This is my favorite question about Gulliver's Travels. I hope I'm not messing you up by asking a question about the upcoming reading rather than what we did last week, but I really want this as a blog question, and looking ahead, we will need to have at least one question on the Goldsmith book. So that is simply it: Is Gulliver a Yahoo?
I would like you also to consider what you think Swift's intentions were with Book III, as the voyage to Laputa and Lagodo and environs is so different from the formula of the other three books.
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I guess that depends on who you ask, now doesn't it? His horse-master labels him that from day one, and Gulliver sure seems to think of himself as a Yahoo by the end of Book IV, but I don't know if I agree. There are some pretty drastic differences between Gulliver and the Yahoos of Houyhnhnm. It almost strikes me as more of a Homo sapiens/Homo Neanderthalus situation, where the two are closely related species rather than subsets of the same, but I guess that's just the biologist in me talking!
If I had to guess, I would say that Swift meant for Gulliver to be seen as a Yahoo. I think this is his warning...that however weak-minded and morally corrupt humans have become, IT CAN STILL GET WORSE if we're not careful!!
Oops...forgot to comment on Book III. I remember reading somewhere that many critics think Swift originally meant to include this section in a separate (unfinished) work that satirized abstract thought. I'd buy that theory simply because the other three books are so similar to each other.
I'm not sold on the notion that Gulliver is a Yahoo. I understand that Swift used Gulliver's stop with the Houyhnhnms as an indicator of what English society REALLY is, but I'm still siding with no. Rather, I think Swift uses the hideous and grotesque manner of the Yahoos to merely mock the English. We learn from the Houyhnhnms how hypocritical and perhaps narrow-minded we are by rejecting any other way of existing. They don't understand they lie; we do. They take a virtuous approach to their endeavors; yet we don't. Although Gulliver's encounters in the other three books share many similarities in principle, its as if he's finally enlightened in his stop in book IV.
Furthermore, it appears as if Swift 'prepared us' for the doom that's coming in book IV. He hinted at the corrupt nature of English society in the first three, but this one could significantly alter one's view of society, humanity. Swift FINALLY makes it evident what he REALLY thinks of his 'people.' But then again he disassociates himself from the ideas of his characters. I call b.s. on that one.
I still don't think Gulliver himself is a Yahoo. He may see some traits in himself that are found in the Yahoos, but that doesn't make him a Yahoo. This isn't necessarily a case of if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, then it's a duck! I think that Swift used the Yahoos merely to point out the negative side of human civilization and to mock some of the characteristics that English society may have had at the time. However, I think the main thing that differentiates Gulliver from the Yahoos is the fact that he has the ability to reason. Sure, he has gone loopy by human society's standards, but it's mostly because he has reasoned and analyzed stuff to the extreme so that he could no longer tell what to believe anymore.
I don't really know what Swift's intentions were with the Book III but I think it is safe to say that he was pointing out the flaws of humanity itself. In the other books he was more set on describing other strange cultures and he had no problem discussing english politics and talking about the culture of his homeland. But at this point he has changed his views somewhat and does not hold english society up to the standards he did at the beginning.
jamie,
that bit of information about book III was interesting. i know the third book was written in a different manner than the others but i never would've thought that he may have intended it for another book altogeher!
When it comes down to it, I think Gulliver isn't fully yahoo. I do think however, that after he has fully convinced himself of such a plague he does become what he hates. He is so obsessed with what it means to be a yahoo and what he is not, that he becomes a yahoo himself.He loses everything that made him polished and refined and becomes an animal.
Claudia,
I really like what you have to say about Gulliver. I really didn't read so much into it but if I was, I really think I would have found an answer like yours.
Yes, I think Gulliver is Yahoo. I also believes that he see himself as yahoo. This is why he tried so much to assimilate into the Houyhnhnm society. The his master talked with him about Yahoos and their mentality the more he relized that he and his society back in England fit everything that was said to him. When he saw his reflection in the water it disgusted him that for me said I see a Yahoo.
This trip was to show how the lower class and acidemia are seen through Swift's eyes. His other tales dealt with the upper class and the powerful people of England, but this was a direct shot at those people who spent to much time caught in what they thought was important and missing out on life in general.
Claudia,
I think you are right when you say that Gulliver's ability to reason keeps him from being a Yahoo. The fact that he can recognize the baser traits of Yahoos in himself points out just how far he is from actually being one. I want to amend my earlier statement on Swift's intentions, too...I think Swift intended for Gulliver - and by extension, all humans - to be seen as having a potential for Yahooism, rather than actually being Yahoos. Hope that makes sense!
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