Summary Of Lemuel Gulliver

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NAME: MEGHNA KAKARIA
ROLL NO: 773
ENGLISH LITERATURE 3(I)
PROFFESSOR: MR. SAMEER CHOPRA

IS SWIFT A MISANTHROPE?
The fourth voyage of Lemuel Gulliver is to the land of the houyhnhnms and the yahoos. The houyhnhnms were the horses while the yahoos were human beings subject to those horses. The horses and mares were seen doing different domestic things. There was a resemblance between the bodies of the human beings and the yahoos but those yahoos were most filthy and detestable. Houyhnhnms never lied or told a falsehood. Infact, Gulliver found no notion of lies and falsehood. The houyhnhnmsns refused to believe Gulliver that in his country horses were looked after by the human beings. They could not believe that yahoos could be endowed with reason. Gulliver’s equine master wanted to know about human war and the causes for so many murders and killings, because there were no wars in the world of horses. The master observed that the yahoos were known to hate one another more that they did any other species. They seldom were able to kill one another for want of such convenient instruments of death as we (the civilised human beings) had invented. Gulliver also tells that for want of foreign war to engage their attention, the yahoos engage in a civil war among themselves. The yahoos were idle and crazy as they were mischievous and vicious. They did their utmost to avoid work. Their sexual appetites were similarly inordinate and uncontrolled. On the other hand, there were no wars in the world of houyhnhnms i.e. the horses. Gulliver grew so used to the houyhnhnms way of life that he gets too disgusted to jump off the Portuguese ship carrying him home and separate himself from the human company. After reaching home, Gulliver’s wife an...

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...rior kind of yahoo, an irrational beast suspiciously resembling man.

The gravamen, the essence of Swift’s charge against the human race has been directly described by Gulliver in houyhhnhnms land. He told the master that in his world ‘ some people are undone by the lawsuits, others spend all their money in drinking, whoring and gambling and many commit such crimes as treason, murder, theft, robbery, perjury, forgery, coining false money, rape and sodomy. ‘ Gulliver explains that these crimes show the effects of the human desire for power and riches, of lust, of malice and of envy. There is no doubt that Swift’s outburst has merit and he is true to a great extent. But it is difficult to agree hundred percent with him because all human beings are not guilty of such crimes as stated by Gulliver. After all, there are several good persons also amongst human beings.

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