B.A. (Hons.

) English – Semester IV Core Course

Paper VIII : British Literature–18th Century Study Material

Unit-2
Jonathan Swift : Gulliver's Travels (Book 3-4)

Editor : Dr. Seema Suri

Department of English

SCHOOL OF OPEN LEARNING

University of Delhi
Paper VIII – British Literature : 18th Century
Unit-2
Jonathan Swift : Gulliver’s Travels (Book 3-4)

Prepared by:
Ms. Farida Nayyar
School of Open Learning
University of Delhi
Delhi-110007

Edited by:
Dr. Seema Suri
School of Open Learning
University of Delhi
Delhi-110007

SCHOOL OF OPEN LEARNING

UNIVERSITY OF DELHI
5, Cavalry Lane, Delhi-110007
 Paper VIII – British Literature : 18th Century
Unit-2
Jonathan Swift : Gulliver’s Travels (Book 3-4)

Contents
S. No. Title Pg. No.
1. Jonathan Swift (1667-1745): An Introduction to his Life 01

2. A General Introduction to Gulliver’s Travels 03

3. Study Guide: Book III, Gulliver’s Travels 05

4. Study Guide: Book IV, Gulliver’s Travels 12

5. Irony, Satire, and the Comic Spirit 22

Reading Material: Gulliver’s Travels (Books III-IV)

1. Arthur E. Case, “Personal and Political Satire in Gulliver’s Travels” 27

2. Arthur E. Case, “The Significance of Gulliver’s Travels” 33

3. Joseph Horell, “What Gulliver Knew” 38

4. John F. Ross, “The Final Comedy of Lemuel Gulliver” 45

Prepared by:
Ms. Farida Nayyar

SCHOOL OF OPEN LEARNING

UNIVERSITY OF DELHI
5, Cavalry Lane, Delhi-110007
1. Jonathan Swift (1667-1745): An Introduction to his Life
Jonathan Swift was the son of a Jonathan Swift who had followed a more prosperous older
brother, Godwin, from Yorkshire to Ireland. Jonathan’s career was brief and he died several
months before his son Jonathan was born (1667). Jonathan Swift was, (thus) brought up by
his uncle Godwin. He was sent to Kilkenny school, and at fourteen, entered Trinity College,
Dublin as a pensioner. In 1688 Godwin, who had lost his fortune, died and Swift was left
without resources. He left Ireland and became a kind of secretary to the celebrated diplomat
Sir William Temple, then living in retirement at Moor Park in Surrey, about forty miles from
London. Temple’s father had been a friend of Godwin Swift; Temple himself had known the
Swifts in Ireland; and Lady Temple was said to be a connection of Swift’s mother.
Life at Moor Park was of immense value to Swift. He grew familiar with public affairs
and with the rich experiences of his patron. He also had time to read and to try his hand at
writing. Nevertheless, he resented his dependent status and was disappointed that Temple had
found no suitable place for him. In 1694 Swift took the only course that seemed to promise
advancement and was ordained. Temple obtained for him the prebend of Kilroot, near Belfast
in Ireland. There he stayed for two years, returning to Temple in 1696. At Moor Park in 1696
he edited Temple’s correspondence and in 1697 wrote The Battle of Books which was
published in 1704, together with A Tale of a Tub, his celebrated satire on ‘corruption in
religion and learning’. At Moor Park Swift met Esther Johnson, the daughter of a servant or
companion of Temple’s sister, with whom he formed the lasting attachment of his life. On the
death of Temple in 1699, Swift went again to Ireland, was given a prebend is St. Patrick’s
Dublin, [and the living of Laracor]. But Swift frequently visited England and was by now on
familiar terms with wits and ministers. He became acquainted with Addison, Steele,
Congreve and Halifax. He was on friendly terms with Dryden and Pope.
Swift wrote a series of pamphlets on Church questions in 1708-90. These pamphlets
show his conviction that the Whigs were unfriendly to the Church; and when the Whigs came
into power in 1708, he knew his hopes of becoming a bishop in England were vain, and he
retreated to Ireland. When the Tories came back to power in 1710, Swift returned to London
and the events of the three following years, with all his thoughts and hopes, are set down in
his letters to Esther Johnson and Mrs Dingley. These later came to be known as the Journal
to Stella. The Tories made serious efforts to bring the war with France to an end. Swift
composed in November and December 1711, two formidable pamphlets in favour of peace.
By this time, he had attained a position of great importance as a serious writer and the
authority he possessed and the respect he received gave him much pleasure. Recognition of
his services was, however, made difficult by doubts about his orthodoxy. Queen Anne was
absolutely hostile towards him. At last, in 1713, he was made Dean of St. Patrick’s. This was
a promotion but it put an end to his life-time ambition of becoming a Bishop in England and
it once more banished him to Ireland, His health was bad and his reception in Dublin was not
friendly so he returned to London. The Queen’s death in 1714 settled the matter. Swift could
hope for nothing with the Whigs coming back to power. He once again went back to Dublin.
Upon his return to Dublin Swift found trouble of another kind. His long, peaceful
association with Stella (Esther Johnson) for whom Swift had a deep affection and respect was

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disturbed by a strange complication, A rich heiress, Hester Vanhomrigh, with whom Swift
had become quite friendly on his visits to London fell passionately in love with him, despite a
vast disparity in age. Swift was forty-three and Hester was supposed to be just twenty. In
their friendly intercourse she was ‘Vanessa’ and he Cadenus, an anagram for ‘decanes’ i.e.
“dean”; and to her he wrote a poem Cadenus and Vanessa in 1713, which was not meant for
publication. A couple of years later, on the death of her mother Vanessa left England to settle
down in Ireland. By coming to Ireland, Vanessa caused a lot of embarrassment to Swift and
anguish to Stella. Vanessa died in 1723 and Stella in 1728. Beyond this almost nothing is
known about the relations between Swift and the two women who figure in his life. Despite
all this trouble in his private and personal life Swift occupied himself 1714 onwards with
Irish affairs. He deeply resented the unfair treatment of Ireland at the hands of the Whigs. The
pamphlets relating to Ireland form a very important part of Swift’s works. The series began
with A Proposal for the Universal Use of Irish Manufacture, in cloaths, etc. (1720),
advocating a scheme for boycotting English fabrics. This was followed by his famous
Drapier’s Letters by which he prevented the introduction of ‘Wood’s Half-pence’ into
Ireland. He came to England in 1726, visited Pope and Gray and dined with Sir Robert
Walpole, to whom he addressed a letter of remonstrance on Irish affairs with no result. He
published Gulliver’s Travels in the same year and paid a last visit to England in 1727, when
the death of George I created a vague hope of dislodging Walpole. He wrote some of his most
famous tracts and characteristic poems during his last years in Ireland.
A Short View of the Slate of Ireland (1728) gives a touching account of the condition of
the country and A Modest Proposal for preventing the Children of the Poor People from
becoming a burthen to their Parents, or the Country and for making them Beneficial to the
Public (1729) suggests, that the poverty of the people should be relieved by the sale of their
children as food for the rich. The pamphlet reveals with bitterness and irony, the Irish
helplessness and the political insensitivity.
In 1731, Swift wrote Verses on his own Death in which, with mingled pathos and
humour he posthumously reviews his own life and work. A Complete Collection of Polite and
Ingenious Conversation was written in 1738 and the ironical Direction to Servants in 1731.
During all these years he kept up his correspondence with a number of literary figures and
attracted to himself a small circle of friends and was adored by people. He set up a monument
of Schomberg (a noble military General) in the Cathedral at his own expense, spent a third of
his income on charities and saved up another third to found a charitable institution at his
death. St Patrick”; Hospital for Imbeciles.
The symptoms of the illness form which Swift suffered all his life, (a form of vertigo)
became very marked in 1738 and for a long time before his death he was insane. He died in
1745 and was buried by the side of Stella in St. Patrick’s, Dublin. The ironical fact about the
extraordinary life of Swift is that though he was born in Ireland, he did not want to spend his
entire life there because he knew that Ireland was not the land of big opportunity suitable for
a man of his capabilities and talent. He lived a life that might almost be described as a
continual flight from Ireland and a constant return to it compelled by circumstances and yet
he became, in the end, a national hero and an Irish Patriot. During the last thirty years of his
life, he became thoroughly identified with Irish life, mainly through his brilliant pamphlets

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which reveal the genuineness and the intensity of his indignation at oppression and
unfairness. But ironically too, it was this intensity, this ferocity in his writing that alienated
from him - writers like Dr. Johnson, Macaulay, Thackeray, and many others. Yet another
curious irony is that nearly all his works were published anonymously and for only one,
Gulliver’s Travels did he receive any payment (£ 200). It may be added, as a satiric touch,
that not till 1939-59, was any serious attempt made to produce a full, and accurate edition of
his writings.

2. A General Introduction to Gulliver’s Travels

Swift’s most famous and most popular book was published anonymously at the end of
October 1726. It belongs to the years of his maturity and disillusionment. Its full title at the
time of its first publication was, Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, by Lemuel
Gulliver, first a Surgeon, and then a Captain of several ships. Gulliver’s Travels is perhaps
the only major work in all English literature that has continuously led a double life: the book
has been from its first appearance successful with children as well as with their elders, “from
the cabinet council-to the nursery,” as Pope and Gray wrote to Swift. For children, the book
is a collection of marvelous adventure stories while for the elders the same stories are
pungent critiques of humanity addressed to their mature imagination. The book is an
incredible amalgam of pleasantly exciting explorer’s tales and the disturbing satire behind it;
the child can rarely see behind the exciting facade, and the adult reader can never cease
seeing what lurks behind it, however inconspicuously. These opposite readings of the book
are possible because there are times when Swift is entirely concerned with the facade—with
the elaboration of the details of the story for its own sake, for instance, in the description of
the floating island in Book III, Chapter 3. The presence of such passages allows the young
reader to take the whole story at the simplest level of meaning. Moreover, throughout Book I
and II there is the fascinating change of perspective— from very small to very big. In Books
III and IV the superficial charm is that of the ‘Wonders of Science’, mysterious phenomena
and strangely shaped creatures. All this gives zest to the narrative without, in any way,
coming in the way of its philosophical interpretation.
Gulliver’s Travels has survived, in fact, grown in importance over almost three
centuries. There are several reasons for this. First of all. a careful reading of the text shows
that Swift is not casual about his material; rather he treats it with utmost seriousness. He
makes the narrator, Gulliver, an earnest, solid, and trustworthy traveller, who is scrupulously
careful in reporting exactly what happened; he is far from being flippant or having the self-
consciousness of one who is engaged in an elaborate hoax. Swift takes great pains to invent a
multitude of such concrete facts that an honest voyager would record in his diary. Swift’s
technique of circumstantial realism makes the voyager’s record perfectly reliable.
Secondly, Swift is extremely diligent in establishing the inner consistency of the strange
worlds which Gulliver discovers: all aspects of life in Lilliput, Brobdingnag and
Houyhnhnm-Land are carefully worked out, according to scale and pattern. For instance,
Lilliputians are six inches tall, and the same scale is maintained for everything and every
creature in their land. The same is true about the Land of the Brobdingnags, whose
inhabitants are ten times the size of man. Thirdly and lastly the most impressive quality of the

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book is its narrative manner. Gulliver discovers all kinds of strange lands and their strange
inhabitants but never shows any amazement; he accepts their actuality. This is reflected in his
calm plainness of style, his simple vocabulary and orderly, simple sentences. The ironic
discrepancy between the matter-of-fact plain style and the deeper levels of meaning of the
story is one of the sources of the pleasure of reading this book.
It can perhaps be said that Gulliver’s simplicity, that is the simplicity of the character
who is created by Swift to narrate the fantastic discoveries, makes it a tale not for children but
for the perceptive reader who is aware of the symbolic dimension of the narrative. The same
simplicity of style reveals Swift’s deadpan subtlety, a source of ambiguity and irony. Gulliver
naively admires the destructiveness of modern weapons of warfare; the naive admiration of
his narrator is Swift’s ironic comment on the hollow and sinister achievements of civilization.
It’s only occasionally that Swift forgets his role as an uninvolved creator and of Gulliver as
an ordinary English sailor and uses for both of them a single voice; railing not only directly
but violently against the state of affairs in Europe. This happens most frequently in Book III,
in which Swift fails to keep Gulliver’s usual character as a mild, factual, patriotic, middle
class-Englishman.
Gulliver’s Travels is a fabulous entertainer and at the same time a bitter criticism of
society. It has been interpreted to be hitting at a number of contemporary characters and
events. The historical references and commentary on them are only a minor achievement of
the book. Its real achievement and its universality of appeal lies in the use of fantasy for a
profound comment on human nature, as it may be observed at all times and places. The
littleness of the Lilliputians (Book I) symbolizes the moral and spiritual pettiness of which
humanity is capable—its jealousy, malice, infidelity, and ingratitude. Its lust for power and
above all its hatred of greatness, conversely its worship of mediocrity and pettiness. The
hugeness of the Brobdingnagians (Book II) is a symbol of large-mindedness, so that from
their point of view Gulliver’s normal humanity seems, in both size and character, to be
something like worms. In Book III, various symbolic devices are used to suggest
unimaginativeness and the pedantry of various scientists and scholars. And in the final
section of this book, the fundamental desire for immortality is satirized.
Swift is a strong critic of human folly, as is evident in the early books, but it needs to be
strongly emphasized that he is not a mere cynic, for he is as well aware of moral potentiality
as of failure. His central theme is the dual nature of man; man’s capacity for both good and
evil, man’s potentiality for being both an angel and a beast.
Nevertheless, the fact remains that Swift shows an uncompromising sense of man’s
potential for evil and it has the effect of making the readers overemphasize this part of his
world-view. This has resulted in an unbalanced reading, especially of Book IV. Swift is not
just saying, as has often been thought, that mankind is a tribe of Yahoos, that is bestial
creatures: rather, in creating Yahoos and Houyhnhnms, he has split man into certain
component elements; the animal and the rational. Yahoos are devoid of rationality: the
Houyhnhnms are rational beings, but their rationality is quite limited, dry, and devitalized,
founded on the elimination of the emotional aspects of life. Gulliver is so impressed by the
Houyhnhnms that he aspires to live by their rationality, stoicism and simple wisdom; and
being persuaded that he has attained them, he feeds his growing misanthropy on pride, which

4
alienates him not only from his remote kinsmen the Yahoos, but eventually from all humans.
Deluded by his worship of pure reason, he commits the error of the Houyhnhnms- in equating
human beings with Yahoos. Captured by a Portuguese crew and forced to return to humanity,
he trembles with fear and hatred. The captain of the ship, Don Pedro is tolerant sympathetic,
kindly, patient, and charitable; but Gulliver can no longer recognize these traits in a human
being. With the myopic vision of the Houyhnhnms, he perceives only a Yahoo and is repelled
by Don Pedro’s clothes, food, and odour. Gradually, however, he is nursed back to partial
health, and is forced to admit that his benefactor has a ‘very good human understanding.’
Swift does not preach; he makes the narrative conclusion of the last book itself point to the
meaning of this brilliant travelogue. Interestingly the use of fantasy for serious statement has
come back into vogue in our times after having been eliminated by almost two centuries of
emphasis upon social realism that documents and catalogues.

3. Study Guide: Book III, Gulliver’s Travels

Book III: A Voyage to Laputa, Balnibarbi, Glubbdubdrib, Luggnagg and Japan.

Chapter One
In 1706, Gulliver sets out on yet another voyage. Once again, his ship is blown off course in a
storm, and when the storm stops, he is chased by two pirate ships. Gulliver’s ship is slow,
being overladen with merchandise and is soon overtaken by the pirates. The pirates take
control of Gulliver’s ship and he narrowly escapes death at the hands of a malicious Dutch
pirate. He is set adrift in a small canoe with eight days’ provisions. Gulliver sails towards a
group of islands at some distance, which he discovers with the help of his pocket-glass. He
reaches the last island which appears to be a deserted one, gets off his boat and spends the
night in a dry cave. Next morning, he comes out of the cave when the day is far advanced. It
is a hot sunny day and Gulliver has to keep his face turned away from the sun, but suddenly it
becomes dark, the sun having been eclipsed by a huge opaque body in the air. Gulliver is
startled to see an island floating in the air, at a height of about two miles above the island.
Viewing it through his pocket glass Gulliver sees that there are a large number of people on
the island and it is divided up into several levels. The island comes down to about 100 yards
above the spot where Gulliver is standing and he is pulled up with the help of a chair tied to
chains.
The Dutch pirate is an evil man as compared to the Japanese pirate. Bias against the
Dutch people was common among the Tories. Though allied militarily against France,
Holland and England remained vigorous commercial rivals. Moreover, Swift detested the
Dutch policy of religious tolerance which undermined the concept of a national church. And
so here he makes his pirate a Dutch and also anti-Christian. Swift’s flying island is built on
scientific principles in the manner of today’s science fiction. Laputa remains suspended on
the principle of attraction and repulsion of magnetic bodies.
(i) Describe the strange object that Gulliver sees in the sky.
(ii) Compare and contrast the behaviour of the Dutch and Japanese pirates towards Gulliver.

5
Chapter Two
The people on the flying island look alike, their heads are inclined either to the left or to the
right, one eye is turned inward and the other looks directly at the zenith. Their clothes bear
images of suns, moons and stars, with figures of musical instruments like fiddles, flutes and
harps and so many others. Then Gulliver sees something quite amazing. There are servants
everywhere, known as flappers, who carry short sticks to which are attached bladders
containing dried peas or pebbles. With these, the servants flap the mouth or ears of people
nearby. Gulliver learns that these people remain so lost in thought that they have to be woken
up whenever there is an occasion for them to speak or listen.
Gulliver is taken to the royal palace at the top of the island but several times his escort
has to be reminded by the flapper, as to where he is going. Gulliver finds the king absorbed in
a problem, perhaps a mathematical problem and he remains like that for more than an hour
before he pays any attention to his visitor. Gulliver cannot communicate with the king
because he does not understand his language and he decides to learn the language of the
island. In the mean-time, by the king’s order, Gulliver is provided with an apartment in the
king’s palace, two servants and a language teacher.
Gulliver notices that even the food items, pieces of meat, ice-creams, puddings and
bread are all shaped either like musical instruments or like geometrical or mathematical
figures. The tailor who is ordered to make clothes for him makes such a fuss about taking his
measurements. The clothes he makes are ill-fitting and quite out of shape. On his second day
on the island, Gulliver’s ears are deafened by the crashing music performed by the entire
court for three hours without a break. Each person plays his own instrument, without any
effort to create harmony. Gulliver’s own knowledge of mathematics and science helps him a
great deal in quickly learning the language of the island. He learns that the island is called
Laputa, which in their old obsolete language signified ‘high.’
Everything in Laputa is expressed, even the standards of good and beautiful, in
mathematical or musical terms. Gulliver finds evidence in every field, of the same error of
calculation that the tailor had made in making ill-fitting clothes for him, made in everything.
Laputans are abstract theoreticians; they despise practical geometry and there is not a straight
wall or an exact right angle in their buildings. Their theoretical bent of mind makes them
great failures in all affairs of practical life. Even their vocabulary is limited to the
mathematical sciences and music.
The people of Laputa are also keen students of astronomy. They dread changes in the
position and movement of the celestial bodies and all the time fear the destruction of the
earth. Because of these fears they never sleep in peace or enjoy the simple joys of life. The
king of the island questions Gulliver about the state of mathematics in England but shows no
interest in English religion, government, laws, history or manners. The women of the island
are vivacious but bored with their absent-minded husbands. They are very fond of the
strangers who come to the court from the continents below. Though they are treated very well
as wives or daughters, they are unhappy as their men folk, being mostly lost in the world of
abstraction, have no time for them. Their failure to keep their women happy is yet another
consequence of the impractical character of the men of Laputa.

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 Fun and satire are combined in the description of Laputa. Swift has a good laugh at the
eccentricities and impractical ways of those devoted to pure sciences. Swift makes them
perfectly comical both in appearance and actions. Significantly, Swift says nothing here about
applied sciences.
(i) Describe the appearance of the residents of Laputa.
(ii) Why do the Laputans need flappers?
Chapter Three
The flying island is perfectly circular, its diameter about four miles and a half, its thickness
300 yards. Its area is around 10,000 acres. Its movement is controlled by a magnetic
loadstone, so perfectly poised that anyone can move it in order to lift it towards the earth or
away from it. Swift gives a long and “philosophical account” of the structure and operation of
the great loadstone. He imitates the Royal Society’s learned papers in order to make them
look ridiculous.
The Laputans have highly developed telescopes, as a result of which their knowledge of
astronomy is much more advanced as compared to that of the Europeans. The king of Laputa
is prevented from being an absolute tyrant because his ministers’ own estates lie on the
mainland below and they refuse to support his efforts or designs to subject the entire country
to his will. The common people living on the land below the island are, in fact, many a times
saved from total destruction because of the ministers, whose own interests are involved with
theirs. Laputa’s manner of government, which has little communication with the mainland,
suggests the absentee type of government from which Ireland suffered in the 18th century. Its
small landlords were far from London, but the controlling power of the Irish government was
in London. The country was miserable, being subject to a government that was too far to be
approached.
Gulliver learns about a revolt in Lindalino, second largest city in the kingdom, about three
years before his arrival. Lindalino is Dublin and the revolt figuratively represents the uproar
over the introduction of cheap money of small denomination in Ireland and the granting of
the patent for its manufacture to one William Wood, an Englishman. This chapter is an
excellent piece of symbolic writing which can be read like an allegory too.
(i) Explain the satire in the revolt in Lindalino.
Chapter Four
Gulliver is bored in Laputa and so he decides to leave the island after two months. He
receives permission to leave through the influence of a great lord, a close relation of the king,
but very different from him; less interested in mathematics and music and more interested in
listening to what others say.
Gulliver descends to Balnibarbi, the mainland and travels to its capital city Lagado. He
is received there by a great Lord called Munodi. Making a tour of the town, Gulliver sees
men working on excellent soil with all kinds of tools and equipment but there are no signs of
harvest. The people appear to be poor and miserable. Munodi’s estate, just next to this place,
presents a striking contrast, with its greenery and abundance. Munodi tells him the secret of

7
his own prosperity and of his neighbours’ failure; he avoids the new agricultural methods of
his neighbours and practices the old, tested farming methods only.
Munodi informs Gulliver that, around forty years ago, some men had gone up to the
floating island, acquired a smattering of mathematics and returned with a proposal to build an
Academy of Projectors in Lagado. All the other towns had since built similar academies,
which taught new methods of agriculture and construction. But as none of these methods
were perfected, the country lies in miserable waste. By way of illustration, Munodi shows
Gulliver an ancient mill on his property, that has been turned into a ruin by the projectors.
They had planned to pump water up the hill to secure the advantage of falling water to turn
the mill, instead of using the river that already existed. But after a hundred men worked on
the project for two years, it was abandoned and Munodi was blamed for its failure.
Swift here satirizes the thoughtless and headlong dash into novelty and rash meddling
with established methods. The difference between abstract speculation and practical
application of knowledge are two completely different things. Swift is not against scientific
innovations or scientific curiosity; he is against wasteful and unscientific methods to practical
problems. Munodi is either Swift’s friend Bolingbroke or Oxford or perhaps a composite of
both.
(i) Write a note on Lord Munodi. How is his estate different from that of his neighbours?
(ii) Describe Gulliver’s visit to the Academy of Projectors.
Chapter Five
Gulliver visits the Academy of Lagado, which has five hundred rooms. He sees a man
working on a project to extract sunshine from cucumbers so that man might warm the air on
cold days. In another room, a filthy-looking man is working on a project to reduce human
excrement back to its original form. Other researchers are trying to build a house from the
roof downward, as do the spiders and the bees and to produce gunpowder by heating ice. Yet
another is trying to develop methods to plough fields by putting into the soil a huge quantity
of acorns, chestnuts, and other vegetables and letting the hogs dig them up. In another part of
the building, Gulliver meets a projector in speculative learning, who has invented a machine
that will enable any one to write great books on philosophy and the arts. At the school of
languages, Gulliver meets professors who are trying to remove language barriers and make
the communicative process simple and less strenuous.
This chapter is an example of Swift’s great capacity for inventing comical images and
fantastically comical details. Behind the hilariously comical images is hidden bitter satire on
the impracticality and wastefulness of research proposed to be undertaken by learned
societies of his time, especially the Royal Society. The “philosophical account” is Swift’s
parody of the typical scientific papers published in the Transactions of the Royal Society.
(i) Briefly describe any two experiments being conducted at the Academy of Projectors.
(ii) Look up ‘Royal Society’ in any online encyclopedia and write a note on it.

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Chapter Six
Gulliver next visits the school of political projectors. The professors there appear to him
wholly out of their senses for proposing to work out schemes to persuading the monarchs to
choose their favourites for their wisdom, capacity, and virtue; for the ministers to be able to
promote public good. He finds the professors trying to devise schemes by which merit, great
abilities and eminent public services could be rewarded. And according to Gulliver they are
following “many other wild, impossible chimeras” that had never been conceived by man.
One of the professors is engaged in finding effective remedies for all diseases and
corruptions to which public administration is subject. To correct the poor memories of court
favourites, for instance, he would have their associates activate their memories by giving “a
tweak by the nose or a kick in the belly, or tread on his corns or lug him thrice by both ears,
or run a pin into his breach, or pinch his arm black and blue, to prevent forgetfulness.” To
end violent party divisions in a state, he proposes to take a hundred leaders from each party,
cut their brains in half, and put together for each man two halves of brains from different
parties. This would bring moderation and quiet in the state. Gulliver finds two professors
engaged in a warm debate about how to extract taxes without “grieving” the tax-payers. One
of them argued that each man should be taxed for his vices and follies, the other that a man
should be taxed according to the qualities in him. The highest tax would be on the men who
were greatest favourites of the other sex. Women would be taxed according to their beauty
and style of dressing; but constancy, chastity, good sense and good nature would not be
considered, since they are too rare and would not bear even the expenses for collecting the
tax. Gulliver is shown by another professor, a paper of instructions to discover plots and
conspiracies against the government. His advice is to examine the diet of the suspects, the
times of their meals, their sleeping habits, the colour of their excrement, which is the key to
their thoughts and designs.
In this chapter it’s no longer irony but bitter satire, for here, the possibility of right
conduct in public affairs becomes an impossible chimera, something that could never enter
man’s head. Here Swift shows a bitter contempt for the state of affairs in the world and for
his own kind. He despairs of any possibility of reform. According to him, the entire political
system is so horribly diseased that it is beyond correction or cure. Hence the best thing to do
is to laugh at its expense. This is black humour; comedy that shows despair and still makes
the reader laugh.
Gulliver’s comments on the political situation in his country surprise us. He seems to
have already revised his opinion about his “ideal country.” In the last few passages Swift is
mimicking the methods employed by Whigs to investigate the charges, mostly trumped up,
against holy persons of Tory leanings and against some politicians: Bolingbroke, for
example. Bolingbroke was secretary of state in 1710 and a victim of dirty Whig politics.
Chapter Seven
Gulliver decides to visit the island of Luggnagg as it lies enroute to his voyage back to
England, but because he cannot find any ship bound for this island, he decides to take a trip to
the island of Glubbdubdrib, the island of sorcerers and magicians where the entire governing
tribe practices magic. The Governer is served by the dead, whom he has power to command.

9
On his way to the palace, Gulliver passes between two rows of guards dressed in what he
thinks is a very antique manner and something in their countenance makes his flesh creep
with horror. By the turn of his finger the Governer dismisses his servants, and to the utter
astonishment of Gulliver they vanish in an instant “like visions in a dream when we awake on
a sudden.” A new set of ghosts serve at the table and Gulliver sees so many ghosts or spirits
all day long that he becomes, in a day or two, perfectly used to the presence of spirits. The
Governer permits Gulliver to call up from the underworld whatever spirits he wishes to speak
to. Alexander and Hannibal appear and clear some misconceptions about themselves. The
senate of Rome looks like an “assembly of demigods, whereas another assembly of somewhat
later age,” seems to be a “knot of peddlers, pickpockets, highway men and bullies.” Gulliver
enjoys the conversation of really noble men like Brutus, Socrates, Cato, Thomas More and so
on. Gulliver also admires the sight of those who crushed tyrants and restored liberty to
nations.
Swift presents modern politicians in a satirical light by comparing them to the members
of the Roman Senate. Swift also debunks many stories that pass for history and obliquely
attacks present day politicians as a bunch of thieves.
(i) Describe the island of Glubbdubdrib.
(ii) Why does Gulliver single out Brutus for his admiration?
Chapter Eight
Gulliver, continues to meet the spirits of the dead. He summons up Aristotle and Homer,
along with their commentators. Aristotle, speaking about Descartes and Gassendi, says that
their philosophy and principles are based on conjectures and have been proved wrong- just
as, in time, Newton’s theory of gravitation would be. Swift had a strong dislike for Sir Isaac
Newton and his “zealous asserters.”
Summoning up the ghosts of noble families, Gulliver is disappointed to find that they
often have peddlers, barbers, and prelates among them, and can trace their lineage only a very
few generations. Gulliver sees their scandalous secrets laid bare and he ceases to wonder at
the degeneration of the nobility when he sees their blood lines interrupted by pages, lackeys,
valets, coach men, and pickpockets. Gulliver realizes that it is what Polydor Virgil, a 16th
century Italian, who composed a history of England, says of certain great houses “Not a man
of them brave, not a woman pure.”
Gulliver is chiefly disgusted with modern history for he discovers that the prostitute
writers have totally misrepresented the facts. Those known for heroic patriotism are
misrepresented as traitors. Known villains had been exalted to offices of high trust; the
virtuous had been executed through the devices of the wicked ministers. He discovers the true
causes of some great events; “how a whore can govern the back stairs, the back stairs a
council and the council a senate.” He discovers how some renowned figures of history had
secured high titles and great estates by perjury and fraud or by prostituting their wives and
daughters.
Gulliver shows the blackest face of the so called noble, illustrious, and royal families. All
these have, barring a few exceptions, acquired great wealth and positions of power-either by

10
accident or by treachery, falsehood, and cunning or by bribing those in power and pandering
to their whims. To put it in short, those who rose to occupy high political positions were men
of dishonourable disposition. After saying all this, Gulliver says that he does not have his
own country in mind with regard to what he has said on this occasion. Nobody is fooled by
this explanation which only renders the irony more effective. The special target of satire here
is the pride of great houses in their ancestry and reputation. Gulliver now laments how man
has degenerated in the last hundred years. Men have lost the vigour and valour and sense of
justice and spirit of liberty of the English yeomen of the old stamp. Every journey adds to the
education of Gulliver.
(i) What does Gulliver learn about noble and royal families?
Chapter Nine
Leaving Glubbdubdrib, Gulliver travels to Luggnagg, where he represents himself as a
Hollander in the hope of getting to Japan, for the Dutch alone are allowed to enter that
country. He sends to the king of Luggnagg the conventional request to have the honour of
licking the dust before the royal footstool, but he finds the words to be more than mere form.
He is commanded to crawl on his belly towards the throne, licking the floor as he moves
forward. Gulliver being a stranger, the floor is cleaned for his approach; but he learns that for
those who have enemies at the court, extra dirt is put on the floor and for those whom the
king wishes to eliminate, some brown powder, a form of poison, is sprinkled on the floor.
Gulliver, with the help of an interpreter, pays the customary salutation to the king: “May your
Celestial Majesty outlive the sun, eleven moons and an half.” Pleased, the king grants him an
allowance, assigns an interpreter to assist him and permission to stay in Luggnag for three
months.
Travel books, with their stories of Oriental despotism seem to be reflected in Gulliver’s
encounter with the king of Luggnagg. That only the Dutch could find entry into Japan is a
fact of history. This adds to the realism Swift has tried to give to the book.
(i) What is Gulliver expected to do on meeting the king of Luggnagg?
Chapter Ten
The Luggnaggian people are polite and generous, although they are not without some share
of pride which is peculiar to all Eastern countries. Gulliver hears about the Struldbruggs,
immortal men. He is told that to any family a child might be born, whose forehead is marked
with the red circular spot of immortality. “Happy people!” is Gulliver’s first reaction. “Happy
nation blessed with so much ancient wisdom for a guide,” thinks Gulliver. Then he falls into
a long dream in which he imagines all that he would do if he were a Struldbrugg; how he
would use his gift of immortality to become “a living treasury of knowledge and wisdom, and
certainly become the oracle of the nation.” He also dreams about how he would, along with
others from his “immortal brotherhood,” guide the youth of his country to create a better
world. But the Luggnaggians laugh at his ignorance, for it is based on the supposition that the
Struldbruggs would remain young forever and not decay mentally or physically into old age.
But whenever a Struldbrugg sees a funeral, he wishes he might have one, for after a certain
stage in old age, there sets in a rapid decline of mental and physical faculties. The

11
Struldbruggs grow like any other mortal till they are thirty years old and then age till they are
eighty. So, it is as if they are condemned to eternal old age and all its infirmities. They
remember nothing at all, so that at last they cannot perform their natural functions, they
cannot converse with any one and generally became a ghastly sight. By law, they are
considered dead after they complete “four score years”; deprived of property, employment,
and wives. Gulliver’s “keen appetite for perpetuity of life was much abated” after listening to
accounts of the Struldbruggs and meeting some of them.
Here Swift mocks at a pride which is peculiar to Eastern countries, as he says. Actually,
this is another one of the vain desires of men anywhere in the world. Swift’s purpose is to
show that man commonly desires what is bad for him and neglects his real good.
(i) Why is Gulliver excited on hearing about the Struldbruggs?
(ii) Give a detailed description of the immortal Struldbruggs.
Chapter Eleven
The King of Luggnagg gives Gulliver permission to leave his kingdom and also gives him a
letter of recommendation for the emperor of Japan, some gold pieces, and a red diamond. He
sails to Japan, from where he hopes to return home but the Japanese become suspicious about
Gulliver’s claim to be a Dutchman because he asks to be excused from the ceremony
imposed on the Dutch, that of trampling over the crucifix. The emperor is almost sure that
Gulliver is not a Hollander but a Christian. But he is considerate and gives secret orders to the
officer to allow Gulliver to quickly pass out of the country and to be excused from the
ceremony. Gulliver then reaches the port of Nangasac, after a very long and troublesome
journey. There, he meets a company of Dutch sailors belonging to a ship called Amboyna of
Amsterdam; a stout ship of 450 tons. Gulliver’s knowledge of Dutch language once more
comes in very handy. He makes friends with the Dutch sailors and sails home with them on
the Amboyna. He finally reaches home after five and half years.
The third voyage has always been considered the least popular, but none the less
interesting. Structurally it is loosely episodic, lacking unity of action and tone. Into it Swift
seems to have put all the material that he could not work into the other three voyages. It is
fantasia on two themes which Swift treats under a single metaphor: the metaphor is science.
The themes are politics and the abuse of reason. In short, the voyage is a digression on
madness, on the divorce of man and good sense in the modern world.

4. Study Guide: Book IV, Gulliver’s Travels

Book IV: A Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms
Chapter One
After spending five months at home with his wife and children Gulliver sets out on yet
another voyage: this time as the captain of a merchant ship. In West Indies, he hires some
sailors to replace some of his men who have died of a tropical fever. The newly hired men
turn out to be former pirates. They seize the ship and put Gulliver in chains. After sailing for
some weeks, as soon as an island is sighted, the pirates get rid of Gulliver. They put him in a

12
boat and sail away. In this desolate condition, Gulliver keeps rowing till he gets upon firm
ground. He is tired in body and soul, so he rests for some time and then goes up into the
country. Soon he observes some repulsive animals, thick hair in some parts of their body.
They have no tails, but have long claws, and climb trees as nimbly as squirrels. Gulliver feels
a strong aversion for them. As he moves along a road, one of these beasts approaches him
and raises one of its fore-paws towards him. In order to fend him off Gulliver gives him a
blow with the flat side of his sword, at which the animal draws back but roars so loudly that a
herd of at least forty come flocking about him from the next field. They howl and Gulliver
moves to defend himself with his back to a tree. Some of the brutes leap up into the tree and
begin to discharge Study Guidesssstheir excrements on his head. Gulliver defends himself by
waving his hanger but is quite stifled with the filth falling all around him.
Suddenly, a horse appears, and all the beasts run away. He looks with wonder at
Gulliver, examines his hands and feet and blocks him from leaving the spot, but all very
gently. Gulliver attempts to pet him, but the horse shakes his head and seemed to say
something, neighing all the time. Another horse comes up, greets the first one ceremoniously
and seems to say something about Gulliver. The two again examine Gulliver’s hands and feet
with wonder. Their behaviour is so orderly and intelligent that Gulliver believes them to be
two magicians in the form of horses. He addresses them as magicians, asking them to give
him a ride up to a village or a house. The horses again discuss the situation, frequently using
the word Yahoo. As soon as the horses are silent, Gulliver boldly pronounces Yahoo in a loud
voice, imitating as well as he can, the neighing of a horse, at which both the horses are visibly
surprised. They teach him the exact pronunciation of that word and of another, Houyhnhnm
(Whinnum). Gulliver’s learning ability amazes the horses. At last, the horses part ways and
Gulliver accompanies the first, a dapple grey.
Note how, from the first chapter itself, Gulliver draws attention to the horses’
philosophical and rational demeanour, whereas the Yahoos are described as “brutes.”
(i) Describe the creatures Gulliver first sees on landing on the island.
(ii) Describe the horse’s reaction to Gulliver’s appearance.
Chapter Two
After walking for about three miles, Gulliver and the horse come to a kind of long building
made of straw and timber. Gulliver now begins to feel a little comforted and takes out the
toys and trinkets, such as travellers carry, as peace-offerings to whoever lives in that building.
The horse neighs with authority to three horses and two mares in a large room with a smooth
clay floor. Gulliver waits in the second room, where he again takes out his trinkets for the
master of the house. He hears the horses conversing in the next room. Gulliver fears his mind
is disturbed by his sufferings and misfortune. He pinches himself to test whether he is
dreaming and waits to be taken to the master of the house. Instead, he is introduced to a
lovely mare. a colt and a foal sitting on well-made straw mats in a third room. Gulliver is
again examined, again hears the word Yahoo several times, and is then taken outside to be
compared with one of the filthy animals he had first met in that land.

13
 Gulliver is absolutely horrified to notice in that abominable brute, a perfect human
figure-with the face flat and broad, the nose depressed, the lips large and the mouth wide.
Gulliver also notices that the forefeet of the Yahoo differ from his hands in nothing else but
the length of the nails, the coarseness and the brownness of the palms, and hairiness on the
backs. There is the same resemblance between their feet, with the same difference - which
only Gulliver knows because he’s wearing shoes and stockings. To the eyes of the horses,
Gulliver’s clothes make his body unlike that of the beast. The horses offer the Yahoos’ food
to Gulliver but he turns from it with loathing. At that point, Gulliver notices a cow passing by
and he points to her and expresses a desire to go and milk her. He is led into the house and
offered a large bowl of clean and cool milk which makes him feel quite refreshed.
An old horse, drawn in a sledge by four Yahoos arrives for dinner, during which Gulliver
is discussed. Gulliver’s gloves perplex the old horse, who is very pleased when Gulliver takes
them off. Pleased with his conduct, the horses teach him several new words. He also gets
their permission to make bread from oats, which he eats with milk, herbs, and butter. He
occasionally has rabbit or a bird. All this keeps Gulliver in excellent health during his three
years among the horses. He sleeps in a separate building between the house and the Yahoos’
stable.
Gulliver asserts that he is a great lover of mankind, but he finds the Yahoos, who have a
close resemblance to man, absolutely “hateful” and “detestable.” It is ironic that Gulliver is
not immediately struck by the physical resemblance between the Yahoos and himself.
(i) Describe the physical appearance of the Yahoos.
Chapter Three
Gulliver’s principal endeavour is to learn the Houyhnhnm tongue, which he thinks is very
much like high Dutch or German. The master horse is convinced that Gulliver is a Yahoo but
he is perplexed at his un-Yahoo-like qualities; his teachableness, civility, cleanliness, and
clothes. At the end of three months, Gulliver begins to satisfy the Houyhnhnm’s curiosity, but
the master first doubts Gulliver’s story, sure that he must be saying “the thing that was not”
in telling of people across the sea, and of wooden vessels controlled by brute Yahoos. The
Houyhnhnms are ruled by reason alone and since lying is against the reasonable and natural
purpose of speech, they have no such word for lying. They have no need of such a word-
hence the only expression they have for ‘lying’ is “the thing that was not.” The word
Houyhnhnm means a horse and in its etymology, “the Perfection of Nature.”
All the Houyhnhnms of the neighborhood come to see Gulliver, the wonderful Yahoo.
They cannot think of him as a Yahoo because of his clothes and some other minor differences
from the beasts. Gulliver takes all possible care to never allow himself to be seen without his
clothes. But the secret of Gulliver’s clothes is discovered one morning when a servant horse
happens to see him sleeping without them. The master Houyhnhnm cannot understand why
anyone should hide some parts of the body that nature has given; nevertheless, he allows
Gulliver to remain partly dressed while being examined again. To him, Gulliver appears a
perfect Yahoo despite his smooth skin, the absence of hair on his body or of long claws, and
his habit of walking upright on his hind legs. But the main difference is his capacity for
speech and reason.
14
 The master horse is keen to hear how Gulliver reached their country and Gulliver
narrates how he and other sailors sailed on a ship and how he was thrown out by pirates. The
master horse doubts his story, so Gulliver informs him that in all other known countries, men
like Gulliver are the presiding rational creatures and horses are brute animals; that Gulliver
had been as surprised to find rational and ruling horses as the Houyhnhnms had been to find a
rational Yahoo.
That reason has its limitations is proved by the fact that they cannot grasp conceptions
outside their own confined experience: countries other than their own, countries where horses
do not rule, where there are ships that are managed and navigated by Yahoos.
(i) Why don’t the Houyhnhnms have a word in their language for ‘lying’?
(ii) Why is the master horse puzzled by Gulliver’s clothes?
Chapter Four
The master horse is deeply distressed by Gulliver’s information. Being unused to doubting or
not believing, he doesn’t know how to behave when in doubt; and he cannot understand
Gulliver’s explanation of how men lie and misrepresent. On being questioned and
commanded by the master horse, Gulliver describes the care, the uses and abuses of horses in
England. The master is quite upset to hear some parts of Gulliver’s information, for example
to hear that the English horses are beaten, castrated and trained to serve the Yahoos, or that
the Yahoos ride upon the backs of the horses. After some expressions of indignation, the
master wonders how the Yahoos dare to ride upon a Houyhnhnm’s back. Nevertheless, the
master finds Gulliver different from the Yahoos of Houyhnhnmland. Gulliver is cleaner and
less deformed, but has fewer real advantages than the Yahoos. His nails are of no use and his
forefeet are of no use for walking. Using only two feet to walk, he is always insecure while
walking; his face is flat; the position of his eyes forces him to turn his head in order to see to
the sides and he cannot feed himself without using his forefoot.
Gulliver’s account of his voyage to the country of horses greatly puzzles the
Houyhnhnm, especially the part that explains why pirates dare not return to their native land.
Neither can he understand why men commit evil acts like treason, murder, theft, rape,
forgery, and robbery. Gulliver’s explanation of these crimes makes the horse “lift up his eyes
with amazement and indignation.”
The Houyhnhnms are ruled by reason. They show very little passion, a little indignation
here and there, but never lust, envy, anger in the violent sense, covetousness and other vices
inspired by passion, by which men are carried away. Thus, the master horse cannot
understand man’s habit of lying, a vice which comes from the passions. To the Houyhnhnm,
lying is a violation of the natural function of speech. Whatever is rational will be done easily
and as a matter of course by creatures governed by reason.
(i) Why does the master horse find it difficult to understand Gulliver’s accounts of his
country?
(ii) Why is the master horse distressed on hearing about the treatment meted to horses in
England?

15
Chapter Five
The master horse wishes to hear an account of English history after Gulliver has told him
whatever he can about trade and industry, arts and sciences in his country. So, at his master’s
command Gulliver relates to him the Revolution under the Prince of Orange: the long war
with France entered into by the said Prince and renewed by his successor, the present Queen.
Giving a detailed account of the war Gulliver says that several great countries of Europe are
involved in it, millions of people have been killed, hundreds of cities captured and hundreds
of ships sunk. On being asked by the master horse, what are the usual causes or motives that
make one country go to war with another, Gulliver answers that these are innumerable: such
as princely ambition for greater power, religious disagreements, rivalry between
neighbouring countries over some piece of territory, and so many others. Dealing with the
religious causes of wars, Swift ridicules the controversy over Christ’s real presence in the
consecrated objects, the controversy whether bread be flesh or wine be blood. This is Swift’s
objectivity and a satirical comment on man’s deformity which allows him to shed blood, even
in the name of God,
The master comments that the account of war has very satisfactorily put before him the
effects of the reason that Gulliver’s race pretend to have. But, still unaware of the artificial
means by which wars are carried on, he finds comfort in thinking that nature has left men
utterly incapable of doing much mischief; with their mouths lying flat with their faces, they
could hardly bite each other to cause deep injury. And, therefore, the master concludes that
Gulliver has lied to him about the numbers of those killed in the battles. Gulliver continues to
educate the horse about man’s use of weapons; about fire-arms, swords, bayonets,
bombardments and about the corrupting and dehumanizing effects of war. The Houyhnhnm
stops him, afraid that simply by hearing such things he will become corrupt.
Gulliver tells the master that some sailors leave their country for the fear of law. He
explains the meaning of the word, but the master is puzzled over how a law, framed to
preserve everyone, could harm anyone. For the master, reason and nature should be sufficient
to guide a rational animal, he therefore becomes curious about laws and lawyers. Gulliver
explains that lawyers are a kind of people who are brought up from their youth in the art of
proving by words, invented for that purpose, that white was black and black was white again.
Lawyers have a jargon of their own and keep on multiplying laws in this jargon, by which the
very essence of truth and falsehood is wholly confounded and it takes thirty years to decide a
case. Gulliver concludes that lawyers are far from the brilliant creatures one might suppose
them to be, that they are in fact the most ignorant and stupid people in England.
What Gulliver says in this chapter shows that his attitude towards his own country is no
longer indulgent. He freely talks about the corruption in various parts of English life, be it
foreign policy, law courts, or military action. He has lived long enough in the land of the
Houyhnhnms to be affected by their honesty and reason.
(i) Mention some reasons, as listed by Gulliver, why countries go to war.
(ii) What does Gulliver have to say about the lawyers in his country?

16
Chapter Six
On hearing the tales of evil and injustice prevailing at the law-courts, the Houyhnhnm master
wonders why the lawyers want to injure their fellow animals and what is meant by the word
hire. At this, Gulliver tries to explain to the master the use of money and how its possession
permits an English Yahoo to obtain whatever he wants - the choicest clothing, land, food, and
females. This power makes the Yahoos want to accumulate as much of it as possible. Money
is power but the number of people who have it is small - one to a thousand, and these
thousands labour to generate money for the rich and yet themselves live in misery and
poverty. This is again incomprehensible to the master, who believes that all animals have a
right to their share of the earth’s products. Gulliver explains the concept of trade - the English
practice of selling to countries all over the world, its surplus food in exchange for items of
luxury, which bring diseases, folly, and vice.
Speaking of diseases and physicians, Gulliver explains the physical evils that follow
unwise eating and drinking. Being a physician, Gulliver says that the basic cause of disease is
repletion (over-fulness) and the first remedy is, therefore, evacuation- either upwards or
downwards. That Gulliver is being ironical, is evident. He is making fun of current medical
beliefs and practices; also hints at intentional malpractices by the physicians.
Next, Gulliver describes to the master horse the nature of the English government and of
the English constitution. He begins by speaking about the position of a first or chief minister
of state and says that this is a creature who has no other passion, except a violent desire for
wealth, power and titles. This is Gulliver’s satirical portrait of a politician. To secure the
office of the chief minister, all kinds of means - murder, betrayal, and hypocrisy are used.
The chief minister’s power is perpetuated by wholesale bribery and his house is the breeding
ground for future chief ministers, pages, lackeys, and porters. They learn, by imitation, the
skills of insolence, lying, and bribery - the most necessary ingredients. The first ministers are
usually ruled by some “decayed wench or foot man,” the true ruler of the country and the
channel of all favours.
Being impressed by several qualities of Gulliver’s personality and intelligence the
Houyhnhnm supposes he belongs to some noble family. Gulliver corrects the horse’s notions
of nobility, which in England, implied being bred in idleness and luxury. Noble blood is
commonly known by a sickly appearance, as a healthy nobleman is suspected to have been
fathered by a coachman or a groom. The minds of the nobility match their feeble bodies. But,
ironically, the assembly of nobles is the court of highest appeal in England, and no law can be
enacted without its consent.
(i) Summarize Gulliver’s description of physicians in England.
(ii) How does Gulliver describe the nobility of his country?
Chapter Seven
Gulliver clarifies why he has given an honest account of his own species to the master horse.
The virtues of the horses, compared to the corruption of mankind, open his eyes and sharpen
his understanding. He now sees man’s actions and passions in a new light and finds man’s
honour unworthy and incapable of defense before the sharply intelligent Houyhnhnms.

17
Gulliver also decides never to go back to his kind but to live and die there, surrounded by the
noble horses.
The master Houyhnhnm concludes, after seriously considering Gulliver’s account, that
Gulliver’s people are animals who, possessing a small pittance of Reason, use it only to
increase their natural corruption. Even Gulliver, he observes, is inferior to the Yahoos in
natural strength, speed, and agility but, in mental disposition, his kind seems very much like
the Yahoos who hate each other. Like Gulliver’s kind, they detest each other and all because
each one wants to have everything to itself. He describes how the Yahoos will fight over food
articles or shining stones that they love though, lacking the weapons of the Europeans, they
seldom kill one another. The master tells Gulliver that the most odious thing about the
Yahoos is their gluttony. They eat everything that comes their way and they enjoy eating it
more if they have got it through stealing or plunder. The Yahoos, Gulliver observes, are the
only animals in the country subject to many diseases, owing to their haste and greed. Of the
European man’s learning, government, arts, and industry - the Houyhnhnms find no parallel
among the Yahoos, unless it is the possession, by the ruling Yahoo, of a favourite, whose
office is to lick his master’s feet and posteriors and drive the females to his kennel. In both
the account of the first minister as well as of the toady, Swift attacks Robert Walpole.
In this section the master horse responds to Gulliver’s accounts of the various institutions
and professions in his country. It is ironical that the Houyhnhnm has to point out to Gulliver
the similarities between the Yahoos and the human, which are apparent to the reader.
(i) Summarize the master horse’s observations about the Yahoos in his country.
(ii) What is the master horse’s observation about the faculty of reason in humans?
Chapter Eight
Having a great desire to observe and study the nature of the Yahoos, Gulliver receives
permission to walk among them, accompanied by a strong servant horse. He finds them the
most unteachable of all animals. They are very nimble but fit only to carry burdens, which is
why the Houyhnhnms employ them as servants to draw their carts and sledges. They are
cunning, malicious, and revengeful. They are strong and hardy but of a cowardly spirit and by
consequence, insolent, abject, and cruel. Gulliver has a horrible experience, when a young
Yahoo female leaps into the stream where he is bathing and embraces him violently, letting
go only when the horse escorting him comes to his rescue. The horses are greatly amused by
the incident. Gulliver feels mortified for he fears now that he is a real Yahoo, since the
female shows a natural attraction for him.
By sheer contrast to the Yahoos, the principal effort among the Houyhnhnms is to
cultivate reason. They have no conception of evil in a rational creature. For them, the truth is
instantly and clearly obvious and so they don’t understand the meaning of an opinion, or how
a point can be “disputable” or “controversial.” The master horse laughs when Gulliver
presents to him several systems of European philosophy. There is one truth, everything else is
conjecture, the master believes. Friendship and benevolence are the two principal virtues
among the Houyhnhnms, equally extended to friends and strangers. They practice decency
and civility and do not care much for ceremony. They treat their neighbours’ colts with the

18
same affection that they have for their own. They produce two colts to a family but the
servant class is allowed to produce three children of each sex, to insure a sufficient number of
domestics for noble families. Their marriages are arranged very reasonably, with care to
choose colours that will mix well. They have no ideas, nor words, for love, courtship,
presents, and marriage settlements, but marriage they regard as a necessity imposed by
reason. Among them marriage is never violated, though each partner bears the same
friendship and benevolence towards the other, as he does towards all the Houyhnhnms.
Young Houyhnhnms, both male and female, are taught lessons in temperance, industry,
exercise, cleanliness, and hardiness. Gulliver’s master thinks it monstrous that English
females should receive a different kind of education from males, and that too in nothing
except in some skills in domestic management. To trust the care of their children to such
useless animals, he says, is a yet greater instance of brutality. The Houyhnhnms are very
methodical, not only about the education of their youth, but also about managing their
administration. Every fourth year, a representative council of the country meets to consider
the problems of the land and remedy them.
Although Gulliver is full of praise for the Houyhnhnms, they lack man’s complexity.
Therefore, they cannot be taken literally to indicate how man should live. But Houyhnhnms
do stand for reason or rationality, a capacity to think and to distinguish good from bad and
this rational faculty is supposed to distinguish man from beasts, just as it separates the
Houyhnhnms from the Yahoos. What Swift seems to be saying is that if man were rational, if
he could truly be ruled by reason, he would live as do the noble horses. The presentation of
Houyhnhnm life seems to be exhorting man to introspect and evaluate, and recognize the
need for reform.
(i) Why is Gulliver upset when the female Yahoo embraces him?
(ii) Write a note on the Houyhnhnms’ customs as far as marriage and children are
concerned.
Chapter Nine
Just three months before Guilliver’s departure from the Houyhnhnm’s land, the great council
of horses gathers to debate an old question; whether and how to exterminate the Yahoos.
Having taken a tip from Gulliver’s account of how horses are tamed by castration in England,
the master Houyhnhnm suggests that young Yahoos be castrated, so that after a generation or
two they cease to exist. He also suggests that to carry out small services, they could train wild
asses.
The Houyhnhnms have no letters, so all their knowledge is traditional, that is passed
orally from generation to generation. They have no history; no international or commercial
relations and the people are reasonable and orderly. They have no diseases and no physicians,
but they use herbs to dress ordinary cuts and bruises. They measure the year by the
movement of the sun, know of eclipses, but little about astronomy. In poetry, they excel all
other mortals, according to Gulliver’s judgement. Their buildings are rude and simple, being
made of straw.

19
 The Houyhnhnms die only of old age and they die without joy or grief on their own part
or of their relatives. They normally live to around seventy years of age and a few weeks
before its death, the aged horse meets its friends and relatives to take a last farewell. The only
term the Houyhnhnms have to devote deficiency is the word Yahoo - which they add to the
name of the defective thing.
(i) What transpires at the Assembly of horses?
(ii) Explain the Houyhnhnms’ attitude to death.
Chapter Ten
Gulliver begins to feel quite comfortably settled in Houyhnhnm land, all his problems of
food, clothing, furniture and housing having been gradually solved, by his own efforts and
the friendly cooperation and support of the master. He enjoys perfect health of body and
tranquility of mind. He can breathe freely for he feels that, at last, his life is free from the
harassments and humiliations of a corrupt society: no treachery or inconsistency of a friend,
nor the injury of a secret or an open enemy. There is no occasion to bribe, flatter or pimp to
procure the favours of any great man or his minion. He is happy that he has the advantage of
listening to the noble horses. Gulliver unhesitatingly confesses that the little knowledge he
has of any value has been acquired by the lectures from his master, and from the discourses
of his friends. To put it briefly, he is quite happy and reconciled to his situation in the land of
the Houyhnhnms. When he thinks of his family, his countrymen or of the human race in
general, he considers them as Yahoos in shape and disposition; perhaps a little more civilized
and qualified with the gift of speech, but making no other use of reason than to improve and
multiply their natural vices. Gulliver is so enamoured of the Houyhnhnms that he even begins
to imitate their gait and gesture. Gulliver has reached a point where he is full of self-loathing;
he feels “horror and detestation” every time he sees his reflection in a lake or foundation.
Gulliver is thus settled in a happy, carefree life among his new friends when he receives
an agonizing message from the master horse: the Houyhnhnm assembly has decreed that he
must leave their country. The representatives take offense at the master horse keeping a
Yahoo in his home and treating him like an equal. Moreover, they are afraid that Gulliver,
having demonstrated some signs of possessing the faculty of reason, could incite a rebellion
of Yahoos against them and pose a threat to their country. Gulliver’s master is distressed too
for having to lose Gulliver, but the pressure from his neighbours to follow the “exhortation”
of the Council is too much to bear.
Gulliver is miserable, but agrees to leave. In six weeks, with the help of a servant horse,
Gulliver constructs a canoe covered with Yahoo skins and a sail of the same material. He
stocks his boat with boiled rabbit flesh and other provisions, kisses the master’s foot and sails
towards an island he can see about five leagues away.
The unfeeling decision of the horses shows how far pure reason can go in successfully
managing human life. Gulliver, on the contrary, feels disturbed at the prospect of having to
leave. Since he has lived among the Houyhnhnms, he has the good sense to agree with the
wisdom and justice of their decision.
(i) Why does the Council of horses ask Gulliver to leave Houynhnhnmland?
(ii) How does Gulliver prepare for his voyage?
20
Chapter Eleven
After a tender parting from his Houyhnhnm friends Gulliver sets out in his canoe, hoping to
find an uninhabited island on which he could support his life. Returning to civilization, with
its corruptions and its incitements to viciousness is an intolerable idea to him. On the island
on which he lands he is pursued by savages and wounded in the knee but when he sees a ship,
he tries to avoid it. He is found by a party of men who have come to the shore in search of
water. They speak to him in Portuguese and wonder at his strange clothes. Meanwhile,
Gulliver trembles in fear and hatred. The Portuguese captain, a very courteous and generous
person, speaks to Gulliver in a very kind and civil manner, but Gulliver remains silent and
sullen. He is, in fact, ready to faint at the very smell of him and his men. The captain orders a
chicken and some good wine and then directs that Gulliver be put to bed in a clean cabin.
After remaining in the cabin for some time, Gulliver steals out of it and tries to leap
overboard, but is prevented and chained to his cabin. The captain, Pedro de Mendez is so
polite and shows such a moving concern for him that at last Gulliver decides to treat him as a
creature having some little portion of reason.
Bound by an oath not to destroy himself, Gulliver spends most of the voyage to Lisbon
shut up in his cabin, away from the crew. He avoids wearing clothes touched by Yahoos: in
Lisbon he has himself led to the highest room at the back of Don Pedro’s house. After
listening to Gulliver’s story, the captain patiently tries to persuade Gulliver to accept his own
kind again. At last, Gulliver is persuaded to walk in the street but he puts cotton or tobacco up
his nose, to keep out the Yahoo smell. Don Pedro persuades Gulliver to return home and
arranges for his journey; even giving him some money when he comes to see him off. On
reaching his home, the sight of his family revolts him. He faints when his wife embraces him.
For a year he cannot bear the presence of his family; “to this hour,” he says, “they dare not
presume to touch my bread,” nor does he permit them to take him by the hand. For five years
he lives in the stable, talking with horses.
Gulliver’s mind is seriously unhinged. He suffers from what the Greeks call hubris,
arrogance and excessive pride, characterized by a man stepping out of his proper place in the
world. Gulliver’s position is that of a man. but he acts as though he is a Houyhnhnm or a god-
immeasurably above his own kind. The paradox about Gulliver’s life or situation is that, in
his complacently stupid pride, he violently denounces all men’s pride except his own. He is
arrogant and ungrateful towards Captain Mendez. He reports that with the passage of time his
terror of men gradually lessens but his hatred and contempt increase. Even for his own
family, he has nothing but disgust and repulsion. His memory is “perpetually filled with
virtues and ideas of those exalted Houyhnhnms.” His pursuit of reason and virtue, divorced
from feeling and emotion, has resulted in madness and so he lives with horses and shuns his
family.
Had Swift meant us to take Gulliver’s antipathy to human kind seriously, he would have
made the captain, Don Pedro an unmistakable Yahoo. His emphasis on Don Pedro’s virtues is
clear indication that he wants us to think of Gulliver, at this final stage, as a person so
infatuated with a false or one-sided theory of human nature that he is blind to any fact which
contradicts it.

21
 Gulliver’s mind is infected by the complacency and pride of the Houyhnhnms, their
sense of superiority to the Yahoos, otherwise Gulliver is a good man. He has to be one, to be
able to recognize and admire “virtue and ideas” superior to his. The last voyage of Gulliver
needs to be given, not the moral emphasis that it was given in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries, but it needs to be given intellectual emphasis. Gulliver’s reaction to mankind on his
return is extravagant and violent, but it serves Swift’s avowed end of vexing the world by
shocking it violently but wittily out of its complacency with itself; and it does this perfectly.
Moreover, we must avoid, while reading, Gulliver’s Travels, identifying Swift with Gulliver.
(i) What is your opinion about Don Pedro?
(ii) Describe Gulliver’s reaction on meeting his family.
Chapter Twelve
While taking leave of the reader, Gulliver insists on having been absolutely truthful in what
he has recorded, simply because his purpose is to inform, not to amuse. A traveller’s chief
purpose, he says, should be to make men wiser, not dazzle them with wonders. Particularly
after living with the Houyhnhnms, he cannot be induced to write anything that is not
absolutely true. When Gulliver writes the account of his voyages, his sole intention is the
“PUBLIC GOOD.” That intention is proved by his presentation of the virtues of the noble
Houyhnhnms, which will necessarily shame men in their vices. Gulliver goes on to claim that
he writes without passion, prejudice or ill-will and solely for the information and instruction
of mankind.
Gulliver does not register the countries he has discovered for the crown of Great Britain,
as was required by law in those days. He believes that Lilliput is not worth subjugating and
that the other lands would be too dangerous to attack. Besides, he is aware of the brutality
and injustice by which new dominions are acquired and modern colonies set up. England, of
course, is innocent of all such barbarity, he asserts. Swift/Gulliver is obviously being ironical.
Gulliver has returned to humanity but he still cannot bear their smell. Making a strong
statement he says;
I am not in the least provoked at the sight of a lawyer, a pick- pocket, a colonel, a
fool, a lord, a gangster, a politician, a whore-monger, a physician . . . or the like:
this is all according to the due course of things: but when I behold a lump of
deformity and diseases, both of body, and mind, smitten with pride it
immediately breaks all the measures of my patience; neither shall I be ever able
to comprehend how such an animal and such a vice could tally together.
Swift’s message is unmistakable. The worst vice or fault in man is pride. Gulliver
becomes a living example of what this vice can do to a man: alienate him and render him
ridiculous.

5. Irony, Satire, and the Comic Spirit

Irony denotes a rhetorical figure and a manner of discourse in which, for the most part,
meaning is contrary to words. With its double-edgedness and its contradiction between the
meaning and the words, irony becomes a very fine instrument for expressing the comic-spirit.

22
Irony, in fact, strikes a balance between the serious and the comic. It’s the ironical nature of
the balance between the serious and the comic, which justifies the view that irony springs
from a perception of the absurdity of life, its being both tragic and comic. According to one
definition, irony, in the widest sense, begins with the contemplation of the fate of the world,
where the artist becomes a kind of god, viewing creation with a detached ironical smile. The
human condition as such is, therefore, to be regarded as potentially absurd deserving an
ironical response and treatment. An ironical response depends on the perception or awareness
of a discrepancy or incongruity between words and their meaning; or between actions and
their results or between appearance and reality. In all cases, there may be an element of the
absurd and the paradoxical.
The two basic kinds of irony are verbal irony and irony of situation, also described as
structural irony. Verbal irony simply means saying what one does not mean. In literary works
that exhibit structural irony, irony is not just an occasional verbal feature, but irony or
duplicity of meaning is sustained by the very structure and situation of the work. One
common device of this sort of irony is the invention of a naive hero or else a naive narrator
whose simplicity makes him interpret situations and actions in such a way that a perceptive
reader will not accept his views literally or uncritically. The hero/narrator of Gulliver’s
Travels is an example. Gulliver is not Swift but an instrument to project an ironical view of
human frailty, folly, and vice.

Irony has several functions. It is often the witting and unwitting instrument of truth. It
chides, deflates, and scorns. It is not surprising, therefore, that irony is the most efficient
weapon of the satirist. The satirist is made of sterner stuff. He is not content to just elicit an
amused smile at the absurdity of life or its policies. He is outspoken and hard hitting and
comes down heavily on human follies. He censures, ridicules, and directly attacks and
denounces the follies and vices of society and thus brings contempt and derision upon
aberrations from moral and social norms. The satire is a kind of protest born out of anger and
indignation and the satirist is a kind of therapist whose function is to destroy the fundamental
causes of sickness of human spirit - like hypocrisy, pride, and greed. The satirist does not
necessarily confine himself to such moral disorders only; Swift, for example, apart from
attacking hypocrisy, pride, and cruelty, attacks the lust for power and money. Gulliver’s
Travels attacks corruption in law-courts, rivalry and intrigue in royal-courts, incompetence of
physicians, unjust economic systems that perpetuate inequality and irresponsible scientists.
Gulliver’s Travels is a bitter attack on Swift’s contemporary 18th century England and at
the same time an attack on mankind in general. The voyage to Lilliput is especially an
ingenious political satire of great interest and enjoyment for a student of 18th century history
of England. He can relate the events of the story with the actual historical controversies and
personalities of Swift’s time. But Gulliver’s Travels has universal appeal. It’s a classic
because it exists outside space and time. It’s the story of man and has continued to be
enjoyable and relevant, even to a man who knows nothing about 18th century England.
Human nature is as corrupt today as it was at the time when Gulliver’s Travels was written.
Gulliver’s Travels is a complex book. Its complexity lies, not only in the multiple levels
at which it can be read but also in the variety of stylistic devices by which this complexity is

23
produced. It is a straight narrative, a comedy, a bitter comic satire and there is the double
voice of irony. There are quick shifts in technique, and a variety of techniques interwoven
with absolute ease and comfort.
The book opens with an apparently factual and straightforward narrative and we readily
accept Gulliver as a representative Englishman who falls into the hands of the little men in
the toy-kingdom of Lilliput in Book I. In passages of sheer comedy, we laugh at the acrobatic
skill of the politicians and courtiers, at the absurd jealousy of the diminutive minister who
suspects an adulterous relationship between his wife and the giant Gulliver. The comedy
turns into irony when we gradually realize that the six-inch midgets, in fact, are ourselves and
Gulliver is only an outsider, an observer. Irony is part of the entire structure of the book, so
that the meaning, or the deeper meaning is seen obliquely. Gulliver boasts about “our noble
country, the Mistress of Arts and Arms, the scourge of France” and at the same time he
betrays every available scandalous fact about the country he professes to love. Comedy turns
into comic satire in the passage concerning the High-heels and Low heels and the Big-
Endians and the Small-Endians. Gradually, with perfect ease and timing we are led to see the
most evil and brutal aspect of humanity. The funny and the comical with which the first book
opened, turns into contempt and derision as Swift shows the limits of hypocrisy, ingratitude
and treachery of the Lilliputian court.
In Brobdingnag, in Book II, we laugh at the plight of Gulliver, the “giant” of Lilliput. He
is frightened by a puppy, rendered ludicrous by the tricks of a monkey, stands in awe of a
dwarf, is embarrassed by the lewd antics of the maids of honour, and content to be fondled
and nursed by a little nine-year old girl. All this continues till Gulliver relates to the king the
history of England and recommends to him the use of gun-powder. The king becomes the
spokesman for Swift when he makes a scathing comment on the Europeans “as the most
pernicious race of little vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the face of the earth.”
The king has nothing but contempt for the destructive and utterly cruel ways of men. Gulliver
is all disapproval for the king’s refusal to use gun-powder. He dismisses it as “a nice
unnecessary scruple” and a sign of backwardness. We have no doubt about who is on the side
of the good and of the evil. We also know that Swift’s opinion is quite opposite to Gulliver’s
and that irony lies in Gulliver, the hero being quite naive and absolutely wrong. He is small,
petty and stupid in his thinking as well as in his physical appearance.
To take another example of the quick transition from one technique to another in
Gulliver’s Travels we consider some episodes from Book III. The professors at the School of
Projectors in Balnibarbi are presented as progressive scientists, but we quickly find that they
are devoid of common-sense, and that unless we want to approve of such extravagant projects
as “softening marble for pincushions” we have to dismiss them entirely. Significantly, the
people at work in it are described as ‘projectors’, that is, people not engaged in disinterested
research but merely on the look-out for gadgets which will save labour and bring in money.
As we move on to the school of Political Projectors, we are told that there Gulliver was ill-
entertained and the professors appear to him “wholly out of their senses” and bitter satire
takes over from this point. Swift tells us that these unhappy people are following, “wild,
impossible chimeras.” They are proposing schemes to “persuade monarchs to choose
favourites upon the score of their wisdom, capacity virtue . . . of rewarding merit, great

24
abilities and eminent services.” The remedies suggested for curing people of corrupt ways are
highly comical. But they make you laugh and cry at the same time, because here only the
surface is comical, at its centre is tragedy transformed through style and tone into icy irony.
Those who try to devise means of correcting mankind are busy in pursuit of chimeras because
human nature is beyond correction. Gulliver’s Travels shows the dark and the grim truth
about man. Irony and humour make this truth palatable.

Questions
(i) What is the significance of Gulliver’s visit to the Academy of Projectors in Book III?
(ii) Which aspects of contemporary society does Swift satirize in Book III?
(iii) In Gulliver’s Travels Swift holds up a mirror to human defects and depravity. Elaborate.
(iv) Compare and contrast the Yahoos and Houynhnhnms, in terms of their nature,
behaviour, and social organization.
(v) Based on your reading of Book IV, show how Gulliver’s personality changes towards
the end of the last voyage.
(vi) Swift is usually charged with being a misanthrope. Does your reading of Gulliver’s
Travels justify this?

25
 Reading Material: Gulliver’s Travels (Books III-IV)

CONTENTS
1. A. E. Case, “Personal and Political Satire in Gulliver’s Travels”
[from Case, A. E. Four Essays on Gulliver’s Travels. Princeton University Press,
1945]
2. A E. Case, “The Significance of Gulliver’s Travels”
[from Case, A. E. Four Essays on Gulliver’s Travels. Princeton University Press,
1945]
3. Joseph Horell, “What Gulliver Knew”
[from Swift: A Collection of Critical Essays. Ed. Ernest Tuveson. New Delhi:
Prentice-Hall of India, 1979, pp 55-70]
4. John F. Ross, “The Final Comedy of Lemuel Gulliver,” Studies in the Comic,
University of California Publications in English, VIII, No. 2(1941), pp 175-196.

26
1. Arthur E. Case, “Personal and Political Satire in Gulliver’s Travels”
. . . In 1896, however, G.A. Aitken published in an appendix to an edition of Gulliver's
Travels four previously imprinted paragraphs contained in the manuscript emendations in the
Ford copy of the first edition. Three years later these paragraphs, which described the
rebellion of Lindalino against Laputa, were restored to their proper place in the third chapter
of the third voyage by G. R. Dennis, who edited the Travels for the Temple Scott edition. The
effect of the new passage on the interpretation of the voyage was remarkable. There could be
little doubt that it was an allegorical description of the controversy over Wood's halfpence,
with which Swift had dealt so brilliantly in the Drapier's Letters only two years before
Gulliver's Travels was published. And since Lindalino obviously stood for Dublin, it is
hardly surprising that Laputa should have been taken for England as a whole, hovering over
all of Ireland, or Balnibarbi. In 1919 Sir Charles Firth not only endorsed this view, but
extended it to the interpretation of other parts of the third voyage, and even allocated it to
color his ideas of the fourth. In particular he suggested that Munodi was Viscount Middleton,
Chancellor of Ireland from 1714 to 1725, and that Balnibarbi in the impoverished state
described in the third chapter represented Ireland under English domination. This theory, Of
course, necessitates a belief that Swift changed the meaning of his symbols from time to time:
for example, Lagado is in Balnibarbi, but the Grand Academy of Lagado is generally
identified as the Royal Society of London; therefore Balnibarbi, of which Lagado is the
metropolis, must sometimes stand for Ireland, and sometimes for England or for the British
Isles as a whole. Other inconsistencies involved in Sir Charles's theory suggest themselves on
further examination. From the beginning of the voyage Swift makes a good deal of the
minuteness of Laputa and the relatively great extent of the land of Balnibarbi which it
dominates. Moreover, Laputa is inhabited only by a small number of courtiers and their
hangers-on (chiefly scientific and musical); it is not self-supporting, but is dependent upon
sustenance drawn from below; it travels about by a series of oblique motions which probably
symbolizes the indirect and erratic course of Whig policy under the ministerial clique headed
by Walpole. Lagado, the metropolis of the kingdom, which certainly stands for London, is
below and subject to Laputa. Lindalino, or Dublin, is described as the second city of the
kingdom—an accurate description if the kingdom is the whole British Isles, but not if it is
Ireland alone. Moreover, the general account of the King's methods of suppressing
insurrections which precedes the story of Lindalino's revolt is accurate only if Balnibarbi
includes Great Britain.
The King would be the most absolute Prince in the Universe, if he could but
prevail on a Ministry to join with him; but these having their Estates below on
the Continent, and considering that the Office of a Favourite hath a very
uncertain Tenure, would never consent to the enslaving their Country. . . . not
dare his Ministers advise him to an Action, which as it would render them odious
to the People, so it would be a great Damage to their own Estates, which lie all
below, for the Island is the Kings Demesn. (3.3.12.)
It is hardly necessary to point out that few of George I's ministry held any significant
amount of Irish land, and that none of them displayed any fear of Irish public opinion.

27
 If the older theory, which identified Balnibarbi as England and Laputa as the Court, is
reconsidered, it will be seen that one slight emendation will bring it into conformity with the
account of the revolt of Lindalino. If the continent of Balnibarbi represents all of the British
Isles, the inconsistencies in the allegory disappear. There can be no serious doubt that Swift,
in this restored passage of Gulliver's Travels, is using the affair of Wood's halfpence again,
but this time it is for a different purpose. In 1724, addressing Irishmen through the Drapier's
Letters, he was trying to arouse national feeling and to make the issue, one of Ireland against
England. In 1726, in a more general work, addressed to the English more than to any other
nation, he made the issue one of tyranny over the subjects by a would-be absolute monarch.
When this is once understood it is not difficult to find plausible counterparts in history for the
various details of the description of the Laputian method of suppressing insurrections.
The three ways of punishing a recalcitrant city (interposing the island between the city
and the sun: pelting the city with rocks; and completely crushing it by dropping the island
down upon it) represent three degrees of severity in actual practice, perhaps threats,
accompanied by withdrawal of court patronage; moderate civil repressive action; and military
invasion. The reason given for the King's disinclination to proceed to the last degree of
severity is that this might endanger the adamantine bottom of the island, which appears to
stand either for the monarchy or for the British constitution. It should be remembered that
Swift believed in the theory of government which divided the power among the three estates
of the realm, and which relied on a balance among them. Any estate which arrogated to itself
an undue share of power was held to endanger the whole structure of the government.
The chief defenses of any city against oppression by the King and his court are thus
expressed allegorically:
. . . if the Town intended to be destroyed should have in it any tall Rocks, as it
generally falls out in the larger Cities, a Situation probably chosen at first with a
View to prevent such a Catastrophe; or if it abound in high Spires or Pillars of
Stone, a sudden Fall might endanger the Bottom or under Surface of the Island.
Of the three defenses, the “high Spires” seem least ambiguous: almost certainly these
represent churches or churchmen—possibly the ecclesiastical interest generally, which rallied
almost unanimously to the Irish cause. The “tall Rocks” seem to differ from the “pillars of
stone” chiefly in being natural rather than creations of man, which suggests that the rocks
may represent either the hereditary nobility, who constituted the second estate of the realm, or
the higher ecclesiastical authorities, representing a divine rather than a man-made institution.
Similarly the “pillars of Stone” may be either self-made citizens of power and importance, or
certain man-made legal institutions. In the story of the revolt of Lindalino the strong pointed
rock in the middle of the city is almost certainly the combined power of the Irish Church,
centered in St. Patrick's Cathedral; and the “four large Towers” presumably stand for the four
most important local governmental agencies of Ireland—the Privy Council, the Grand Jury,
and the two houses of the Irish Parliament. The “vast Quantity of the most combustible
Fewel” collected by the inhabitants probably stands for the multitude of incendiary pamphlets
written against Wood's halfpence by Swift and others. Finally, the unsuccessful experiment
made by one of the King's officers, who let down a piece of adamant from Laputa and found

28
it so strongly drawn toward the towers and the rock that he could hardly draw it back,
presumably represents the bold resistance of the Irish civil and ecclesiastical institutions to
the King's measures.
That this incident could have been omitted from the text of Gulliver's Travels without
causing an apparent break in the continuity of the story is characteristic of the structure of the
third voyage, which differs markedly from that of the first. In his account of Lilliput Swift
provided a climactic plot, based upon the fortunes of a particular Tory administration. In the
third voyage no such plot is practicable: the history of Wapole's administration had not
reached a climax in 1726 and Swift would not have wished to tell a story which could only
have emphasized the success of his enemies. He therefore chose to attack the Whigs not by
dramatic narrative, but by satiric portraiture. There, is consequently, no chronological scheme
for the third voyage, which is a picture of conditions rather than of acts.
As in the first voyage, Swift is chary of drawing too obvious a portrait of George I. Not
much is said of the physical appearance of the King of Laputa; there are, however, several
references which intelligent contemporaries must have interpreted without difficulty. One is
the parenthetical remark about the King's “being distinguished above all his Predecessors for
his Hospitality to Strangers”—a palpable hit at George's extensive appointments of
Hanoverians to posts of profit in England. The last paragraph of the third chapter is still more
open satire—almost dangerously open. “By a fundamental Law of this Realm,” Gulliver
observes, “neither the King nor either of his two elder Sons are permitted to leave the Island,
nor the Queen till she is past Child-bearing.” No Englishman could have failed to be
reminded by this sentence that Act of Settlement had originally forbidden the departure of the
sovereign from England without the express consent of Parliament, and that George I, whose
journeys to his beloved Hanover aroused the general resentment of his English subjects, had
persuaded Parliament to repeal this provision of the Act in 1716. George's delight in music is
parodied by the description of the Laputian King's fondness for the art. Here, however, and
even more in the case of the King's supposed personal interest in science, Swift modifies the
actual facts for the sake of his thesis. Under the reign of Anne, men of letters had received a
considerable amount of royal patronage, especially during the administration of Oxford.
Under the reign of George I it seemed, especially to Tory wits who had been deprived of their
posts of profit, that the pendulum had swung away from the profession of literature in the
direction of musicians and experimental scientists. Patronage being, at least in theory, a
personal prerogative of the King, Swift in his allegory attributed the shift in patronage to the
King's inclinations. How far this shift was a fact, and, if a fact, how far it was due to
conscious intention on the part of the government, are matters of secondary importance to the
present inquiry. It may be said, however, that while Whig writers received some government
patronage during the administration of Oxford (largely because of Swift's insistence), Tory
writers got very little after the Whigs came into power in 1714. Moreover, a great wave of
invention and commercial exploitation of inventions coincided with the opening years of
George I's reign, and scientists, notably the astronomers Newton and Flamsteed, were given
generous encouragement.
The Prince of Wales, whom Swift had once portrayed as the heir to the Lilliputian
crown, with one high and one low heel, is in the third voyage aligned more definitely and

29
sympathetically with the Tories. He is described as “a great Lord at Court, nearly related to
the King, and for that reason alone used with Respect.” The hostility between the Prince and
his father, and his consequent unpopularity in the King's court, were, of course, common
knowledge. Swift represents the Prince as one who “had great natural and acquired Parts,
adorned with Integrity and Honour, but so ill an Ear for Musick, that his Detractors reported
he had been often known to beat Time in the wrong Place; neither could his Tutors without
extreme difficulty teach him to demonstrate the most easy Proposition in the Mathematicks.”
It is undoubtedly true that Prince George had supreme contempt for academic learning, and
while he probably had a better knowledge of music than Swift ascribes to him here.
The Prince of Laputa is not uninterested in the subjects which engross the attention of his
father's court: he is positively interested in all the other things which they neglect. Here again
Swift contrasts the theoretical Whig King with the practical Tory Prince. Alone among the
Laputans the latter is anxious to learn from Gulliver the laws and customs of other countries.
Alone among Laputans of rank he dispenses with the services of a flapper. He makes “very
wise observations” on everything Gulliver tells him, and is loath to allow the traveler to
depart, although helpful and generous when Gulliver persists in his intention. Swift makes
clear the Tory hopes of the early 1720's—that Prince George on his accession to the throne
might call the old Tory administration to power—through the Laputian Prince's
recommendation of Gulliver to a friend of his in Lagado, the lord Munodi, who has been
variously identified with Bolingbroke and Lord Middleton, but never, apparently, with
Oxford, whom he actually represents. The evidence for this identification is plentiful. Munodi
is described as a former governor of Lagado, which must be translated either as Lord Mayor
of London or Prime Minister of England. As Swift displays no interest in the municipal
government of London, the second alternative is much more probable. Munodi is represented
as having been discharged from office for inefficiency by a cabal of ministers— a close
parallel with Oxford's dismissal from his post in 1714 and his trial on the charge of treason
between 1715 and 1717. It will be recalled that when the accusation against Oxford was
finally dropped in 1717 he returned from politics to the quiet existence of a country
gentleman on his estates in Herefordshire. This retirement is reflected not only in Munodi's
having withdrawn from public life, but in his name, which seems to be a contraction of
“mundum odi”—”I hated the world.”
Munodi's story is a thinly veiled allegory of the results to be expected from flighty
experimental Whig government as opposed to sound conservative Tory government.
Balnibarbi, the inhabitants of which are occupied with financial speculation and with the
exploitation of chimerical “projects,” both in the city and in the country, is a symbol of the
British Isles under George I and the Whigs: Munodi's private estate, managed in “the good
old way,” to the evident profit of its owner and the pleasure of its citizenry, represents the
way of life of the Tory remnant, sneered at by the adherents of the newer way as reactionary.
The triumph of the innovators is attributed to the conversion of weak-minded members of the
governing class by the court circle in Laputa, with the result that their principles have been
imported into the management of the subject continent, and a center of the new experimental
culture has even been founded in Lagado. The Grand Academy no doubt stands in part for the
Royal Society, and the fact that Swift in his allegory lays its creation at the door of the court

30
is significant as indicating the center of his interest, since the Royal Society, while it had
received encouragement from the court of Charles II at the time of its foundation in 1660,
certainly had more influence on the court of George I than that court had upon it. . . .
The fifth and sixth chapters of the third voyage are concerned with the Grand Academy
of Lagado, generally held to stand for the Royal Society of London. That the Society was in
Swift's mind cannot be doubted, but that it is the primary object of the satire in these chapters
is a conclusion that deserves examination, at least. The first discrepancy in the account has to
do with the physical appearance of the Academy's buildings. “This Academy,” says Gulliver,
“is not an entire single Building, but a Continuation of several Houses on both sides of a
Street; which growing wast, was purchased and applied to that Use.” (3.5.1) The description
does not fit the buildings of the real Society, which in 1710 had moved its Museum from
Arundel House to a building in Crane Court, Fleet Street, quite unlike the structure pictured
by Gulliver. In the light of the emphasis placed on the Academy's school of political
projectors it is not impossible that the description should be applied rather to the rapidly
expanding governmental buildings on both sides of Whitehall.
Far more interesting than the outward appearance of the Academy is the nature of the
activities carried on within. Many of the Royal Society's experiments were in the realm of
pure science, and were conducted for no immediately practical end. In the Academy the large
majority of the projects are designed to bring about supposed improvements in commerce,
medicine, or some other field of importance in daily life: what is ridiculous is that the
methods, rather than the purpose of the inventors, are chimerical. Another important fact is
the insistence upon the word “PROJECTORS” in the title of Academy: it is printed in
capitals, and it occurs, together with the word “'projects,” again and again in this section of
the voyage. These words were not very frequently applied to members of the Royal Society
and their exercises in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: the usual terms of contempt
were “virtuosi” and “experiments.” “Projector” was, however, a word all too familiar to
Englishmen of the second decade of the eighteenth century. To them it signified a man who
promoted a get-rich-quick scheme, plausible but impracticable, for the carrying out of which
he levied tax upon the public. This latter habit seems to be alluded to twice in the fifth
chapter: first, when Gulliver remarks that it is customary for the projectors to beg money
from all who visit them and secondly, when the inventor of the frame for writing books
suggests that his operations “might be still improved, and much expedited, if the Publick
would raise a Fund for making and employing five hundred such Frames in Lagado.”
Speculative schemes actually floated during the first six years of the reign of George I, and
especially in 1720—the “South Sea year”— were in some instances almost as illusory as
those described by Swift, and may even have suggested a few of them. Companies
advertising for subscriptions included one for extracting silver from lead, and others for
making bays in Colchester and elsewhere, for manuring farm lands, for a more inoffensive
method of emptying and cleansing “necessary houses,” for bringing live sea-fish to London
in specially built tank-vessels, for making salt water fresh, for planting mulberry trees and
raising silkworms in Chelsea Park, for fishing for wrecks along the Irish coast, for a wheel for
perpetual motion, and, finally, for “an undertaking which shall in due course be revealed.” An
anonymous wag advertised for subscriptions to a company for melting down sawdust and

31
chips and casting them into clean deal boards without cracks or knots: another group, having
obtained several hundred subscriptions to a scheme almost equally vague, publicly
announced that the venture had been a hoax intended to make the public more cautious, and
returned the subscription money. The remainder of the third voyage contains only scattered
references to specific events or persons contemporary with Swift. In the seventh chapter it is
sufficiently clear that the “modern representative” of assemblies, which compares so
unfavourably with the senate of ancient Rome, is the British Parliament. . . .

32
2. A. E. Case, “The Significance of Gulliver’s Travels”

. . . It is important to keep in mind the main purpose of this third voyage, which has
universally been judged to be the least successful of the four, largely for lack of unity. It is
impossible not to agree with the general verdict, but it is easy to overstate the degree of
disorganization. Superficially the voyage seems to be divided into four sections, recounting
the adventures in Laputa, in Balnibarbi, in Glubbdubdrib, and in Luggnagg. The first two
sections are regarded as attacks upon science, the third as a criticism of history, and the fourth
as a personal expression of Swift's fear of old age. In point of fact, the attacks upon science
and history are subsidiary to a single main purpose—an attack upon folly in government,
which, in Swift's view, was identical with theoretical innovation, as opposed to the following
of old and tried methods, modified only by the adoption of such variations as have been
proved successful in practice in other countries. Swift apparently felt that the Whigs had
transferred to the scientists much of the encouragement which earlier administrations had
given to men to letters, and he regarded this tendency as symptomatic of the inclination of the
Whigs toward chimerical experimentation in all fields.
The attack on the “pure” sciences of mathematics, astronomy, and music was probably
associated most closely with the inner court circle in Laputa because Swift felt that it was the
practitioners of these arts who had the ear of George I. Handel was enjoying royal patronage,
Flamsteed and Halley had been given numerous grants, including Flamsteed House in
Greenwich (the beginning of the Royal Observatory), and Isaac Newton had not only been
knighted, but had been called in as an expert to support the Whig administration's contention
that Wood's halfpence were not debased coins. This, naturally, enraged Swift: it is quite
possibly at the root of his observation about the fondness of mathematicians for meddling in
politics:
But, what I chiefly admired, and thought altogether unaccountable, was the
strong Disposition I observed in them towards News and Politicks, perpetually
enquiring into Publick Affairs, giving their Judgments in matters of State; and
passionately disputing every Inch of a Party Opinion. I have indeed observed the
same Disposition among most of the Mathematicians I have known in Europe,
although I could never discover the least Analogy between the two Sciences;
unless those people suppose, that because the smallest Circle hath as many
Degrees as the largest, therefore the Regulation and Management of the World
require no more Abilities than the handling and turning of a Globe. But, I rather
take this Quality to spring from a very common Infirmity of Human Nature,
inclining us to more curious and conceited in Matters where we have least
Concern, and for which we are least adapted either by Study or Nature. (3.2.12.)
The activities of the “projectors” or inventors in the field of applied science are satirized
in the description of the activities of Balnibarbi. The picture of agricultural conditions in the
subject island, culminating in Munodi's story of the old and the new mills, is, as has already
been pointed out, an allegorical criticism of the new Whig economic and financial policies. In
the Grand Academy of Lagado it is not only in the school of political projectors that Swift
has statecraft in his mind: even in the fifth chapter the experiments, on analysis, will be found

33
to constitute absurd attempts, fostered by the government, to alter the normal mode of life
within the country. Often the ultimate purposes of these experiments are quite practical, but
the methods by which the purpose are to be achieved are too roundabout, too expensive, and
utterly unlikely to bring about the end in view.
In contrast with all this are the examples of good government in accordance with the
tried, sound principles of ancient models, as described by the ghosts of Glubbdubdrib. The
exemplar of “gothic” government in classical times is the Roman republic at its best. The
great heroes are the two Brutuses and the younger Cato, and the Roman senate is described as
“an Assembly of Heroes and Demy-Gods.” Julius Caesar and the succeeding emperors are
treated as tyrants, under whose rule corruption and luxury brought about the decay of all
virtues. More than once modern European governments are likened to those of imperial
Rome: the disappearance of “Roman Virtue” is lamented, and the British Parliament, under a
thin disguise, is described as “a Knot of Pick-pockets, High-way-men and Bullies.”
The account of the Struldbruggs near the end of the third voyage is the episode which,
more than any other in the Travels, seems to be dissociated from the main scheme of the
book. It is often spoken of as a purely personal expression by Swift of his fear of senility.
That this personal feeling intensified the authors' emotions as he wrote the passage no one
can doubt: nevertheless the incident is logically related to the purpose of the voyage. It will
be remembered that Gulliver interrupts the Luggnaggians’ first description of the
Struldbruggs with a rhapsody in which he allows his mind to speculate on the happiness
which must be the lot of these immortal creatures and the benefits which their ever-increasing
experience and wisdom must confer upon the rest of mankind. The reaction of the gentlemen
of Luggnagg with whom Gulliver is talking is significant.
When I had ended, and the Sum of my Discourse had been interpreted as before,
to the rest of Company, there was a good deal of Talk among them in the
Language of the Country, not without some Laughter at my Expence. At last the
same Gentleman who had been my interpreter said, he was desired by the rest to
set me right in a few Mistakes, which I had fallen into through the common
Imbecility of human Nature, and upon that allowance was less answerable for
them.
The whole chapter is one more rebuke to human folly which, giving itself over to wishful
thinking, conjures up imaginary and impossible ways of dealing with the ills of society,
instead of recognizing the nature of mankind as it is and approaching human problems from a
practical point of view.
Swift's decision to cast his treatise in the form of a narrative necessitated the creation of a
protagonist. Gulliver is all too often identified with Swift himself. No single misinterpretation
of Swift's intentions has done more to obscure the real purpose of Gulliver's Travels. Gulliver
is not only a character distinct from his creator—he is not identifiable with any of the actual
contemporaries whose vicissitudes sometimes, especially in the first voyage, serve as a basis
for his adventures. His birth, training, and early activities are carefully calculated to make
him the perfect observer of and commentator upon the civilizations with which he comes in
contact. By birth he is the average middle-class Englishman. With an inclination toward the

34
sea, and with a special aptitude for languages which is to stand him in good stead. His
education is more rounded than that of most men of his day: upon a base of traditional
classical training as prescribed in the universities is superimposed the scientific training of
the physician. A naturally studious habit leads him to supplement this training with much
reading: adventurousness, curiosity, a faculty for observation and analysis of human nature
and customs, and, most important, a high regard for truth, complete the mental and moral
equipment of the perfect travel author. . . .
In the third voyage Gulliver's emotions may be described as at a dead center. He appears
to be cured of any extravagant admiration of European society: he has now become the
detached and half-cynical commentator on human life from without. In this voyage alone he
is an observer and not an actor. This is entirely appropriate to the development of his
character, although it weakens the interest of the narrative and is, in fact, one of the most
important reasons for the relative ineffectiveness of the voyage. Gulliver is coolly ironic in
comparing Europe with Laputa, sometimes to the advantage of one, sometimes to that of the
other, but in neither case with any show of partisanship. His comments upon his return to his
country are the briefest and least emotional of the Travels, The opening paragraph of the last
book speaks of his, remaining at home “in a very happy condition” about four months, but
this statement is for the purpose of providing a contrast with Gulliver's change of heart during
the final voyage—a change of heart more significant and more carefully depicted than any
that has gone before.
The changing attitude of Gulliver toward the Yahoos and the Houyhnhnms is of the first
importance in determining the significance of those two species and, in consequence, of the
whole voyage—indeed, of the entire Travels. At the opening of the voyage Gulliver is
representative European, somewhat better, perhaps, than most of his class, but by no means a
paragon, and certainly a man who has adjusted himself to a consciousness of the ordinary and
even the extraordinary vices and follies of humanity. In this state he does not recognize that
the Yahoos have any likeness to man: they are, to him, “ugly Monsters,” to be described as a
traveller would describe any curious and loathsome beast he encountered in the course of his
adventures. It is not until the Houyhnhnms place him beside a Yahoo for purposes of
comparison that he sees any -resemblance between himself and these “abominable Animals,”
and then he emphasizes those physical aspects which the Yahoos have in common with
“savage Nations.” At the same time he stresses the difference between the behavior of
Europeans and that of Yahoos, which is apparently something more repulsive than he has
encountered in the whole breadth of his travels. For a considerable time he protests against
being identified with the Yahoos, and even begs his master not to apply the word “Yahoo” to
him. During the first three chapters he avoids speaking of Europeans as Yahoos, calling them
“others of my own Kind,” “Creatures like myself,” or “Our Countrymen.” Acknowledging
the physical resemblance between human beings and Yahoos, he protests that he cannot
account for the “degenerate and brutal nature” of the latter. Gradually, in the course of the
conversations with his master which occupy the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters,
Gulliver falls into the habit of, referring to Europeans as Yahoos, partly for convenience and
partly because, as the perfection of the Houyhnhnms is borne in upon him and contrasted
with the actions and thoughts of his countrymen, he becomes aware, little by little, of the

35
discrepancy between ideal and actual man. This new consciousness is intensified by his
contemplation of the Houyhnhnms and their institutions, as they are described in the eighth
and ninth chapters. The ultimate state of mind produced in Gulliver by this gradual process of
education through contact with a superior race is expressly stated in the tenth chapter.
At first, indeed, I did not feel that natural Awe which the Yahoos and all other
Animals bear towards them; but it grew upon me by Degrees, much sooner than I
imagined, and was mingled with a respectful Love and Gratitude, that they would
condescend to distinguish me from the rest of my Species.
The attitude of the Houyhnhnms toward Gulliver is of particular interest. From the first
they distinguish him from the Yahoos of the island—partly, it is true, because of his clothes,
but also because of his behavior. The master Houyhnhnm at once admits Gulliver to the
house, a privilege which he would not have accorded an ordinary Yahoo, and is astonished at
the “Teachablenesss, Civility and Cleanliness” of this prodigy. All the Houyhnhnms who
meet Gulliver are similarly impressed. The master describes him to the quadrennial assembly
as a “wonderful Yahoo” with all the qualities of that animal, “only a little more civilized by
some Tincture of Reason, which however was in a degree as far inferior to the Houyhnhnm
Race as the Yahoos of their Country were to [Gulliver].” This placing of Gulliver midway
between the Houyhnhnms and the Yahoos, by a creature possessing absolute accuracy of
judgment, is extremely significant. In the end the master dismisses Gulliver with regret and
shows no disinclination to his society. In other words, a somewhat above-average
Englishman was not altogether unacceptable company for a perfect being.
The natural result of Gulliver's experiences among the Houyhnhnms, and of his mental
development, is to be found in the last two chapters of the Travels and in the Letter to
Sympson. The expressions about humanity which are found here are not those of Gulliver in
his normal state of mind. Swift is employing a device which he has used once before, at the
conclusion of the second voyage, when his hero returned from the earlier and less nearly
perfect Utopia of Brobdingnag. Evidently Swift was fascinated by the idea of the difficulty of
readjusting oneself to ordinary existence after a prolonged exposure to extraordinary
conditions. . . .
In the same way, but dealing with a far more significant matter—readjustment to mental
and spiritual, rather than physical conditions—Swift shows us at the end of the fourth voyage
his conceptions of the effects which would be produced in the mind of an intelligent man who
spent a long period in the company of creatures who were perfect in every way. Such a man,
Swift believed, would tend to exaggerate his own imperfections and those of the race to
which he belonged, and would, in the end, find living with his former associates intolerable.
Anything less than perfection would be abhorrent: degrees of imperfection would be
imperceptible and irrelevant. The opinions concerning mankind which Gulliver gives vent to
are his own, not those of his creator. To emphasize this, Swift provides Gulliver with an
unusual rescuer from his last adventure—Captain Pedro de Mendez. The majority of the
seamen in the Travels are a good sort, but Mendez is a paragon. His generosity, his acute
perception of the state of Gulliver's mind, his unfailing kindliness in the face of repeated
rebuffs, mark him as the finest of all the European characters in the book. Yet Gulliver,

36
controlled by the exalted conception of virtue he has acquired from living with Houyhnhnms,
and by his now fixed belief in the utter worthlessness of all Yahoos, with whom he has come
to group the human race, is unable to perceive even the most extraordinary goodness when it
manifests itself in one of the hated species. The effects of this mental alteration are, of course,
more lasting than those which resulted from the journey to Brobdingnag, but they are not
permanent: after five years Gulliver is able in retrospect to appreciate the virtues of Mendez
and he gradually becomes more accustomed to his family.

37
3. Joseph Horell, “What Gulliver Knew”
. . . The success of Swift's fiction, and hence of his satire, largely depends on a persuasive
accumulation of circumstantial and ironic detail, and (what is more important) on certain
manipulations of detail. The following are rough and ready stylistic paradigms:
I afterwards saw five or six of different Ages, the youngest not above two
Hundred Years old, who were brought to me at several Times by some of my
Friends [the Struldbruggs].
I took a second Leave of my Master: But as I was going to prostrate myself to
kiss his Hoof, he did me the Honour to raise it gently to my Mouth [the
Houyhnhnm Master].
To provide for our dual perception, which his irony requires, Swift loads innocent detail,
so that our acceptance of a normal version of experience involves our entertaining another
which is abnormal, but which is really the meat in the sandwich. In word, phrase, and larger
unit Swift employs a subordinative technique of weaving the “odd, grotesque, and wild” (the
qualities he assigned to humor) into the texture of dully plausible statement of fact. In
Gulliver's Travels there is a constant shuttling back and forth between real and unreal, normal
and absurd, especially in the early chapters of each book, until our standards of credulity are
so relaxed that we are ready to buy a pit in a poke. Swift's fiction conditions us for imposture,
and his readers are in more than one sense his victims.
As for the accommodative process in the first two books, there is some truth in Dr.
Johnson's dictum. “When once you have thought of big men and little men, it is very easy to
do all the rest.” The “rest,” in other words, is careful execution of the scheme. The more
difficult problem of style arises in the third and fourth books because the differences between
normal and abnormal cannot be symbolized quantitatively. These books are about qualities of
mind, or rationality, and the scale is intellectual. (Here Swift loses many of his readers—all
the children and a disappointing number of adults.) The emphatic real and muted unreal are
still with us, but no longer with our perception fixed upon size. The Laputian episode is about
hyper-intellectuals (they have departed the world as the soul leaves the body), who
distastefully perform the minimal functions of physical life on their island floating in the air,
while they devote their energies to spinning gossamer-thin speculations or (what is worse) to
projects based on speculations, like extracting sunbeams from cucumbers or softening marble
for pincushions. More difficult than making man appear miniscule or gigantic, Swift must
embody qualities of mind in symbolic shapes. Gulliver had never seen until now “a Race of
Mortals so singular in their Shapes, Habits, and Countenances.”
In the Laputian world of highfalutin nonsense the Flapper is the most effective symbol.
The ruling class of the Flying Island, rapt in a vortex of speculation, enjoy the separation of
the intellect from the senses. They appear with their heads reclined to right or left, with one
eye turned inward, the other upward to the zenith. The Flappers, a serving class, stimulate the
senses of their bemused lords by touching the eye or ear with bladders containing little
pebbles or dried peas. The symbolism is extended to favorite Laputian subjects, music and
mathematics, with cycloidal puddings and ducks trussed up into the shape of fiddles, so that

38
even at table the Laputians are not far removed from their intense wool-gathering. In this
book we have not only the usual sprinkling of jaw-breaking foreign names, but also the
jargon of science (calcine, diurnal, aqueous, percolate, seminal), which supplants to some
extent the commonplace words to which magnitudes can be assigned.

III

The unity of Gulliver's Travels is re-enforced by themes which are developed in the
framework of the voyages and in the voyages themselves. Those in the framework Swift uses
with his customary frugality both as devices of realism and as motivation for Gulliver's
rejection of man: his diminishing affection for his “domestick Pledges,” until they become
hateful as Yahoos; his mistreatment at the hands of his comrades; the growing malevolence
of fortune; the frustration of his “insatiable Desire” of seeing foreign countries. Swift also
finds symbolic value in fictional details of the framework. Gulliver's first voyage comes to
grief when his ship splits on a rock (chance). In the second, while they are ashore searching
for water, his shipmates, pursued by a Brobdingnagian, desert him (cowardice). During the
third voyage pirates overhaul his ship, and a fellow-Christian, failing to have him cast
overboard, talks the more charitable Japanese captain into setting him adrift in a canoe
(malevolence). On the fourth voyage the mutinous crew turn to piracy and exile Gulliver,
their capital, on a deserted shore (treachery). Acts of man are apparently more to be feared
than acts of God.
The four books themselves are linked by contrasts, and each illuminates its predecessors.
The nature of the symbolism makes this obvious for the first two books, but it is easy to
overlook the links between the second and third and the third and fourth. Swift intends to
offset the useful mathematics of the Brobdingnagians with the impractical mathematical
interests of the Laputians, who measure Gulliver for a suit of clothes by taking his altitude by
a quadrant (the clothes don't fit). In the third book he is preoccupied with immortality, or the
separation of body and soul. The indifference of the Houyhnhnms to approaching death, or
time, is a commentary on the morbid picture of the Strulbdruggs, whose immortality is a
living death.
The continuous themes of the first three books are necessary motivation for the last,
where Gulliver thinks he has found a vantage (i.e., that of the horse) for evaluating his
experience of man. In praising Lilliputian law he wished to be understood to mean the
“original Institutions” and “not the most scandalous Corruptions in which these People are
fallen by the degenerate Nature of Man.” In Brobdingang he read treatises of morals and
history which showed “how diminutive, contemptible, and helpless an Animal was Man in
his own Nature,” excelled by “one Creature in Strength, by another in Speed, by a third in
Foresight, by a fourth in Industry,” and that “Nature was degenerated in these latter declining
Ages of the World.” At Glubdubdrib, “As every Person called up made exactly the same
Appearance he had done in the World, it gave me melancholy Reflections to observe how
much the Race of human Kind was degenerate among us, within these Hundred Years past.”
Before he was disillusioned with it, the immortality of the Struldbruggs promised to allow
him to see “the several Gradations by which Corruption steals into the World, and oppose it
in every Step,” so that he might “prevent that continual Degeneracy of human Nature, so
39
justly complained of in all Ages.” The “general Tradition” concerning the Yahoos holds that
those in the Country of Horses derive from a pair from over the sea, who, being deserted by
their companions, “and degenerating by Degrees, became in Process of Time, much more
savage than those of their own Species in the Country from whence these two Originals
came.” Following Gulliver's account of his own countrymen, the Houyhnhnms Master
“looked upon us as a Sort of Animals to whose Share, by what Accident he could not
conjecture, some small Pittance of Reason had fallen, where of we made no other use than by
its assistance to aggravate our natural Corruptions, and to acquire new ones which Nature
had not given us.”
There is so much incidental satire in the first three books that we may form the habit of
bypassing the fiction to get at it. In the fourth book this short cut leads to a dead end. The
symbols by which Swift assimilates all his satire are so deeply embedded in the fiction that
ignoring his indirect method only leads to dismissal of this book as disjointed, illogical, or
beside the point : to vexation without diversion. Swift symbolizes in the Yahoo the
intellectual themes which he has woven into the fiction: that man, as animal, is less comely
and less well adapted to his natural environment than most others of the animal Kingdom;
that reason in civilized man produces evil more often than good, accentuating natural vices
and making man more dangerous than brutes; that the natural tendency of man to danger as
the world ages can be— but most likely will not be—countered by the assertion of his unique
rational powers, which are themselves vestigial or corrupted. Much of what we have
previously been told about man's capacity for evil we can now see, hear, smell, and feel in the
Yahoo.
The fiction is also the means by which Swift focuses the scattered rays of his satire,
shifting from foreign to domestic scenes, from institutions to individuals, from mankind to
man, from others to ourselves. The fourth book closes in on the subject. Among petty, gross,
or absurd people, Gulliver can take comfort in his own kind, and foreign criticism of one's
own country can be attributed to the effects of a “confined Education.” We enjoy for a time a
similar detachment. During Gulliver's voyages, as we view successive aspects of man, we
concede similarities of customs, habits, and institutions, but without any personal
involvement. We can even exclude ourselves, as Gulliver does himself, from “the Bulk of
your Natives” whom the Brobdingnagian King concludes to be a “most pernicious Race of
little odious Vermin.” As Swift said in an earlier work, “satyr is a sort of Glass, wherein
Beholders do generally discover every body's Face but their Own.” But the fourth book does
away with all that. The fiction forces upon Gulliver the “recognition” that all are Yahoos of
the race of men, and his mock-tragic “catastrophe” is exile from his adopted
Houyhnhnmland. When the Houyhnhnm Master examines Gulliver's body and pronounces
him Yahoo, this merciless scrutiny, by Swift's contrivance, falls equally upon ourselves. A
good many reader, like Gulliver, never recover because they do not submit to the fiction by
which Swift, with his fine irony, establishes a vantage outside man: that of the horse.

IV

The fourth book introduces this thematic complication. Natural uncivilized man is the theme
of this book, just as man is the subject of the entire work, but the thematic Yahoo is
40
counterpointed by the Houyhnhnm, so that we see Gulliver for the first time among creatures
like and unlike his species. This permits the sequence of recognition, crisis, catastrophe, and
denouement, plus a remarkable curtain speech by Gulliver. Previously, Gulliver has felt no
real conflict with the natives discovered in his voyages, because the physical and intellectual
plane in which he exists is supposedly above, or below, or unlike that of the creatures around
him, though he occasionally betrays a missionary-like zeal (this soon starts backfiring) to
educate the inhabitants in the superior manners and institutions of his own country. But this
patronizing attitude toward “foreigners” weakens under the impact of experience until, during
the fourth adventure, Gulliver concludes that they, he and the Yahoos are essentially the
same.
The introduction of the horse was Swift's most brilliant and humorous inspiration in
Gulliver's Travels. No doubt he had in mind the rationale of the fable, “a narrative in which
beings irrational, and sometimes inanimate, arbores loquuntur, non tantrum ferae, are, for the
purpose of moral instruction, feigned to act and speak with human interests and passions”
(Dr. Johnson). But his fiction requires that he establish this rationale only gradually, and by
the time he has done so those who ignore the fiction, or read it literally as children do the first
two books, are condemning this “outrage on humanity, not just because of its satire, though
this is “utterly inhuman” and “intellectually inferior,” but on the technical ground that it “has
not even the merit of being consistent”. Thackeray finds great literary proficiency in the last
book, but deplores its message. What is the message? Professor Wiley in The Eighteenth
Century Background surely misreads it when he speaks of Swift's distinction “between
rational man (Houyhnhnm) and irrational man (Yahoo).” Anyone who seriously believes that
Swift, as distinguished from Gulliver, wishes to offer the Houyhnhnm as animal rationale, or
an ideal for man, must somehow take seriously Swift's picture of Gulliver, at home, gravely
conversing with his horses. It is no shame, says Gulliver, “to learn wisdom from Brutes”; and
one can do so, as the rationale of the fable indicates, without identifying the animal who
speaks oracularly of reason with rationality itself. (Gulliver tried to become a member of the
Houyhnhnm family, but this absurdity led to his “catastrophe,” which was “Exile” to his own
species at home.) Let's see how this rationale is introduced.
The attention that Swift devotes to the fictional preliminaries of each part is essential in
bridging our passage from the real to the fantastic, and the same process takes place in the
fourth book, only the accommodative process is more subtle, the fantastic world more
incredible.
Ashore, after finding “great plenty of Grass, and several Fields of Oats,” Gulliver falls
into a beaten road “where I saw many Tracks of human Feet, and some of Cows, but most of
Horses.” He then suffers his first disgusting encounter with the Yahoos, who are described in
detail, with incidental comparisons of these “Beasts” with goats and squirrels (just as, in
Lilliput and Brobdingnag, man is compared with diminutive and contemptible creatures like
weasels), but with no recognition that they fit the tracks of human feet, which are left for the
time being unaccounted for.
Next, Gulliver meets the animal whose arrival drives the Yahoos away, and there is no
doubt as to its species. It is a horse, a gentle creature which looks at him “with a very mild

41
Aspect, never offering the least Violence.” When another arrives the two horses neigh to each
other “as if conversing and they “seem” to deliberate. (These qualifying words soon
disappear as the horse becomes Houyhnhnm.) “I was amazed to see such Actions and
Behaviour in brute Beasts; and concluded with myself, that if the Inhabitants of this Country
were endued with a proportionable Degree of Reason, they must needs be the wisest People
upon Earth.” This thought gives him so much comfort that he hastens on following the horses
with the hope of meeting “with any of the Natives.”
Thus very quickly Swift has established the terms and concepts of his fiction. The cows
are not brought upon the scene until later, for a reason which is apparent in Swift's handling
of detail: the horses fit the horse tracks; the “Inhabitants,” those supremely wise people as yet
unseen fit the many tracks of human feet; the Yahoos are cattle: so Gulliver thinks. In his
nasty encounter with the Yahoos he was careful to strike one with the flat side of is sword,
“fearing the Inhabitants might be provoked against me, if they should come to know, that I
had killed or maimed any of their Cattle.” Swift has been careful to make Gulliver's detailed
description of the Yahoos omit that their feet, observed several times, are human, though the
“shape” of these animals “a little discomposed me.”
Swift goes over the same terms and concepts again. Gulliver follows the horse several
miles to the buildings, furnished like stables, with nags and mares sitting on their hams and
busy at domestic tasks, where he gets his presents ready for the “Master and Mistress of the
House,” anxiously waiting, while the horse neighs, “to hear some answers in a human
Voice.” This well-trained horse must belong to “some Person of great Note,” but that a “Man
of Quality” should be served by horses is beyond Gulliver's comprehension. There is still no
human voice, and Gulliver looks around only to find more racks and mangers. He begins to
see his situation for what it is. “I rubbed my Eyes often, but the same Objects still occurred.”
And so Gulliver enters a world in which the horse is supreme: the inhabitant, the native, and
the master.

V
. . . Very soon these remarkable animals, first described as “brute Beasts,” come to be
known to Gulliver as “Houyhnhnms” after the noises they make, though he later tells us the
word “in their Tongue, signifies a Horse; and in its Etymology, the Perfection of Nature.”
The superior qualities of the Houyhnhnms are of two kinds: first, their physical
characteristics of strength, comeliness, and speed, which are natural attributes of the horse,
precisely as Gulliver describes this noblest animal of his own country; and secondly, their
virtues of friendship, benevolence, rationality, and devotion to duty, all of which are
privative. The logic in Gulliver's attribution to the horse of these virtues lies in their
negation of the corresponding vices in the Yahoos. Horses do not shirk, do not lie, do not
evil; and so the Houyhnhnms are industrious, truthful, and virtuous. Vice is a negation of
reason and nature of which the Houyhnhnm is incapable, living as this species does in
paradisial ignorance of human treachery, lying, and cruelty, with “no Word in their
language to express anything that is evil, except what they borrow from the Deformities or
ill Qualities of the Yahoos.” This attribution is a gradual process: “At first, indeed, I did not
feel that natural Awe which the Yahoos and all other Animals bear towards them; but it

42
grew upon me by Degrees, much sooner than I imagined.” Swift has the situation turned
upside down by the beginning of the third chapter when the Houyhnhnm Master, his
children, and servants, as they teach Gulliver their language, which is pronounced through
the nose and throat, look upon it “as a Prodigy, that a brute Animal should discover such
Marks of a rational Creature.”
This acknowledgment of the superior qualities of the horse, a somewhat gradual
process of abstraction, proceeds inversely with Gulliver's recognition that men and Yahoos
are the same species. Very early the “master Horse” (not yet a “Houyhnhnm”) compares
Yahoos with him. “My Horror and Astonishment are not to be described, when I observed,'
in this abominable Animal, a perfect human Figure . . . The Fore-feet of the Yahoo differed
from my Hands in nothing else, but the Length of the Nails, the Coarseness and Brownness
of the Palms, and the Hairiness on the Backs.” But the horses, ignorant of the deceitfulness
of art, cannot at first regard Gulliver's clothes as other than a natural difference between
him and the Yahoo. Gulliver conceals “the Secret of my Dress, in order to distinguish
myself as much as possible, from that cursed Race of Yahoos” until the Sorrel Nag, the
Houyhnhnm Master's valet, discovers him asleep undressed. In the “unmasking” scene
which follows, the Houyhnhnm Master concludes from an examination of Gulliver's body
that “I must be a perfect Yahoo.” This encounter between civilized man and natural horse is
described within the general terms of Swift's favorite “clothes philosophy”: clothes are,
Gulliver says, “prepared by Art” for the sake of decency and to protect man from the
inclemency of weather, covering also “those Parts that Nature taught us to conceal”; but the
Houyhnhnm Master, who does not need the protection and feels no shame, cannot
understand “why Nature should teach us to conceal what Nature had given.” This little
allegory of Art and Nature plays upon the story as it unfolds in the rest of the book: whether
civilized man, who is physically inferior to the horse, or indeed, as the Houyhnhnm Master
points out, to the Yahoo, will use the art which his rationality affords him to perfect
himself, harmonizing Art with Nature, or will use this art, by accentuating the propensity to
vice of a fallen creature, to add to the rich vocabulary of civilized “Enormities” almost
inexplicable to the innocent Houyhnhnms.
With superficial resemblance established, Swift drives home our essential
identification with the Yahoo. In Chapters V and VI, Gulliver reports to the Houyhnhnm
Master on man in “civilized” society, and in Chapter VII the Houyhnhnm Master, who has
listened with care, draws devastating parallels between the highly developed vices of the
European Yahoos and those propensities to vice in the physically superior Yahoos of
Houyhnhmland, observing “what Parity there was in our Natures.” Gulliver has reported
that in a civilized “Man of Quality, . . . The imperfections of his Mind run parallel with
those of his Body; being a Composition of Spleen, Dulness, Ignorance, Caprice, Sensuality
and Pride.” From Gulliver's larger recital of the “Enormities” of civilized Yahoo endowed,
like himself, with reason, the Houyhnhm Master “dreaded lest the Corruption of that
Faculty might be worse than Brutality itself.” This is (in Dr. Johnson's phrase) the “moral
instruction” that Swift offers in his fabulous tale. Is it groundless in human experience to
fear that Art and Reason will corrupt, if they do not refine, man's nature? Does not the
smell of burning human flesh which hangs like a nauseous miasma over this century remind

43
us of enormities more revolting than Swift, with all his misanthropy, could imagine? Has
Swift's transposition of man and horse, intended to affront our pride of species, made his
“warning” to mankind a “philosophic pill” that is unswallowable? The positive contribution
of nineteenth century criticism is the horrified emphasis it lays on this shocking and
degrading incongruity, but this criticism is misapplied if we insist upon seeing the
incongruity only in one sense and only from the point of view of the offended party, man.
With his ironic humor Swift compels us to see man's behavior, inside and outside civilized
society, from the detached viewpoint of a horse, and the fourth book rings with horse
laughs. With subtle modulations of “foot” and “hoof” Swift induces us to accept Gulliver's
picture of a white mare threading a needle. If there is a case to be made for the viciousness
of man, Swift has made it in the fourth book with a savage indignation tempered by humor.

44
4. John F. Ross, “The Final Comedy of Lemuel Gulliver”

The first two voyages of Gulliver are two complementary parts which make up one large unit
of satire. The fourth part of the book is not simply an additional voyage, more severely
satirical but on the whole to be read like the earlier voyages; it is a voyage different in
concept and in treatment, and hence it is not to be judged by the same criteria.
We notice at once that the fourth voyage lacks the picturesque and interesting descriptive
and narrative detail so abundantly present in the earlier voyages. There is, for instance, no
double physical scale, and there is little narrative action. Swift does, of course, embody the
chief elements of his satiric analysis in the concrete symbols of the horse and the Yahoo, and
he describes the Yahoo in full and unpleasant detail. Even so, the spirit and scheme of the
fourth voyage employ far less narrative richness than is expended on Lilliput and
Brobdingnag, since Swift shifts the emphasis of his attack. The satire of earlier voyages is
concerned with the flaws and defects of man's actions. Voyage IV cuts deeper. Actions and
doings are symptomatic of man's nature—the corrosive satire of the last voyage is concerned
with the springs and causes of action, in other words, with the inner make-up of man. Hence,
though there is a narrative thread in Voyage IV, and considerable detail about the Yahoo, the
voyage is characterized less by fullness of narrative than by fullness of analysis.
Another difference in the fourth voyage should be noted. Here the reader himself is
inescapably an object of satiric attack. In the first voyage he may remain calm in the face of
the satire. There is not only a good deal else to divert his attention; there is also the fact that
the activities of monarchs and statesmen are the actions of an exceedingly small group of
people. He may even remain relatively detached emotionally in reading of Gulliver's offer of
gunpowder to the Brobdingnagian king. After all, war has been so far only an intermittent
activity of nations, and the reader probably disapproves of it in theory as much as Swift does.
But the reader cannot evade the attack in the last voyage: Swift is attacking the Yahoo in each
of us.
Furthermore, it has now become Swift's purpose to drive home the satire, insistently and
relentlessly. Had he wished to achieve only the diverting and comic satire of Voyages I and
II, with occasional touches of the severer sort, he need not have written the last voyage. But
he chose to go on, and in the fourth voyage corrosive satire at last comes home deeply and
profoundly to his readers. In truth, the constant protests against it are evidence of its
effectiveness.
Mere narrative or comic detail concerning either the Yahoos or the Houyhnhnms would
inevitably tend to weaken, divert, or block off the intensity of the attack; hence Swift makes
little use of such detail. He sharply cuts human nature into two parts. He gives reason and
benevolence to the Houyhnhnms. Unrestrained and selfish appetites, and a mere brutish
awareness, are left for the Yahoo. Since he is writing satire rather than panegyric, the good
qualities are given the nonhuman form of the horse, and the bad qualities the nearly human
form of the Yahoo. Consider how much less effective the satire would have been had the
Houyhnhnms been merely a superior human race—the reader would naturally evade the
satiric attack by identifying himself as a Houyhnhnm. Again, for intensity of attack, Swift

45
dwells with unpleasant particularity on Yahoo form and nature. Swift's aim in the last voyage
is to spare us nothing. If we could chuckle and laugh at the Yahoos, or be diverted by their
activities, by so much would Swift have weakened his corrosive satire. And the same
exigency governs his treatment of the Houyhnhnms. To make much of them for comic or
narrative effect would impair Swift's chief purpose.
One further point: In the first nine chapters of Voyage IV, Swift further simplifies and
concentrates his attack by making almost no use of irony; the attack on Yahoo-man is not
only severe, but literal and direct.
Is the misanthropy of the fourth voyage, then, too much to accept? Is Swift's hatred all-
consuming? Has it abandoned itself to wanton and animus-ridden insult? Has the sanity of his
rich and complex genius been dissipated? Before we agree with the many who have answered
“Yes” to such questions, let us contemplate the voyage as a whole. For Swift not only wrote
the first nine chapters of Voyage IV; he also wrote the last three. To neglect these final
chapters is like ignoring the final couplet in a Shakespearean sonnet, the last part of a tragi-
comedy like The Winter's Tale, or the last three chapters of Moby Dick. It is true that Swift's
final attitude may not be obvious to a superficial reader, or to one inhibited (perhaps
unconsciously) from reading Gulliver as a complete satire. But great and complex artists
usually make some demands on their readers, and Swift is no exception. Gulliver's Travels is
easier to understand than A Tale of a Tub; but it by no means follows that Lemuel Gulliver's
naive and simple misanthropy can be equated with the sophisticated satirist who recounted
Gulliver's adventures. One should be on guard against simplifying an elaborate ironist.
Swift himself has warned us, if we are at all wary. To say that the first nine chapters of
the fourth voyage are almost continuous corrosive satire is not to say that there are not some
narrative and comic touches. Swift obviously visualized the Houyhnhnms very definitely as
horses. It must have been a temptation to his constructive and comic imagination not to avail
himself of the opportunities offered by the horse form. Generally he restrains himself: thus
Gulliver remembers once seeing some Houyhnhnms “employed in domestic business,” but he
does not specify what business. Yet Swift cannot resist an occasional bit of fun at the expense
of the Houyhnhnms. They have an absolute self-assurance in the completeness of their
knowledge and experience. The etymology of the word Houyhnhnm means “horse,” but also
“the perfection of nature.” Their intellectual limitations and arrogance are divertingly
illustrated in the passage wherein the Houyhnhnm criticizes the human form. In every point
wherein man and horse differ, the Houyhnhnm automatically and even absurdly assumes that
the advantage lies obviously with the horse; for example, that four legs are better than two, or
that the human anatomy is defective since Gulliver cannot eat without lifting one of his “fore
feet” to his mouth. While Swift, in pursuit of his purpose, is chary of making the horses
absurd, there are enough comic touches to guard the attentive reader from assuming that
Swift accepts Gulliver's worshipful attitude toward the horses.
Further evidence that Swift was well aware that the Houyhnhnms were, after all, horses,
and that they offered more material for comedy than he had permitted himself to use in his
text, may be found in a letter he wrote his publisher, Motte, concerning illustrations for a new
edition of the Travels. Since he tells Motte that a return of his deafness has put him “in all ill

46
way to answer a letter which requires some thinking,” and since the letter also indicates that
he has not reread Gulliver but is trusting to memory, it may be presumed that his remarks
indicate his normal attitude toward the book. The relevant part of his letter reads:
The Country of Horses, I think, would furnish many [occasions for illustration].
Gulliver brought to be compared with the Yahoos; the family at dinner and he
waiting; the grand council of horse, assembled, sitting, one of them standing with
a hoof extended, as if he were speaking; the she-Yahoo embracing Gulliver in the
river, who turns away his head in disgust; the Yahoos got into a tree, to infest him
under it; the Yahoos drawing carriages, and driven by a horse with a whip in his
hoof. I can think of no more, but Mr. Gay will advise you.
Swift's suggestions for illustrations, added to the few ludicrous suggestions in the first
nine chapters of the fourth voyage, indicate that he took as a matter of course that there was a
certain amount of comic effect in the rather simple horses visualized in their relationship of
superiority to Gulliver and the Yahoos. Since Gulliver's Houyhnhnm worship is a vital
element in making the corrosive attack on Yahoo nature effective, it might seem that Swift
had bungled his craft in permitting even slight evidences of the limitations of the
Houyhnhnms. Actually, without weakening the main attack of the early part of the voyage,
these slight hints foreshadow Swift's attitude in the last three chapters. As a composer of
music, giving almost complete emphasis to a main theme, may suggest from time to time a
new theme before he develops it fully, so Swift, while developing misanthropic and corrosive
satire at length, hints from time to time at another theme.
The horses and Gulliver have it all their own way for the first nine chapters of the last
voyage, Yahoo-man has been presented in all his horror; Swift has achieved the most blasting
and unrelieved satiric attack possible, and at great length. What simple and indignant reason
can say against the flaws and defects of human nature has been said, and said exhaustively.
Gulliver's revolt against his kind is so complete that Swift is able to give the knife a final
twist: mankind is, if anything, worse than the Yahoo, since man is afflicted by pride, and
makes use of what mental power he has to achieve perversions and corruptions undreamed of
by the Yahoo.
At this point of the satiric attack many readers have ceased really to read to book, and
have concluded that this was Swift's final word because it is Gulliver's final word. Swept
away by the force of the corrosive attack on Yahoo-man, they conclude that Gulliver is at last
Swift. (Such a misconception is facilitated no doubt by Swift's temporary abandonment of
irony for straightforward invective.) In the last three chapters, however, Swifts shows that
Gulliver's word cannot be final.
Swift, satirist and realist, is well aware that there is more of the Yahoo in humanity than
there is of benevolence and reason. And he develops his attack as forcibly as he can, by
means of corrosive satire, in terms of pessimism and misanthropy. But this is only a part of
Swift. He is also perfectly aware that the problem is not so simply solved as it is for the
Houyhnhnms and for Gulliver. He knows that there is much to be hated in the animal called
man, but he knows also that there are individuals whom he loves. The horses have no room
for anything between Houyhnhnm and Yahoo, and Gulliver takes over this too simple

47
attitude. Just as his physical sense of proportion was upset by his voyage to the country of the
giants, so here his intellectual sense of proportion is overbalanced. The limited, simplified
Houyhnhnm point of view is obviously better to him than the Yahoo state; and he cleaves to
it. Swift can keep clear the double physical scale of Gulliver and giant; not so, Gulliver. Swift
can differentiate between Yahoo and Gulliver, and does— but Gulliver himself is convinced
he is a Yahoo. The attentive reader will realize that Gulliver is the one actual human being
present through the first nine blighting chapters of the last voyage. Hence he is not only a
constant reminder that horse and Yahoo are symbols, but also a constant demonstration that a
human being is not a Yahoo.
Swift has fun with Gulliver in chapter X. Gulliver has finally come to the conclusion that
human beings are, if anything, worse than Yahoos. As much as possible he tries to transform
himself into a horse:
By conversing with the Houyhnhnms, and looking upon them with delight, I fell
to imitate their gait and gesture, which is now grown into a habit, and my friends
often tell me in a blunt way, that I trot like a horse; which, however, I take for a
great compliment. Neither shall I disown that in speaking I am apt to fall into the
voice and manner of the Houyhnhnms.
In the paragraph immediately following this excerpt, with Gulliver at the height of his
enchantment, Swift has the horses, with more ruthlessness than benevolence, order Gulliver
to leave the island and swim back to the place whence he came. Gulliver swoons. He is
allowed two months to finish a boat, and is granted the assistance of a sorrel nag, who “had a
tenderness” for him. It is a diverting picture: Gulliver and the sorrel nag working away
together to make a canoe, “covering it with the skins of Yahoos well stitched together” and
“stopping all the chinks with Yahoos” tallow. When the moment of parting comes:
His Honour, out of curiosity and perhaps (if I may speak it without vanity) partly
out of kindness, was determined to see me in my canoe. . . I took a second leave
of my master; but as I was going to prostrate myself to kiss his hoof, he did me
the honour to raise it gently to my mouth. . . My master and his friends continued,
on the shore till I was almost out of sight; and I often heard the sorrel nag (who
always loved me) crying out, Hnuy illa nyha majah Yahoo, Take care of thyself,
gentle Yahoo.
It is heartbreaking for Gulliver; but for Swift and the reader it is not wholly a matter for
tears.
Gulliver's design is to make his way to an “uninhabited island,” but he is eventually
found by the crew of a Portuguese ship. Gulliver's meeting with the crew returns him to the
real world; he is no longer the sole representative of humanity, placed between horse and
Yahoo. In the earlier voyages, Swift had spent only a few pages on Gulliver's return to the
real world; in the last, he gives two chapters to it. Those chapters deserve very careful
reading: they are, as the book now stands, the climax of Swift's whole satire as well as the
end of the fourth voyage. Gulliver, hating himself and all men as Yahoos, is reintroduced to
the world of actual men and women. What happens? If Swift's view is the same as Gulliver's,
he ought to go on with his severe satire against mankind, now even deepening it with specific
48
examples of Yahoo nature. He does nothing of the sort. Rather, he shows us very carefully
and at some length the insufficiency of Gulliver's new attitude. Gulliver continues to “tremble
between fear and hatred” when confronted by human beings, while at the same time his own
account of affairs shows that the persons with whom he comes into contact are essentially
honest, kindly, and generous. It is the same limited mentality in Gulliver which has been
noted in previous voyages. He has adopted a final rigid and oversimplified attitude, which so
completely possesses him that he cannot believe the evidence of his own experience; since he
now sees man only as Yahoo, he cannot even take in contradictory evidence when faced with
it.
The Portuguese crew speak to Gulliver “with great humanity” when they find him; but
he is horrified. Concluding that his misfortunes have “impaired his reason” (as indeed they
have), they deliver him up to the captain.
[the captain's] name was Pedro de Mendez; he was a very courteous and generous
person; he entreated me to give some account of myself, and desired to know
what I would eat and drink; said I should be used as well as himself, and spoke so
many obliging things, that I wondered to find such civilities in a Yahoo.
However, I remained silent and sullen; I was ready to faint at the very smell of
him and his men.
Gulliver finally promises the captain not to attempt anything against his own life, but at
the same time protests that he will “suffer the greatest hardships rather than return to live
among Yahoos.” In the course of the voyage home, out of gratitude to Don Pedro, Gulliver
sometimes sits with the captain and tries to conceal his antipathy to mankind. The captain
offers Gulliver the best suit of clothes he has; Gulliver will accept only two clean shirts,
which, he thinks, will not so much “defile” him. In Lisbon, the captain still further aids
Gulliver, takes him into his house, and persuades him to accept a newly made suit of clothes.
Gulliver finds that his terror at humanity gradually lessens: the captain's “whole deportment
was so obliging, added to a very good human understanding, that I really began to tolerate his
company.” But though the terror might lessen, Gulliver's “hatred and contempt seemed to
increase.”
Why does Swift give us Don Pedro, the kindly, generous individual? Obviously as a foil
to Gulliver's misanthropy, as evidence that Gulliver has gone off the deep end and cannot
recover himself from the nightmare view of Yahoo-man. Chapter XI is almost wholly a
demonstration that Gulliver is absurd in his blind refusal to abandon his misanthropic
convictions. His conduct upon his return home is the ultimate result of his aberration. His
family receive him with joy, but the sight of them fills Gulliver with hatred, contempt, and
disgust. When his wife kisses him, he falls “into a swoon for almost an hour.” His adopted
attitude of mind, directed by the too simple Houyhnhnm view, permits him to see only the
Yahoo in man or woman. Even after five years, he will not permit any member of his family
to take him by the hand. But we may allow him to characterize his mode of life himself:
The first money I laid out was to buy two young stone-horses, which I kept in a
good stable, and next to them the groom is my greatest favorite, for I feel my

49
 spirits revived by the smell he contracts in the stable. My horses understand me
tolerably well; I converse with them at least four hours every day.
Gulliver's attitude is not the solution, and Swift knew it. It is too unbalanced and
unrealistic for a final attitude, and Swift presents its absurdity—so clearly as to make one
wonder how he could have been so misunderstood. Gulliver's attitude is in effect a complete
quarrel with man, a final refusal to accept the nature of mankind. To charge Swift with the
same final refusal is to ignore the evidence.
I do not by any means wish to say that Swift was always superior to drawing matter for
discontent and repining from quarrels raised with nature. He was clear-sighted and sensitive;
he was an ethical moralist and a satirist. Much in the nature of man was hateful and detestable
to him, and he often attacked it and quarreled with it in no uncertain terms. But, though
Gulliver's soul was completely discontented, completely repining, Swift could rise to a far
higher plane, and did so. Swift was much more than a corrosive satirist only; he had a high
sense of the comic, and in the final satiric vision of the concluding chapters of Gulliver the
Gulliverian discontent is supplemented by, and enclosed in, comic satire, with Gulliver
himself as the butt.
In Voyage IV, Swift gives his severest satiric vision full scope, but knows that
conclusions growing out of this nightmare vision are inadequate and invalid. He lets Gulliver
go the whole horse, and up to the last page the negative, corrosive attack is present. But what
else he does in those last chapters is unique in the history of satiric literature: the severe
attack with its apparently rational basis and its horrifying conclusions continues to the end in
the personal narrative of Swift's puppet. Thus severe satire remains the main theme, but the
new theme of Gulliver's absurdity complicates the issue. By rising to a larger and more
comprehensive view than he permits to Gulliver, Swift is satirically commenting on the
insufficiency of the corrosive attitude. The evils in the world and in man are such that it is no
wonder that a simple and ethical nature may be driven to despair and misanthropy.
Nevertheless, such an attitude Swift demonstrates to be inadequate and absurd.
Gulliver's attitude, in its simplicity and finality, is a kind of misanthropic solution of the
problem of evil. It is a tempting solution for a severe satirist; but Swift found it too limited
and too unreal. So far as I can see, Swift offers no answer of his own, no solution. But he
does transcend the misanthropic solution. He could see that his own severest satire was the
result of a partial and one-sided view, which was therefore properly a subject for mirth.
This seems to me the final comedy of Lemuel Gulliver—that Swift could make an
elaborate and subtle joke at the expense of a very important part of himself. We may leave
Lemuel in amiable discourse in the stable, inhaling the grateful odor of horse. But Swift is not
with him, Swift is above him in the realm of comic satire, still indignant at the Yahoo in man,
but at the same time smiling at the absurdity of the view that can see only the Yahoo in man.

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