Gullivers Travels A Severe Indictment on Human Nature...

An English Literature classic, Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726) follows the sub-genre of traveler tales and presents a severe indictment on human nature through satire. Swift uses satire in Part IV – â€Å"A Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms† to represent the human and animal entities. In the fourth voyage, Swift is indicting the human species but a deeper reading of the text reveals that perhaps Swift is also satirizing the Houyhnhnms and the protagonist traveler, Gulliver. Swift is ridiculing Gulliver and his ideals that make him perceive the Houyhnhnms as a rational and intelligent species as compared to the Yahoos, the humans. The following discussion examines the representation of the Houyhnhnms and the Yahoos as†¦show more content†¦Gulliver comes across as a gullible character that remains blinded to the downside of Houyhnhnms rational philosophy and solely praises the intelligence and humor of the equine species. The part four needs to be understood not only as an interaction between the Houyhnhnms and the Yahoos, implying the nature of relationships between horses and humans, albeit in a humoristic and satirical manner but the voyage needs to be analyzed as a confrontation between Gulliver and Swift. For a supposedly master race, the Houyhnhnms come across as an arrogant and unenlightened population. They â€Å"have not the least idea of books or literature† and neither do they have any knowledge of countries existing beyond them. They do not favour acquiring knowledge that does not have any concrete use and neither do they understand the capability of humans to cause mischief because they lack claws like the Yahoos and sharp teeth to bite each other. Here, Swift tends to over emphasize the rational ability of the Houyhnhnms; they lack emotions and imagination and for an imaginative writer like Swift who is also the creator of the satirical â€Å"A Modest Proposal†, it is unlikely that Swift would have perceived a society devoid of imagination and emotion to be the ideal or utopian society. Moreover, the representation and popular critical understanding of Yahoos as resembling the human species is baseless and absurd. If the Yahoos were supposed to be equated with humans, Gulliver