Post 3

A Problem Child

In the four books of Gulliver’s Travels, Swift introduces a variety of civilizations that widely reflect or satirize the world as he experiences it. One area of concern for Swift, through his mouthpiece of Gulliver, is the 18th century’s broken holdovers of traditional nobility, known as race. The fourth book’s time in Houyhnhnmland holds the most striking commentaries on this front, since the horse-human line provides a bare slate to compare physical appearance and hardiness to social, political, or economic standing. Within Swift’s Houyhnhnmland, concepts of 18th century nobility are explicitly explained and framed as nonsensical.

Concepts of race in the period Gulliver speaks from still depend on the birthright distinction of one individual over another, an implicit ability and acuity that makes nobles naturally more capable than everyone else. Contradictorily, Gulliver explains “That a weak diseased body, a meagre countenance, and sallow complexion, are the true marks of noble blood” (Swift 240) rather than the innate “fitness” that nobles prefer to claim. Swift’s description of the current noble class is scathing and unfavorable, and his disgust with it is clear.

In comparison, the Houyhnhnms do not have this false concept, which Gulliver looks upon favorably. Rather, Houyhnhnms of some types simply “continued always in the condition of servants, without ever aspiring to match out of their own race” (Swift 239-240). While other issues arise with Gulliver and Swift’s support of the Houyhnhnms’ unalterable system of some horses being born for servitude and others control, the method is a clear opposition to what he faces in his own life and corrupt world.

Works Cited

Swift, Jonathan. Gulliver’s Travels. New York, Penguin Books, 2010.