|
            
|
Contents:
I.
Jonathan Swift on Thomas More
II. Similarities between the Utopia and Gulliver's Travels
III. Essay topics for comparing Utopia and Gulliver's
Travels
IV.
Other essay topics
V.
Lecture on Gulliver's Travels
I. Jonathan Swift on Thomas More:
In book three, chapter 7 of Gulliver’s Travels, Swift includes
More among the six greatest defenders of liberty of all time, along
with Socrates, Cato, and Brutus. In another essay, Swift writes
that More “was the person of the greatest virtue these islands ever
produced” (Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, v. 13, Oxford UP, 1959, p.
123).
II. Similarities between Thomas
More’s Utopia and Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels:
Narrator
In Gulliver’s Travels, it is important to realize (but not to
reveal too soon to students) that the tales are being told by an
unreliable narrator – in fact, a narrator who in the end has gone
mad. This technique is similar to the one Thomas More utilizes in
Utopia. Careful readers – noticing the
many internal contradictions in Raphael’s account in book 2, together
with the many indications given in book 1 – come to realize that
Raphael cannot be completely trusted, and they must weigh judiciously
all that he says.
Ending
Both books end with a denunciation of pride by the main character, a
main character who has proved himself to be extremely proud.
Utopian Character
“Utopia” means “no place” and neither More nor Swift presents any of
their make-believe places as a perfect model to be imitated.
Careful readers are meant to see that some features are impossible or
grossly lacking. This “utopian” character is designed to engage
the reader dialectically, fostering the philosophic effort to think
through the true nature of the person
and the essential requirements of society.
Books 1 & 2 of Gulliver’s Travels
These are clearly books about getting perspective on human nature: in
one, Gulliver is twelve times larger than the other inhabitants; in the
other he is twelve times smaller. Throughout these books, he is
generally pleasant, likeable, but naïve (we’re told that he has
“weak eyes” and needs his spectacles).
What are the positive “measures” within Gulliver’s Travels by
which the reader can gauge Swift’s understanding of what is genuinely
ideal?
In book 1: Lilliput before it becomes corrupt
In book 2: the King of Brobdingnag
In book 3: Homer; Aristotle as opposed to Descartes and other modern
philosophers; the English yeomen of old; Lord Munodi; Brutus, More and
their companions.
In book 4: Captain Pedro
Briefly, what are the larger issues being satirized in each book?
Book 1: pride in position, power, wealth, possessions (Gulliver shares
in love for these things)
Book 2: pride in bodily beauty; the virtuous, good-humored, studious,
and peace-loving king of Brobdingnag (who favors limited monarchy and a
citizen army) is in sharp contrast to the proud and arbitrary Emperor
of
Lilliput who seeks dominion over the known world.
Book 3: satirizes exaggerated expectations from applied sciences, as
best seen in Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis. (See separate study
guides on
this topic in the New
Atlantis curriculum unit.)
Book 4: continues the satire of book 3, but from two different
perspectives. First, the Yahoos represent in part the view of
human nature proposed by Hobbes (who served as Francis Bacon’s
secretary and who shared with Bacon the critici
sm posed by Machiavelli against the overly idealistic view of virtue
proposed by classical and Christian thinkers). Second, the
Houyhnhnms represent the “pure reason” or extreme rationalism implied
in much of modern science. In these two extremes, the Yahoos and
the Houyhnhnms, we see examples of
what the ghost of Aristotle criticized in 3.8: “He [Aristotle] said
that
new systems of nature were but new fashions.”
Back
to
top
III. Essay Topics Comparing Utopia
and Gulliver’s
Travels:
1. Raphael and Gulliver both end the account of their travels with
speeches against pride. Compare and contrast their treatments of
pride and explain the role of pride in each of their books.
2. In Gulliver’s Travels and in Utopia, compare the
treatment of one of the following topics:
education
the family
politics
religion
friendship
war
the role of travel in education.
Back
to
top
IV. Topics for other essays on Gulliver's
Travels:
Analysis of Gulliver's character: Why does he go mad?
What does Gulliver most admire and why? (What is his highest good?)
What is missing in Gulliver’s education?
Images of pride vs. images on disgust: What is the point?
King of Brobdingnag vs. Gulliver's master among the Houyhnhnms
Swift's use of satire regarding
politics in book 1
science in book 3
ideologies in book 4
education in book 1, 3, or 4
The role of the chapter on ghosts in book 3 (chapter 8)
Compare and contrast views of friendship in this work
The role of Lord Munodi in book 3
Don Pedro's role in book 4.
Analyze one of these themes:
pride
war
gaining perspective
modern vs. ancient philosophy
the best place to live
Back
to
top
V. Lecture on Swift's Gulliver's
Travels:
(This text by Ian Johnston of Malaspina University-College, Nanaimo,
BC, is a slightly edited version of a lecture delivered in March 1994.
This document is in the public domain, released June 1999. Click here
for the full text of this lecture.)
Introduction
…I want, by way of an introduction to Gulliver's Travels, to
adopt the approach that Swift is reacting against the rapidly
developing modernity of much of the seventeenth-century though this
satire is a cry of protest in the name of an older tradition, one
reaching back to Socrates, Plato,
and St. Paul. And yet, Swift, as a product of the new forces, is aware
that
we cannot simply return to medieval or Greek times and pretend that
Newton
never existed.
In short, I want eventually to lead us to the fairly obvious point that
Gulliver's Travels, one of the greatest works of
protest against modernity ever written, is no exercise in nostalgia but
a call to shape the rapidly growing power of European culture in
accordance with some old insights. His great fear is that, in the
eagerness to follow the direction indicated by Hobbes and Descartes,
among others, which begins with an energetic and optimistic debunking
and rejection of tradition and the enthronement
of new rationality, we may be throwing out the baby with the bathwater….
Swift's Gulliver's Travels is without question the most famous
prose work to emerge from this 18th century Tory satiric tradition. It
is
the strongest, funniest, and yet in some ways most despairing cry for a
halt to the trends initiated by seventeenth-century philosophy. It is
the
best evidence we can read to remind us that the rise of the new
rationality
did not occur unopposed.
Before looking at how Swift deals with his resistance, however, I want
to talk a bit about the basic techniques Swift uses to structure his
satire. For Gulliver's Travels is not just a great work of
moral vision; it
is also a wonderful satire, and whatever one thinks of Swift's moral
position, it is difficulty not to acknowledge his supreme skill as a
satirist.
Some Observations on Swift's Satiric Technique
If the main purpose of any satire is to invite the reader to laugh at
a particular human vice or folly, in order to invite us to consider an
important moral alternative, then the chief task facing the satirist is
to present
the target in such a way that we find constant delight in the wit,
humour,
and surprises awaiting us. Few things in literature are more
ineffective
than a boring, repetitive satire. So to appreciate just why some
satires
work and others do not, one should look carefully at how the satirist
sets
up the target and delivers his judgment upon it in such a way as to
sustain
our interest. In other words, the essence of good satire is not the
complexity in the moral message coming across, but in the skilful style
with which
the writer seeks to demolish his target.
When we discussed Aristophanes, I suggested there that one main
ingredient in satire is distortion or exaggeration an invitation to see
something very familiar, perhaps even something we ourselves do in such
a way that it becomes simultaneously ridiculous (or even disgusting)
and yet funny, comical, something no reasonable person would engage in.
Now, the first important question to ask of any satirist is how he or
she achieves the necessary comic distortion which transforms the
familiar
into the ridiculous. And Swift's main technique for achieving this--and
a wonderful technique for satire--is the basic plot of science fiction:
the voyage by an average civilized human being into unknown territory
and
his return back home. This apparently simple plot immediately opens up
all
sorts of satiric possibilities, because it enables the writer
constantly
to play off three different perspectives in order give the reader a
comic
sense of what is very familiar. It can do this in the following ways:
1. If the strange new country is recognizably similar to the reader's
own culture, then comic distortions in the new world enable the writer
to
satirize the familiar in a host of different ways, providing, in
effect,
a cartoon style view of the reader's own world.
2. If the strange new country is some sort of utopia--a perfectly
realized vision of the ideals often proclaimed but generally violated
in the reader's own world--then the satirist can manipulate the
discrepancy between the ideal new world of the fiction and the corrupt
world of the reader to illustrate repeatedly just how empty the
pretensions to goodness really are in the reader's world.
3. But the key to this technique is generally the use of the traveller,
the figure who is, in effect, the reader's contemporary and fellow
countryman. How that figure reacts to the New World can be a constant
source of amusement and pointed satiric comment, because, in effect,
this figure represents the contact between the normal world of the
reader and the strange New World of either caricatured ridiculousness
or utopian perfection.
We can see Swift moving back and forth between the first two
techniques, and this can create some confusion. For example, in much of
Book I, Lilliput is clearly a comic distortion of life in Europe. The
sections on the public rewards of leaping and creeping or the endless
disputes about whether one should eat one's eggs by breaking them at
the bigger or the smaller end or the absurdity of the royal
proclamations are obvious and funny distortions of the court life, the
pompous pretentiousness of officials, and the religious disputes
familiar to Swift's readers.
At the same time, however, there are passages where he holds up the
laws of Lilliput as some form of utopian ideal, in order to demonstrate
just how much better they understand true reasonableness than do the
Europeans. In Book II he does the same: for most of the time the people
of Brobdingnag are again caricatured distorted Europeans, but clearly
the King of Brobdingnag is an ideal figure.
This shift in perspective on the New World is at times confusing. Swift
is, in effect, manipulating the fictional world to suit his immediate
satirical purposes. It's easy enough to see what he's doing, but it
does, in some sense, violate our built-up expectations. Just how are we
supposed to take Lilliput and Brobdingnag--as a distorted Europe or as
a utopia or what? This lack
of a consistent independent reality to the fictional world which he has
created is one of the main reasons why Gulliver's Travels is
not considered
one of the first novels (since one of the requirements of a novel, it
is
maintained, is a consistent attitude towards the fictional reality one
has
created: one cannot simply manipulate it at will to prove a didactic
point).
In Book IV, Swift deals more consistently with this ambiguity in the
New World by dividing it into two groups: the satirized Europeans, the
Yahoos, and the ideally reasonable creatures, the horses. So here there
is less of a sense of shifting purpose at work. That may help to
account, in part, for the great power of the Fourth Voyage.
Now, the genius of Swift's satire in Gulliver's Travels
realizes itself in a second feature--the way he organizes the New World
in order
to make it a constantly fertile source of satiric humour. His main
insight,
in the first two books, has the simplicity of genius. He simply changes
the
perspective on human conduct: in Book I Gulliver is a normal human
being
visiting a recognizably European society, but he is twelve times bigger
than
anyone else. In the second the technique is the same, but now he is
twelve
times smaller.
With this altered perspective, Swift can now manipulate Gulliver's
reactions to the changing circumstances in order to underscore his
satiric points in a very humorous way. For instance, it's clear that
the main satiric target in Book I is the pride Europeans take in public
ceremonies, titles, court preferment, and all sorts of celebrations of
their power and magnificence. So there's an obvious silliness to the
obsession with these matters when the figures are only six inches high.
But what makes this preoccupation with ceremony all the sillier is
Gulliver's reaction to it. He, as a good European, takes it quite
seriously. He's truly impressed with the king's magnificence, with his
proclamation that he's the most powerful monarch in the world, and he
takes great delight in being given the title of a Nardac. The satiric
point here, of course, is not on the
Lilliputians (although they are obviously caricatured Europeans) but on
Gulliver's enthusiastic participation in their silliness. For example,
when
he's accused of having an affair with the cabinet minister's wife, he
does
not scoff at the biological ridiculousness of that accusation; he
defends
himself with his new title: I couldn't have done that; after all, I'm a
Nardac. Similarly in Book II, in which the main target shifts to the
Europeans'
preoccupation with physical beauty, the chief sources of satiric humour
are not only the gross exaggerations of the human body seen magnified
twelve
times but also Gulliver's reactions to it.
The Character of Gulliver
And this brings me to a key point in following Gulliver's Travels,
namely the importance of Gulliver himself. He is our contact throughout
the four voyages, and at the end he is completely different from the
person
he was at the start. So it's particularly important that we get a
handle
on who he is, what happens to him, why it happens, and how we are
supposed
to understand that. The single most important thing Swift has to say in
Gulliver's Travels is communicated to us in the changes which take
place
in the narrator.
Now, to get the satiric point of the changes in Gulliver across, Swift
has to be careful not to give the reader an easy escape, for Swift
understood very well that readers who see themselves satirized will
always look for some way of neutralizing or deflecting the satire away
from them. Satire, Swift observed, is a mirror in which people see
everyone else's face but their
own. So it's important for us to take careful stock of Gulliver, to
assess
just how reliable a person he is, so that we can fully understand the
nature
of his transformation.
At the start of the first voyage, Swift takes a few pages to establish
for us that Gulliver is, in some ways, a very typical European. He is
middle aged, well educated, sensible (in the best sense of the term),
with no extravagantly romantic notions. He is a careful observer,
scrupulous about looking after his family, and fully conversant with
the importance of conducting his affairs prudently. There is nothing
extraordinary about him. He's been around, and he's not a person to be
easily rattled.
This is important to grasp, because in effect Swift is removing from us
any possibility of ascribing the transformation which takes place in
Gulliver to any quirks of his character. He is not an unbalanced,
erratic, private, or imaginative person. On the contrary, he is about
as typically sensible and reasonable a narrator as one could wish. And
he fully supports the culture which has produced him, and has developed
no critical understanding of it.
Thus, in the first two books, we can see why he would naturally fall in
with the Europeanness of the new world. He has never reflected at all
on
the rightness or wrongness of the given order of things, so he
naturally
supports the authority of the king, the ceremonies of the court, and
the
"fairness" of the justice system.
Only when he himself is sentenced to be blinded do we begin to sense
that Gulliver is learning something. Circumstances are forcing him to
think about, not just his own safety, but something much bigger: the
justice of the proceedings. He is, in other words, beginning to develop
a critical awareness of the limitations of the values of Lilliput and,
beyond that, of the way in which the Europeans reflect those same
values.
These initial critical insights are temporary only, and when he
returns, he is quickly reconciled to European life. But in the second
voyage the critical awareness returns, especially in relation to the
physical grossness of the giant Brobdingnagians. The altered
perspective leads him to reflect upon
the way in which Europeans have become obsessed with physical beauty,
especially with the feminine body, when, from a different perspective,
it is comically gross and even nauseating.
However, this growing sense of a critical awareness in Book II does not
lead Gulliver seriously to question his European values, and so he is
prepared to defend the sorry history of Europe in the face of the King
of Brobdingnag's scorn.
For that powerful indictment of European life--which is so close in
tone to the conclusion of Book IV--Gulliver is not yet ready for. His
typical European consciousness is still too full of complacent self
congratulation to accept this form of criticism, so he dismisses it
with a snide remark about
the limited understanding of the King of Brobdingnag (reinforced by his
rejection
of the use of gunpowder).
Yet, it's clear that something is happening to Gulliver, because upon
his return home after the second voyage, it takes him some time to
readjust to European life. This is quite comical, but the point is
important: in his
strange new land, his perceptions are changing. At this point it is
simply a matter of the physical proportions of the people, but Swift is
setting up
the reader for the conclusions of the book, when the transformation of
Gulliver
is going to involve a total alternation of his moral perspectives, so
that
he is no longer able to return to the calm, unreflective, typical
European
that he was when he started.
The Fourth Voyage
I'm moving directly to the fourth voyage, because in a sense it is the
logical continuation of the Second Voyage (the Third Voyage was written
later),
and most of the serious arguments about Swift's satire focus on this
part
of the book.
In the fourth voyage, Gulliver's transformation becomes complete, and
when he returns he can no longer participate in European society--not
even
with his friends and family--as he could before. It's as if Swift is
saying
that Gulliver has discovered something that makes social life in the
normal
sense insupportable, so that he would sooner construct his own life
among
his domestic horses than return to a normal European family life.
And the key interpretative questions thus arises: How are we to deal
with this conclusion to the story? On the face of it, the conclusion
seems an unacceptably harsh condemnation of European humanity. Their
Yahoo-like nature makes dealing with them impossible, and thus the
reasonable thing to do is to turn away from them. Is this not
ultimately a violently misanthropic gesture, and therefore something we
must turn away from?
Dealing with this question is one of the great battle grounds in the
interpretation of English literature (like dealing with Hamlet or
Paradise Lost). In order to clarify the issues, I'd like to review some
of the positions and then suggest some of the things we need to
consider in charting a way through the
difficulties. I should add that I do have my own view of what is the
most
comprehensible interpretation (and I will add that), but I don't want
anyone
to think that this is not fiercely contested interpretative territory.
The first reaction to the end of the Fourth Voyage is to acknowledge
that Swift indeed wants us to understand and sympathize with Gulliver's
actions. The main satiric point of Gulliver's final actions was to
ridicule the Europeans' pretensions to rationality; Gulliver's response
is an exaggerated but still understandable way of underlining the point
that, if we could come to understand true rationality, as Gulliver has
done through his experience with the horses, and if we could have our
eyes opened as to what we are really like underneath all our fine
illusions about ourselves, as Gulliver's eyes have been opened by his
experience of the Yahoos, then we, too, would turn away, and, rather
like the person who has finally made it out of Plato's cave, want to
spend our time in contemplation of the beauty and truth of reason and
not be distracted by the foolish pride of those gazing at the cave wall
(the analogy with the Allegory of the Cave is very important here).
This interpretation was common among Swift's contemporaries and in the
nineteenth century. However, many who saw this in the satire simply
dismissed it as a harsh but finally erroneous vision; they believed
that the promises of the new science were, in fact, being realized,
that progress was possible, and that Swift was simply wrong, out of
touch with the perfectibility of human
nature and human social institutions, that he was simply a grumpy,
pessimistic,
conservative Christian. Thus, the book was simply a conservative
complaining
about an emerging new truth.
In addition, of course, the book had too many naughty words and rude
scenes, and therefore should not be read by people concerned for
politeness in literature. So those who wanted to believe in a less
fiercely limited view of human nature had an easy excuse to denigrate
Swift as a writer worth reading. Progress is on schedule, for all
Swift's negative vision.
Now, this reaction is interesting because it does at least acknowledge
that Swift had a serious purpose and that in the transformation of
Gulliver he made that purpose explicit. Gulliver is, indeed, Swift's
spokesman until the very end. The dismissal of the book, therefore,
does not involve a denial of the full satiric intention. It does
acknowledge the point of what Swift is doing. However, it claims that
that is the wrong point. Swift's satire is clear, but his understanding
of human nature and morality is wrong.
A second reaction is to equate Swift with Gulliver--to claim, as with
the first reaction, that Swift intends us to take Gulliver's
transformation seriously. Swift, however, is mad, mentally unbalanced,
notoriously neurotic, and therefore we do not need to attend seriously
to the ending of the book, unless we happen to be interested in
clinical manifestations in literature of various mental aberrations.
Enter, from stage left, the psychoanalytic view of Swift, which quite
neutralizes the satire by an appeal to various disorders. …But what
such
an approach does to Gulliver's Travels is important. It replaces the
moral
seriousness of the satiric message with a clinical study of the
deranged
author. Thus, we do not have to attend seriously to any moral position
at
stake here.
A third reaction, common in the twentieth century, quite rehabilitates
Swift from this sort of criticism by claiming that, at the end of the
Fourth Voyage, we are not meant to see Gulliver's actions as the
natural rational outcome of what he has been through, because Gulliver
himself has here become the target of the satire. Gulliver, in other
words, no longer speaks for the author. What he does is, in effect, an
overreaction, and Swift wants us
to understand that as such. His treatment of the Portuguese captain and
his
family are clear indications that Gulliver has gone overboard in his
admiration
for the horses and his dislike of the Yahoos, and that we are to see in
his
conduct a warning of sorts.
This approach to the Fourth Voyage, one should note, helps to maintain
the claim that Swift was an intelligent writer, fully in command of his
medium, and that we do not have to deal with the disturbing effects of
the satire by writing them off as the ravings of an anally maladjusted
neurotic, obsessed with the cramping in his sphincter. We simply have
to understand that Swift's satiric intentions at the end of the Fourth
Voyage are not as harsh as they appear to be. What this approach does
to the power of Swift's satire, however, is a question that needs to be
carefully considered. How consistent is this view of the ending with
the general tenor of the rest of the satire in Book IV and in the other
Books?
Now debating these options might be an interesting seminar exercise.
But however they are resolved, I would like to offer some things that
one should bear in mind.
First, the transformation of Gulliver starts, as I observed, in Book I
and becomes considerably stronger in Book II. That transformation
involves a growing critical awareness of the extent to which pride
rules human actions. At the start Gulliver gives no sign of ever having
thought about such matters. He's a patriotic, unreflective European
professional. The insights come intermittently and do not last. But to
some extent, the transformation of Gulliver at the end of the fourth
voyage can be seen as a logical outcome of the trend that has started
before. So, however we evaluate the end of the fourth voyage, we need
to measure that interpretation against the rest of the book.
This point might be connected with the growing seriousness of the
initial situation that gets Gulliver into the New World: in Book I it's
a shipwreck; in Book II, he's abandoned; in Book III, it's pirates; and
in Book IV, it's a mutiny (and we all remember from reading Dante that
a mutiny, a revolt against established authority, is the greatest
crime).
Second, Gulliver's transformation in Book IV has two motives: his
sudden awareness of the Yahoo-like nature of European human beings,
including himself, and, equally important, his sudden discovery about
what true reasonableness really means (in the lives of the horses). So
in estimating how one should assess his final state, one needs to bear
in mind that the issue is not just a turning away from European family
and social life; it is also a turning towards what he is now fully in
love with, a contemplation of the truth. .
Third, one's judgment on what Gulliver has gone through does not depend
upon our having to decide whether it would be rational or not for us to
follow suit, abandon our families, and set up home in the nearest
stable.
That is not what Swift is saying. He's offering us a vision--a comic
and
satiric but nonetheless morally serious vision--of what would happen to
a
typical European (like us) if we had, like Gulliver, come to a full
understanding through experience both of ourselves and of true
reasonableness (which we like to think we possess).
The basic idea here is derived, quite clearly, from Plato's Allegory of
the Cave. Gulliver has made it out of the cave, and having seen the
sun,
he's not about to pretend that looking at shadows on the wall is the
right
way to live. What is happening to him is, in fact, just what Plato says
will happen to the person who returns: he is treated as insane because
normal people (that's us) simply cannot grasp what he now understands.
(It's interesting, incidentally, to note just how popular this sort of
ending is in satiric stories with a similar intent: the endings of, for
example, Heart of Darkness and Catch 22, are remarkably similar. The
central character, once a recognizably typical representative of his
culture, has gone through a transformation which leads him to reject
that culture in a way that his contemporaries do not understand: Marlow
takes to the sea for the rest of his life; Yossarian sets out in a
rubber raft for Scandinavia).
Fourth, one needs also to recognize that it's no serious criticism of
Swift's moral position to observe that the life of the horses is not
all
that attractive, that to us it seems boring. That's part of Swift's
point.
We, as readers, are Yahoos, irrational creatures and, beyond that,
incapable
for the most part of even understanding and responding to the
attractions
of such reasonable behaviour. For Swift's major point here is not that
we
should try to emulate the horses, for that's impossible, but rather
that
we should stop pretending that we are equivalent to them. We are not by
nature reasonable creatures, and it is the height of folly and pride to
assert that we are. We have to start our moral awareness with the
acceptance
of that truth, and our dissatisfaction with the life of the horses is
not
an indication that they are wrong so much as that we are unreasonable.
We
describe ourselves in terms appropriate to the horses, but we
characteristically
behave more like Yahoos. That is the source of the pride which Swift
wishes
to attack.
Finally, it's important to recognize that our last contact with
Gulliver indicates quite clearly that what bothers him about human
beings is not what they are but what they pretend to be. He would be
much happier about living among human beings again, and is starting to
do so, but everything would
be much easier for him if their characteristic pride did not always get
in
the way:
My reconcilement to the Yahoo kind in general might not be so
difficult, if they would be content with those vices and follies only
which nature hath entitled them to. I am not in the least provoked by
the sight of a lawyer, a pickpocket, a colonel, a fool, a lord, a
gamester, a politician, a whoremonger, a physician, an evidence, a
suborner, an attorney, a traitor, or the like: this is all according to
the due course of things. But when I behold a lump of deformity, and
diseases both in 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.
The wise and virtuous Houyhnhnms, who abound in all excellencies that
can
adorn a rational creature, have no name for this vice in their
language, which
hath no terms to express anything that is evil, except those whereby
they
describe the detestable qualities of their Yahoos, among which they
were
not able to distinguish this of pride, for want of thoroughly
understanding human nature, as it showeth itself in other countries,
where that animal presides.
But I, who had more experience, could plainly observe some rudiments of
it
in the Yahoos.
The point I want to stress here is that, however one navigates one's
way through the interpretative waters of the ending of Gulliver's
Travels, it is important to reconcile your view of Gulliver's
behaviour with what
he actually says and with the satiric momentum of the last book, as it
arises out of the earlier voyages.
My own view (a common but contested view) is that Swift does want us to
take Gulliver seriously right up to the end, that we are to understand
his reaction as the natural consequence of a normal man who has made it
out
of the cave, and who now is not willing to go back to what he once was.
The fact that we find this odd is a reminder to us of just how much we
are
the product of years of watching shadows on the cave wall. Yes, the
Portuguese
captain is a good person, and, yes, Gulliver's wife and family are
neglected,
but when you've come to see, as Gulliver has, just what true
reasonableness
involves, then a normal life and normal good people are not enough. The
point,
to repeat myself, is not that we should try to emulate Gulliver, but
that
we should try to understand him--and if we do that, we may come to
recognize
the illusory pride which makes us claim to be rational creatures.
Of course, I have to admit that the extreme anger Gulliver displays at
the end (like his extreme nausea at the human body in Book II) does
invite someone to wonder about the extent to which the satiric purpose
might be being subverted by an excessively strong imaginative distaste
for certain elements of human life. The borderline between very strong
satire and a questionable
wallowing about in ugliness or pornography for its own sake is not
always
clearly discernible and different readers have different reactions. To
that
extent, I would admit that there is ground in Swift's style for certain
questions to arise. However, I do not believe myself that such
questions cannot be answered within the framework of the interpretation
I have just outlined.
A Final Comment
For me Swift's language, though strong, is still in control. The vision
is harsh, the anger extreme, but that's a sign of the intense moral
indignation Swift feels at the transformation of life around him in
ways that are leading, he thinks, to moral disaster. The central
Christian and Socratic emphasis on virtue is losing ground to something
he sees as a facile illusion--that reason, wealth, money, and power
could somehow do the job for us which had been traditionally placed
upon our moral characters.
In the new world, faith, hope, and charity, Swift sees, are going to be
irrelevant, because the rational organization of human experience and
the application of the new reasoning to all aspects of human life are
going
to tempt human beings with a rich lure: the promise of happiness. Under
the banner of the new rationality, the traditional notions of virtue
will
become irrelevant, as human beings substitute for excellence of
character--the
development of the individual human life according to some telos, some
spiritual
goal--the idea that properly organized practical rules, structures of
authority,
rational enquiry into efficient causes, profitable commercial ventures,
and laws will provide the sure guide, because, after all, human beings
are
rational creatures.
Book IV of Gulliver's Travels is the most famous and most
eloquent protest against this modern project. The severity of his
indignation and
anger is, I think, a symptom of the extent to which he realized the
battle
was already being lost. To us, however, over two hundred years later,
Swift's point is perhaps more vividly relevant than to many of his
contemporaries. After all, we have witnessed the triumphant unrolling
of the scientific
project, the extension of Descartes's rationality into all aspects of
our
lives.
And yet we might want to ask ourselves whether the cheque which
Descarttes wrote out for us is negotiable, whether his promise has, in
fact, made us morally better creatures, more able to live the good
life, more charitable to our neighbours, with a greater faith in the
excellences life does make possible, better able to work out our
differences justly, and more able to achieve true happiness. Or, on the
contrary, has giving the enormous power of the new science to the
Yahoos not created some of the those very dangers which Swift is so
concerned to warn us about will happen? The yahoos now
posses the secrets of atomic energy and genetic engineering; their
commercial zest is punching holes in the ozone and deforesting the
planet. Meanwhile, in Moscow and Washington, DC, the life expectancy of
adult males is plummeting. Has all this increase in knowledge and power
made us any more just towards each other? Has it clarified the good
life for me and a means of settling justly our disputes? The jury is,
one might argue, still out.
Back
to top
|