jonathan swift
... of Gulliver, no more unusual than his other travels. It is obvious, however, that Book IV criticizes the nature of man as a rational being. Of interest to the readers of today is Swift’s choice of creatures inhabiting this land; There is a barbaric, man-like creature dubbed the Yahoo and the civilized, good-natured horse-like creature, the Houyhnhnms. “Upon the whole, I never beheld in all my Travels so disagreeable an Animal, or one against which I naturally conceived so strong an Antipathy” (IV,193). His opinion of the Yahoos contrasts with his opinion of the Houyhnhnms. The Houyhnhnms think Gulliver is another Yahoo capable of outstanding intellect, but Gulliver is offended that they want to classify him as a Yahoo. “I expressed my Uneasiness at his giving me so often the Appellation of Yahoo, an odious Animal, for which I so utter an Hatred and Contempt” (IV, 205). Gulliver is able to discard his preconceived notion of man as superior being for a more cynical outlook after interacting with the inhabitants of Houyhnhnmland. Gulliver’s transition from a “lover of mankind” to misanthropy comes as a result of a realization that man is not as he considers himself, but rather more “compatible, indeed, only with a formula, infinitely more humiliating to human pride, which pushes man nearly if not quite over to the opposite pole of the animal world”(IV, 403). Gulliver sees the Yahoos not as beasts far-removed from the European man, but rather that the European man is merely a “more civilized variety of Yahoo”(IV, 244) who is subject to an “irrational disposition which motivates his habitual behavior”(IV, 404). The Yahoo brutes that inhabit Houyhnhnmland are a despicable species that have the physical appearance of humans. Though their behavior seems to be decadent and irrational, Swift shows that most of their behavior have parallels in the life of “civilized” humans. Swift is not only able to satirize on political matters of his time, but on the nature of man and many preconceived notions still existent today. The Houyhnhnms seem to embody virtue and all the perfections that humans seek, but there are inconsist...