Sunday, June 1, 2014
Horses above Humans?
When Gulliver arrives at the Land of the Houyhnhnms, things start to become very strange. First, Gulliver encounters these beasts (Yahoos) that try and kill him, yet the inhabitants that come and save him are intelligent horses! Later, Gulliver tells the Houyhnhnms that the Yahoos are the dominant race where he comes from which suggests that the Yahoos are human-like. The Houyhnhnm-horses tell Gulliver that they are far more superior to the Yahoos and the Yahoos are like slave-animals. This scenario kind of reminds me of Planet of the Apes where the primates become stronger, both physically and mentally than the humans. It is as if society had reversed on this island where animals are the sophisticated "humans" and the humans are "animals."
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Which is exactly the sort of thing that Gulliver has been struggling with through the entire book. Once again the shift between apathy for self reflection shifts throughout his travels to the point of the realization of just how egotistical and corrupt the English society is (which is the basis of most of the satire in the novel)
ReplyDeleteWhile the Yahoos are quite barbaric in their nature, Swift seems to create two different effects here. On one hand, the Yahoos are the unsanitary, primitive, uncivilized beings. However, after considerable assimilation to the Houyhnhnms, Gulliver becomes a maniac in his own British society himself by talking to horses, self-quarantining himself from future journeys that could possibly deposit him on another foreign civilization's home. Gulliver becomes savage himself in this way. He becomes insane and even egotistical, claiming his own family to be of the Yahoos. He spends at least four hours a day attending horses at his home.
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