Gullivers Travels

Gulliver’s Travels, by Jonathan Swift, is regarded as one of the greatest satires in modern history. The purpose of the book, although some of his contemporaries didn’t realize it, is to ridicule his government, his rulers, and human nature as a whole. His generalization of the human condition doesn’t manifest itself completely until Part IV of the book, where the main character, Lemuel Gulliver, finds himself on an island inhabited by two main species – the Houyhnhnms, horse-like animals, and the Yahoos, human-like animals. The difference between this island and reality as we know it is the fact that the Houyhnhnms are intelligent, noble creatures governed wholly by reason, and the Yahoos are naked, dirty humanoids that seem at best, barbaric creatures. The purpose of Part IV is to show the extremities of human nature, and to display both the good and bad qualities through two different examples. Swift makes the good quality of human nature seem more foreign to the reader by attributing that good quality, reason, to a horse. It also puts the period of Enlightenment in perspective for the reader. The main purpose of Book IV of Gulliver’s Travels is to exemplify the two extremes of human nature, as well as show what position on that spectrum we humans should strive to achieve.

The “positive'; extreme Gulliver encounters on his arrival to the island is the Houyhnhnm, a horse ruled by reason. Gulliver almost immediately admires these creatures as well as everything about them, especially their speech: “…their language approaches nearest to the High Dutch or German, of any I know in Europe, but is much more graceful and significant'; (Swift 189). He tries throughout his visit to become a Houyhnhnm by learning their language, among other things, despite the fact that he looks nothing like them. Many things about their race impress him, especially the fact that there is no word for “lie'; in their vocabulary. Instead, it is described as, “the thing which was not'; (Swift 190). The Houyhnhnms seem to take their “life by reason'; to the extreme: For example, they only marry for the strength of the species by using arranged marriages to yield the best offspring. They also lack any consciousness for their own death, something th...

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... the Houyhnhnms as perfect creatures that live in a perfect society. Through this mental degeneration of Gulliver, Swift is showing that although reason is a good quality for human nature to possess, it should not be taken to an extreme, nor should it be the only governing principle of a society. Swift would like to see human nature ruled by reason for the most part (as the Houyhnhnms are), but with a slight essence of Yahoo traits as well.

Swift succeeds in showing the flaws of human nature through a microscope in Gulliver’s Travels. His two extremes yield a greatly exaggerated view of mankind’s faults. The entire book Gulliver’s Travels has a natural progression heading towards Swift’s main goal, which is to show the flaws of human nature as a whole. Swift does not have a grim view of human nature, nor is he a misanthrope as some people suggest. He is merely attempting to show the flaws of mankind, and in order to achieve that, he must exaggerate those flaws greatly to make them obvious. Swift is simply trying to set a goal that all mankind should attempt to meet in order to become, in his opinion, more ideal.