the Yahoos as cattle. When reality is presented with a different face it allows the reader to make less biased opinions based on previous beliefs. Most people are completely fine with how people treat cattle as a source of food, but when we see the
Therefore, before an analysis can continue, one has to make the assumption that this is strictly a fictional work and Swift had no intention of pursuing his proposal any further. One of the other voices that is present throughout the entire story is that of sarcasm. In order to understand this further, a reader has to comprehend that Swift, becoming infamous after Gullivers Travels, was a member of the upper-class. Right from the first paragraph, Swift attempts to fool his readers by the sarcasm of the dreary scene that Swift presents. For example, he mentions that it is a melancholy sight to see beggars and their children on the street.
The comparison of Yahoos to humans in Book Four of Jonathon Swift's Gulliver's Travels is entirely inappropriate. The Yahoos are shown as base creatures of barbaric nature and with little or no aptitude for learning. Swift's use of these lowly creatures to symbolize man is harsh, however, it does serve to enhance his satire to a certain degree. Nonetheless, his comparison is inaccurate and degrading to Mankind.
Jonathan Swift's ultimate satirical masterpiece, Gulliver's Travels, scrutinizes human nature through a misanthropic eye. More directly, it examines the bastardization English society underwent. The brilliant tale depicts the journey of Lemuel Gulliver, an Englishman, and his distorted encounters. Examining the prominent political and social conflicts of England in the eighteenth century, Swift's critical work causes much controversy. Gulliver's Travels leads him to places of opposite environments and presents him with different opportunities. Through Gulliever's journey, Swift ridicules Gulliver as an individual character, and also as a product of England's social practices.
In the fourth voyage, Swift presents a case study for opposing states of nature, with the Yahoos representing the argument that man is governed by his passions, seeking his own advantage, pursuing pleasures and avoiding pain, and the Houyhnhnms representing the argument that man is governed by reason. If this is the case, then Swift’s misanthropy was such that he saw men as the foul and disgusting Yahoos, and made it plain that reform of the species was out of the question. A major fault with this theory is that it leaves no place for Gulliver. When attention is drawn to the figure of Gulliver himself, as distinct from his creator, Swift, he is taken to be the moral of the story. If you can't be a Houyhnhnm you don't need to be a Yahoo; just try to be like Gulliver. The trouble with this idea is that when taking a closer look at Gulliver, he isn't worth emulating. The final picture of him talking with the horses in the stable for four hours a day, unable to stand the company of his own family, makes him look foolish. Another theory is that Gulliver made a mistake in regarding the Houyhnhnms as models to be emulated: so far from being admirable creatures they are as repulsive as the Yahoos. The Yahoos might be ruled by their passions, but these have no human passions at all. On this view, Swift was not advocating, but attacking reason.
Book II “A Voyage to Brobdingnag” is a satire on the wickedness and vanity of mankind. Gulliver, just recently big in a land of little people, is now little in a land of giants. Although it might be too much to say that in this way Swift prepared the reader to expect that Gulliver won’t live very well in this country, judged by the moral norms of big people; but that is in fact what happens. When the judgement is made, it appears that Gulliver’s race is one of “little odious vermin”.
In the fourth book of Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift uses satire to draw reader’s attention towards his concerns about humanity and uses irony to reveal his cynical views towards human kind. According to the Great Chain of Being, a term developed by the Renaissance that describes a divinely hierarchical order in every existing thing in the universe, human beings are placed a tier higher than animals (http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english /melani/cs6/ren.html). However, by comparing human traits with unpleasant qualities of animals, Swift blurs the definition of human being and questions the hierarchical place of human. In the fourth book of Gulliver’s Travels, Gulliver starts his journey as a well-educated European person who is considered to be a decent example of humanity. The first group of inhabitants Gulliver finds on the island where he is dropped off on are the Yahoos. Gulliver is disgusted by the behaviours of these wild creatures at first and he considers them to be animals that are owned by the dominate beings on this island. Gulliver then discovers the Houyhnhnms whom he perceives as brute beasts (Swift 2420) and animals (ibid.) because they share similar physical qualities compare to the horses in England. After a brief interaction with the two Houyhnhnms, Gulliver is taken to the house of a Houyhnhnm whom he will later refer to as his master. Through the interactions with the Houyhnhnms, Gulliver is able to show the ability to reason even though he shares some physical similarities with the Yahoos. Due to this quality and the fact that the Houyhnhnms cannot see his bare skin under his clothes, he is able to live with the Houyhnhnms. Gulliver starts to relate himself more to the Houyhnhnms than the Yahoos becau...
Gulliver’s Travels, by Johnathon Swift, is a satiric misanthropic of humanity. The narrator and protagonist of Gulliver’s Travels is Lemuel Gulliver, who is intelligent and well educated. To which it ends there. The reader gets a glimpse into Gulliver’s voyage to four different lands through what Gulliver wants the reader to know. The reader gets facts about the lands he visits; with no signs of emotion or passion. Gulliver’s lack of aspiration and narcissism is what makes Gulliver a gullible character. In book 2, chapter 5 shows how Gulliver’s pride is the source of what makes him gullible and his narcissistic personality has him blinded and unaware he is being treated like an animal. I will prove that Swift demonstrates Gulliver’s pride
The Writings of Jonathan Swift; Authoritative Texts, Backgrounds, Criticism. edited by Robert A. Greenberg and William Bowman Piper. Norton Critical Editions. New York: Norton, 1973.
On the surface, Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver's Travels appears to be a travel log, made to chronicle the adventures of a man, Lemuel Gulliver, on the four most incredible voyages imaginable. Primarily, however, Gulliver's Travels is a work of satire. "Gulliver is neither a fully developed character nor even an altogether distinguishable persona; rather, he is a satiric device enabling Swift to score satirical points" (Rodino 124). Indeed, whereas the work begins with more specific satire, attacking perhaps one political machine or aimed at one particular custom in each instance, it finishes with "the most savage onslaught on humanity ever written," satirizing the whole of the human condition. (Murry 3). In order to convey this satire, Gulliver is taken on four adventures, driven by fate, a restless spirit, and the pen of Swift. Gulliver's first journey takes him to the Land of Lilliput, where he finds himself a giant among six inch tall beings. His next journey brings him to Brobdingnag, where his situation is reversed: now he is the midget in a land of giants. His third journey leads him to Laputa, the floating island, inhabited by strange (although similarly sized) beings who derive their whole culture from music and mathematics. Gulliver's fourth and final journey places him in the land of the Houyhnhnm, a society of intelligent, reasoning horses. As Swift leads Gulliver on these four fantastical journeys, Gulliver's perceptions of himself and the people and things around him change, giving Swift ample opportunity to inject into the story both irony and satire of the England of his day and of the human condition.
In this book you see many examples of how Swift uses Gulliver to express how he felt repulsed towards women. Jonathan Swift references to the body of women and their sexuality, which morally degrade women, and can come off very controversial to women as Swift is corrupting the view of women. Swift often attacks women and their physical characteristics, showing disgust towards them. Simple bodily functions of a woman being exaggeratedly described as disgusting sight. Gulliver expresses his views on how he hates females and considers them inferior to males. He envisions women as dirty animals, who tend to be ignorant, and full of
In Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, Gulliver learns that experiencing different lifestyles he thought were better than his own actually makes him appreciate his own life with a more meaningful disposition through his journeys to Lilliput, Brobdingnag, and the Country of the Houyhnhnms. Gulliver’s journey to Lilliput effectuated forlorn feelings of his home. Likewise, Gulliver’s trek to Brobdingnag assists in his realization that changing perspectives also alter his attitude towards his homeland. Finally, Gulliver’s expedition to the Country of Houyhnhnms, where horses act civilized on and people act like wild animals. Gulliver soon learns that through his mystical journeys that changing the perspective in which he views the world reverses feelings of gratefulness towards his home. Gulliver’s first journey set sail to the Lilliputians on May 4th, 1699.
...nt mankind deprived” (cliffnotes). The Yahoos are used to satirize what European’s are as human beings: “Why is it that we don’t mind being called Yahoos, although firmly convinced that we are not Yahoos” (Politics vs. Literature). European’s are Yahoos because they can never be perfect and devoid of basic instinct like the Houyhnhnms. Swift is using this image to show English society we are more Yahoo than we can ever be Houyhnhnm.
The author’s personality has been painted as “a harsh judge of humanity” (Wikipedia), a trait that can easily be recognized within the text. Swift lashes out at his own race when the story’s giant king, based on the common corruptions and atrocities within Gulliver’s description of Britain, cites the English as the “most pernicious race of odious little vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth.” (Pg. 134) Further in the novel, Gulliver dwells among a race of horses that is perfect in virtue and completely unblemished by vice. Dishonesty is so foreign to these horses that they do not even have a word for “lying” in their vocabulary. They live in a kind of backwards world where the horses, called Houyhnyhnms, possess reason, while the Yahoos, who are the closest resemblances of humans in the region, are disgusting, savage beasts who display no signs of reason, not to mention a soul. Gulliver expresses his contempt for these Yahoos admitting: “I confess I never saw any sensitive being so detestable on all accounts; and the more I came near them, the more hateful they grew.” (Pg. 221) Perhaps this is one of Swift’s methods of lacerating humanity’s moral reputation: to suggest that horses may be more civilized than humans. After living among the exalted race of the Houyhnyhnms and consequently growing in disgust of the imperfections of his own people, Gulliver could not stand to go back to live among the savage “Yahoos” of Europe. Our protagonist is even unwilling to return to his own family as he explains: “I could not endure my wife or my children in my presence, the very smell of them was intolerable; much less could I suffer them to eat in the same room.” (Pg. 271) It may be that Swift’s stab at humanity in “Gulliver’s Travels” is intended to recognize the deep and wide crevice that lies between human nature, even that of good
Gulliver's Travels is a great novel written by Jonthan Swift. It is about voyages of Gulliver-main character-to different countries. Gulliver's Travels is a political allegory of England at Swift's time. the word allegory means a simple that can be objects, characters, figures or colors used to represent an abstract idea or concepts. Swift uses this novel to criticize the political condition of England at the 18th century and to make a satire of the royal court of George 1 . Gulliver's Travels has established itself as a classic for young people. Its appeal to young minds is due to the fact that it is, on the surface, an adventure story of strange wonderful lands. As a matter of fact, it is taken by the mature reader as an allegory work of England at Swift's time.