You Thought "Gulliver's Travels" Was For Kids Didn't You??? - Part Four

True Houyhnhnm Happiness                                                                   

            “As these noble Houyhnhnms are endowed by nature with a general disposition to all virtues, and have no conceptions or ideas of what is evil in a rational creature, so their great maxim is, to cultivate reason and to be wholly governed by it.”

            The last country in which Gulliver finds himself is that of the Houyhnhnms, or talking horses, who have been “endowed by nature,” not only with a “virtuous disposition,” but with human reason as well. These horses live very simple and quiet lives, unable to understand the concepts of lying and deceit, and naturally given to kindness, honesty and intelligence in every aspect of living. They take Gulliver in hospitably, teach him their language, and show a keen interest in his nation and people. In this country, Gulliver believes he has found the ultimate society, and his experiences there make him a changed man upon his return. In a way, the nation of Houyhnhnms is also Jonathan Swift’s representation of perfect government, for he contrasts the Houyhnhnms to their ape-like neighbors the Yahoos, abominable creatures suspiciously similar to human beings. The Houyhnhnms’ land is perhaps a place Swift himself would have also been reluctant to leave.

            The Houyhnhnms’ society brings to mind simple, strict cultures like those of Laconia and Sparta. Their wants and passions are very few, their vocabulary narrow, though appropriate to their simplicity of emotion, and their thinking objective, reasonable, honorable, but somewhat cold. Like the Spartans, they have no use for ars gratia artis, nor for beauty for beauty’s sake. As the Spartans left their newborns on hilltops to die if they were weak, so also the Houyhnhnms don’t place a high regard on the family or upon bonds of motherhood, love, or childhood. For example, Gulliver observes that “strength is chiefly valued in the male, and comeliness in the female; not upon the account of love, but to preserve the race from degenerating…” This worship of strength and beauty was also practiced in Sparta. Gulliver also notes that “Temperance, industry, exercise and cleanliness” are most important in Houyhnhnm life. In these aspects Spartan and Houyhnhnm institutions and values are almost identical.

            This lack of passion and emotion is a major flaw in Hoyhnhnm society. They exclude God and know nothing of religion, making them somewhat self-satisfied in their self-sufficiency. They don’t mourn the dead or express sorrow; rather the deceased is “buried in the obscurest place that can be found, their friends and relations expressing neither joy nor grief at their departure”… This cold absence of feeling is ultimately what causes the Houyhnhnms to send Gulliver away, as they perceive he is too similar to their enemies, the detestable Yahoos. Swift’s perfect society without emotions, governed by objective reason, devoid of passion and complications of relationship pales in comparison with our life on earth – its beauties, comedies, tragedies, loves, arts and passions, creations of a perfect God. Moreover, it is this same Creator Who has redeemed mankind from the human flaws Swift was so ashamed of. The Houyhnhnms, with all their rectitude and morality, prove themselves to have more in common with the Yahoos than Gulliver does, for without the acknowledgment of the Creator, they stand on the same level with the senseless beasts living in ignorance and immorality.

           

You Thought "Gulliver's Travels" Was For Kids Didn't You??? - Part Three

Long Life in Luggnagg                                                                                              

                                                                                                                       

            When Gulliver’s embarks upon his third adventure, he becomes shipwrecked yet again and eventually finds himself in the country of Luggnagg. Among the strange features of this country, Gulliver discovers the Struldbruggs, or Immortals, inhabitants of Luggnagg who possess the apparent wonderful fortune of living forever. They are marked at birth by a red circular spot on the forehead, a mere effect of chance. Gulliver exclaims, as any of us would, “Happiest beyond all comparison are these excellent Struldbruggs… without the continual apprehension of death!” It seems an appropriate enough view of the Strildbruggs’ good luck, but Gulliver soon discovers that he is mistaken.

            For, as the Luggnaggians explain to him, the Struldbruggs “had not only all the follies and infirmities of other old men, but many more… they were not only opinionative, peevish, covetous, morose, vain, talkative; but incapable of friendship…” Gulliver’s companion goes on to explain in detail the misery of these seemingly fortunate Immortals, recounting their bad memories, wickedness, death in the eyes of the law at eighty and subsequent poverty, and generally wretched way of life. Gulliver meets a few of these individuals for himself and is quickly convinced to change his opinion – “my keen appetite,” he writes, “for perpetuity of life was much abated. I grew heartily ashamed of the pleasing visions I had formed”…

            This sad tale of the Struldbruggs is wonderfully allegorized to the futility of mankind’s material desires. Our visions of things we can’t have, such as perpetual life, vast wealth, and fulfillment of all our wants are things we believe will make us truly happy, but in reality, none of it is important compared to eternal life in the world to come. The example of the unhappy Struldbruggs shows us that even if we did live forever, we might come to despise life, much less live eternally grateful with our lot. This same lesson is taught by the Preacher in the Bible when he exclaims that everything on this earth – riches wisdom, power – is “meaningless and grasping for the wind.”

            On another level, the Struldbruggs’ story shows us another kind of human futility – that of wanting what we can’t have. Then, when we have it, it seems so much less wonderful and glittering than it did from afar. When a desire is within our grasp, many times we find we’ve been disillusioned. “I thought,” observes Gulliver after realizing the true misery of the Struldbruggs, “that no tyrant could invent a death into which I would not run with pleasure from such a life.” And yet before he was disappointed, he tells us he had “frequently run over the whole system of how I should employ myself if I were sure to live forever.” Perpetual life on this earth, however, is not as wonderful as it seems to us mortals, and having what we cannot is never a sure guarantor of happiness.

You Thought "Gulliver's Travels" Was For Kids Didn't You??? - Part Two

Theory of Relativity in Big Brobdingnag                                                                                         

            

             “I assured his Majesty that I came from a country which abounded with several millions of both sexes… where the animals, trees and houses were all in proportion… to this they only replied with a smile of contempt.”

            After concluding his adventures in the miniature country of Lilliput, Lemuel Gulliver in Jonathan Swift’s fictional satire Gulliver’s Travels ends up in yet another country called Brobdingnag, inhabited by huge giants. In addition to the physical difficulties which Gulliver’s tiny size imposes upon him, he also meets with other problems, such as those of making himself heard, understood and believed. For instance, upon their first meeting, the king of the giants refuses to believe that Gulliver is not a small animal or a piece of clockwork. Gulliver experiences the feelings of the tiny Lilliputians and becomes, as he admits himself, more understanding of the Lilliputians’ attitude towards him.

            On account of his relative weakness and smallness, Gulliver is also unable to prevent the giants from taking advantage of him in several situations. His first owner, the farmer, discovers in him a profitable source of income and forces him to perform for crowds until Gulliver nearly dies with exhaustion and ill-use. He is then sold like a piece of goods to the queen, who treats him (though not unkindly,) like a toy. In his many discussions with the king, that monarch generally treats him condescendingly, even contemptuously at times, as when he exclaims, “I cannot but conclude that the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth.” Gulliver’s seriousness is rarely taken seriously, and his skills in navigation and music are treated as clever tricks of a little circus dog.

            More than anything it is Gulliver’s pride that is most injured, especially when one of the royal ministers “observed how contemptible a thing was human grandeur which could be mimicked by diminutive insects as I… and thus he continued on, while my color came and went several times with indignation to hear our noble country… so contemptuously treated”…

            However in the next paragraph he continues – “But… I began to doubt whether I were injured or no.” Because after he has been in Brobdingnag for awhile, he begins to see himself as abnormally small while the giants seem completely normal in stature, “so that I really began to imagine myself dwindled many degrees below my usual size.”

            This phenomenon is very well explained by Aristotle’s definition of large and small, in which he says objects are only “large” or “small” in comparison to even larger or smaller things. Thus Gulliver, after residing among the giants of Brobdingnag, comes to see himself as strange and them as perfect, though at first he was highly critical of their vast sizes and disgusted by their giant coarseness. This demonstrates that humans can generally become accustomed to anything, and may come to easily change their views if everyone around them does so.

You Thought "Gulliver's Travels" Was For Kids Didn't You??? - Essay One

A Bigger Picture Behind Little Lilliput                                                                                               

            

            Gulliver’s Travels, a political satire written in the eighteenth century by Englishman Jonathan Swift, is predominantly a critical commentary upon human society generally and upon European and English society in particular. It is the fictional account of Lemuel Gulliver’s adventures as he travels the seas and visits four different counties. The first country at which he ends up is named Lilliput, inhabited by a very tiny people mostly hostile to Gulliver. Gulliver recounts their customs and habits in great detail, including their criminal justice system, education, mannerisms, government and wars with the neighboring country of Blefescu.

            The culture and mannerisms of Lilliputian life are ones very similar to those of Swift’s England during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries – years marked by events such as the Civil War, Cromwellian government, the Restoration, the Glorious Revolution, the Enlightenment, and English colonialism overseas. Jonathan Swift was highly critical of these events and of the people and institutions which caused them. Thus his fictional Lilliput mirrors and mocks his own tiny England, big with self-importance.

            For instance Swift’s account of the ridiculous argument with Blefescu may easily be seen as a mockery of the Civil War between England, Scotland and Ireland. In England, the cause was the opposition to King Charles I’s rule by Parliament, which Swift considered wrong. In Lilliput, the cause of dispute was which end an egg should be cracked on first. Swift saw both conflicts as equally petty. Blefescu may also represent France during the Glorious Revolution, which was constantly threatening England during the reign of Mary and William of Orange.

            “There have been two struggling parties in this empire, under the names of Tramecksan and Slamecksan, from the high and low heels on their shoes, by which they distinguish themselves”… This is the account given by the royal secretary of Lilliput to Gulliver of the opposing parties within the kingdom. One cannot but help think of King Charles I, who was very fond of high-heeled shoes and was beheaded in the Civil War. Tramecksam and Slamecksan also bring the Whigs and Tories to mind, which two opposing parties appeared in Parliament for the first time after the Restoration.

            Lilliput’s naval defeat of Blefescu is similar to England’s famous defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 – her test of jump-roping to choose courtiers is a mockery of English politics – and her pride and injustice serve as a commentary upon England, a tiny country that thought very highly of itself during Swift’s time.