new critical analyusis of gullivers travels
...ssage. For example, in this particular passage, Gulliver is relating several details about the lives of the Yahoos that presumably reflect Swift’s views on British humanity. This can be assumed by Gulliver’s opening statement that he has a deep understanding of “Human Nature” (Swift 223). This initial reference to Yahoo behavior as Human Nature sets the standard for understanding that a reader unknowingly adopts before continuing on. There are several examples of bestial, brutish words used in the description of the animals. In the first page alone, the Yahoos travel in “herds” and are “Brutes” to whom Gulliver bears much hatred (Swift 223). In fact, the “odious animals” imagine Gulliver to be of their own species (Swift 223). Truly, one could find a multitude of examples in which Gulliver identifies the Yahoos as boorish savages. This serves to present a dual portrait of the Yahoos as animals and humans at the same time. As well, littered throughout the passage are pompous, self-inflating sentence structures that reveal Gulliver’s high opinion of his own intellect. The passage reads like a dissertation. Gulliver’s observations are stated with words like “it is observed that,” or “I am of the opinion that,” (swift 224). As well, Gulliver conducts experiments, if you will, on the Yahoos, catching an examining a little boy, then describing the ordeal as though it had been a wild animal. Thus, Gulliver is presented as an enlightened, self-righteous scientific observer. The crux of the meaning of the passage, however, does not arise from either one of these two views alone, but rather from their combination. The two elements simply taken together seem united enough, however, the New Critic would delve deeper into the text to find the underlying meaning. The truth only comes out when one considers the point of view of the narrative itself. Gulliver is a self-righteous prat who has traveled around the world for several years now, away from his own society. In that time, he has been surrounded by many cultures that do not exactly resemble his own, and he has consequently taken on the role of educated observer. He has compared the many different cultures against the template of British society many times, and has become somewhat supercilious in his remarks. This is undeniably important in understanding the broader point that Gulliver cannot live up to his own standards. The whole passage is built to present these two views, Gulliver and the Yahoos, in contrast with one another, only to prove that although more base by circumstance, the Yahoos are indeed human, and Gulliver’s disgust at them is in return a self-loathing and at a deeper level, a depreciating commentary on Swift’s pretentious contemporaries. Indeed, a New Criticism seeks to illuminate the text by finding patterns of emphasis. In other words, the textual elements all come together in such an analysis to form some broader point. This type of reading is quite informative and beneficial, however, it does leave some questions out of the equation. For example, New Criticism claims a text to be ontological. That is to say, it is self-contained and does not need any ...