Satire in Gulliver's Travels
Jonathan Swift's satirical prose, Gulliver's Travels, is the subject ofa wide variety of literary critique and social interpretation. Althoughmany readers, at first glance, take this tale to be simply a fantasticnarrative of a common man and his encounters with unusual locations andpeople through several journeys, further inspection reveals Swift's truepurpose of creativity--satire. Using the contemporary style of the TravelNarrative, Swift is able to insert his own personal criticisms of modern lifeinto the experience of Gulliver. Swift focuses entirely on satirizinghumanity in Book IV of Gulliver's Travels. Gulliver, representing a common man, encounters a wide variety ofcharacters along his travels, each representing a subject Swift wishes tocriticize. His satire ranges from relatively simple political criticism in hisexperiences in Book I and II to a socio-political criticism in Book III, to
Slurping up all the wine insight, he quickly made water in a bucket that sat near the door"(IV, 156). Swift is not only able to satirize on political matters of his time, buton the nature of man and many preconceived notions still existent today. A final indication that the Houyhnmns are an attack on humanity isshown when the leader of the Houyhnhnms visits Lilliput where he visitsthe French Royal Society. Gulliver is able to discard his preconceivednotion of man as superior being for a more cynical outlook afterinteracting with the inhabitants of Houyhnhnmland. philosophical criticism of man in Book IV. Gulliver's transitionfrom a "lover of mankind" to misanthropy comes as a result of arealization that man is not as he considers himself, but rather more"compatible, indeed, only with a formula, infinitely more humiliating tohuman pride, which pushes man nearly if not quite over to the oppositepole of the animal world"(IV, 403). The Houyhnhnms seem to embody virtue and all the perfections thathumans seek, but there are inconsistencies in their behavior that arereflective human faults. The satire on them is particularly well explained by thenew born Houyhnhnm who, having just been born, exclaims, "With thissort of entrance, what must I expect from the rest of my life!"(IV,178). "I expressed my Uneasiness at his giving me so often theAppellation of Yahoo, an odious Animal, for which I so utter an Hatredand Contempt" (IV, 205). "Upon the whole, I never beheld in all my Travels sodisagreeable an Animal, or one against which I naturally conceived sostrong an Antipathy" (IV,193). Throughout Gulliver Travels, the Houyhnhnms and Yahoosare depicted as faults in humans. If Book IV is read literally, with no knowledge of satire, it appearsto be another bizarre journey of Gulliver, no more unusual than his othertravels. These two species are shown to be anideal gone wrong. ------------------------------------------------------------------------**Bibliography**don't know. Though their behavior seems to bedecadent and irrational, Swift shows that most of their behavior haveparallels in the life of "civilized" humans.
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