Jonathan Swift is the critic of the contemporary social and political order and his “Gulliver’s Travels” appeared to be a contentious work when it was first published in the 18th century (Smith, p.22). Even without the passages, which were considered to contain ‘political hazard’, the book is full of bitter satire; the author, using parallels, describes the most unfavorable and nasty sides of the European society by developing the imaginary settings of the novels. Parts 3 and 4 of “Gulliver’s Travels”, “A Voyage to Laputa” and “A Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms” are an in-depth exploration of the flaws of governance and vices identified in the 18th century English society, presented mainly by means of satire (Lock, 980, p. 38). The present paper argues that in Part 3, the author displays satire through the characters of Laputa’s desperate rulers and Lagado’s gifted scientists, who waste their time for useless experiments, and senile, envious immortals, whereas in Part 4, satire can be found in the radical change of the roles of humans and animals and the inference that the ideal society, embodied by the Houyhnhnms is also corrupt as their morality lacks the values of mercy and compassion.
In “Gulliver’s Travels”, Laputans are described as awkward and egoistic scientists, who seem so concentrated on their abstractive theories, concepts, and ideas that need outside help to distract. Nobler citizens are accompanied by servants who are in charge of reminding their bosses that it is necessary to continue the conversation: “With these bladders, they now and then flapped the mouths and ears of those who stood near them, of which practice I could not then conceive the meaning. It seems that the minds of these people are so taken up with intense speculations, that they neither can speak, not attend to the discourses of others […] ” (Swift, Part 3, Ch.2, Par.1). It is hard to imagine such a miserable ruling class, as the ostensibly worthiest of the Laputans are literally blind and deaf and their mental state does not allow them to think about and discuss political issues.
The king is even more “pensive”, as it is noted in the book that the main character has to wait for the whole day until the state’s leader is able to perceive the objective reality. From the perspective of common sense, the head of the state who spends most of the day in the state of “coma” and has to be hit by his servants (inferiors) in order to sober up looks not merely ineffective, but also ridiculous. Moreover, it needs to be noted that the ruler is not allowed to leave the floating island, located above the other territories (Swift, Part 3, Ch.3, par. 4), so he has never seen his empire and has a very superficial knowledge of the social and political dynamics in the lower regions. As a result, his rule is characterized by absurd and pointless bureaucracy, as the petitions, laws, and official papers are handed from the higher official to the lower until the last servant sends the orders down by means of a rope (Swift, Part 3, Ch.2, par.5). Surprisingly, the Laputans with their inherent mathematical apparatus and strong logic, do not bother themselves to optimize the processes of governance and decision-making (Knowles, p. 89).
Furthermore, the territory of Lagado seems devastated and turned into the ruin by the unwise rule of Munodi and ridiculous experiments of local scientists: “The only inconvenience is, that none of these projects are yet brought to perfection; and in the meantime, the whole country lies miserably waste, the houses in ruins, and the people without food or clothes. By all which, instead of being discouraged, they are fifty times more violently bent upon prosecuting their schemes, driven equally on by hope and despair […]” (Swift, Part 3, Ch.4, par. 12). Further, it becomes clear, that science is already the end in itself in Lagado, as one of the members of the local academia has dedicated years to the attempts to turn excrements into food, the other is trying hard to turn ice into gunpowder.
The academic architects are working on the technology of building houses from the roof down, whereas the blind painter is teaching his blind students to mix colors, differentiating them by smell (Swift, Part 3, Ch.5, par. 7). The Linguist is purifying the language so that only nouns are left and political scientists and government officials are disputing the issue of imposing taxes on women on the basis of their beauty (Swift, Part 3, Ch.6, par. 4). It is obvious that the top circles of the society which have political and legal power, are simply wasting time, as they are striving for goals that are not attainable without supplementary technologies, which require a higher organization of the academia’s functioning as opposed to the existing chaos (Knowles, p.94). At the same time, the commons, shown as the sanest people of the state, neglected and marginalized, are dying of starvation. As one can assume, the depictions of Laputa’s and Lagado’s irrational state leadership and stagnating science can be viewed as powerful satirical messages.
Satire is also evident in the portrayal of Luggnagg’s immortals. Although they to a certain degree represent the protagonist’s ideal and the realization of humanity’s cherished dream about eternal life, in flesh, these people appear to be extremely far from the abstractive ideal. As Hammond notes, the reference to the immortals can be viewed as an allusion to myths about divinities whose power and beauty never disappear and who wisely rule and coach humans (Hammond, p. 172). However, instead of meeting the deities, the embodiment of virtue and constructive force, Gulliver encounters a totally different cohort of people, who view their immortality as doom and behave in accordance with this conviction: ” They were not only opinionative, peevish, covetous, morose, vain, talkative, but incapable of friendship, and dead to all natural affection, which never descended below their grandchildren. Envy and impotent desires are their prevailing passions. But those objects against which their envy seems principally directed, are the vices of the younger sort and the deaths of the old” (Swift, Part 3, Ch.10, par.20). Therefore, these ostensibly lucky people, who have no fear for death, not merely obtain no obvious benefits from their eternal life, but also lose the positive sides and aspects of regular human life, such as love, marriage and family life, fulfillment with professional or career success and, finally, the wisdom of old age. Therefore, the most sacred archetype of human collective consciousness, eternal life, is satirized in the literary work and positioned as physical, psychological, and intellectual degradation (Knowles, p.144).
In Part 4, Swift mocks human society, characterized by extremely complicated organization and system of norms, values, and beliefs. In the narrative about the country of the Houyhnhnms, the world is turned upside down by the author’s creative imagination and humans, the Yahoos, are depicted as inferior creatures, or beasts, whereas horses, the animals, are the embodiment of prudence, level-headedness, and commitment to moral principles. The Houyhnhnms are simple, close to nature, and have a unique civilization. Their language lacks words that denote conflict, war, or cruelty, and the intelligent horses practice a non-violent attitude towards the living creatures around them (Swift, Part 4, Ch.3, par. 7). The Houyhnhnms are also hospitable and warmly welcome Gulliver by offering their guest several types of food so that the man can select what he feels like eating and by teaching him their language and culture with great enthusiasm. As the protagonist joins the community, he finds out that it is governed by the assembly of the elders, and each member of the group prioritizes collective well-being over personal.
These values and skills of healthy and sound interactions with the environment are nurtured in the younger individuals since their early years. At the same time, human beings, the Yahoos, are wild and unruly: “Several of this cursed brood, getting hold of the branches behind, leaped up into the tree, whence they began to discharge their excrements on my head; however, I escaped pretty well by sticking close to the stem of the tree but was almost stifled with the filth, which fell about me on every side” (Part 4, Ch.1, par.5). Therefore, the whole human civilization with its inherent tendency to never-ending wars is symbolically represented by the aggressive Yahoos and thus satirized; moreover, the criticism becomes even harsher when considering the idea that animals are hierarchically higher and better-organized creatures as compared to humans (Rawson, p. 302). In fact, humans seem primitive and deformed beings in the background the pure-minded, righteous, and principled Houyhnhnms who enjoy living in harmony with the natural environment, as opposed to humans who deliberately imprison themselves in stone and wooden boxes. The intelligent horses do not understand the purpose of war and believe that any disagreement can be resolved by more peaceful means, i.e. through diplomacy, communication, and negotiation (Rawson, p.304).
At the same time, the Houyhnhnms, the perfect society which Gulliver admires, are not flawless in their moral superiority. In fact, the intelligent horses justify their intention to extinguish the Yahoos by sterilizing the beasts, using the argument of their highly-developed reason and morality (Swift, Part 4, Ch. 9, par. 9). Therefore, the Houyhnhnms give themselves the power to make decisions concerning the lives of the other populations on the basis of self-perceived moral excellence (Tippett, p. 158). However, from the perspective of formal logic, both the Yahoos and the Houyhnhnms were brought into this world by Nature, so neither of the groups has the right to exterminate the other. Another feature of the Houyhnhnms society which challenges the illusion of faultlessness is the problem of the Houyhnhnms’ indistinct personalities since this is an only society where individuals do not have names (Swift, Part 4, Ch.4, par. 8).
It is possible to argue that horses, regardless of their human intelligence, do not need names, since they can distinguish each other by using more perfect sense perception, but the fact itself that such high creatures who even develop different sciences have no identities seems strange and appalling. In this sense, the community of Houyhnhnms can be viewed as a single organism rather than a diverse group of individuals, as they are fully subordinated to the collective consciousness (Tippett, p.167). Therefore, human society, where individualities with distinct identities and personality traits manage to coexist, appears to be an advanced form of organization. As one can assume, even the rational Houyhnhnms are used in the literary work as an allegory, through which Swift mocks the Utopian paradigms of supreme societies, which, as the author suggests, are likely to end up in the state of the mass or conflux with the civilization, similarly to the Houyhnhnms.
To sum up, both explicit and implicit satire is used in “Gulliver’s Travels”. Whereas Part 3 is fully composed in a satirical tone and clearly reveals the bizarre methods of governance and social policymaking, Part 4 shows hyper contextual satirical messages about the meaninglessness of urbanization and lack of plausibility in the popular Utopian ideas of a perfect society. However, in both narratives, satire is grounded deeply in morality, so the imaginary societies serve as grotesque representations of human flaws, weaknesses, and limitations.
Works cited
Hammond, B. Gulliver’s Travels. Philadelphia: Open University Press, 1988.
Knowles, R. Gulliver’s Travels: The Politics of Satire. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1996.
Lock, F. The Politics of Gulliver’s Travels. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980.
Rawson, C. God, Gulliver and Genocide: Barbarism and the European Imagination. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Smith, F. The Genres of Gulliver’s Travels. Newark, Delaware: University of Delaware Press, 1990.
Swift, J. Gulliver’s Travels. 2009. Web.
Tippett, B. Gulliver’s Travels. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1989.