Section IV

This area is for all comments or discussion about the fourth and final section of Gulliver's Travels.

Gulliver is home for five months and is already rammy. Once again he finds himself with another society to live amungst, the Houyhnhnms.

Gulliver embraces this society like he embraced everyother one, with enthusiasm and curiousity. He is taken to the head of the society and welcomed because of his oddity. From the very beginning Gulliver is aware of the similarities of himself and the Yahoos. This makes Gulliver ashamed of himself (probably meaning the society he comes from.) Little does he know how awful these Yahoos are.

Gulliver goes through a transformation and falls in love with the Houyhnhnms. He doesn't realize that they cannot love or feel love, they cannot and do not make decisions from emotions. What makes us "human" is our ability to have emotions. The Houyhnhnms (mainly the master) has an affection toward Gulliver, but Gulliver sees this as something else. The Houyhnhnms don't feel emotions and Gulliver still thinks that this is a more perfect society than where he comes from.

Gulliver's way of handling this is to isolate himself from the English society. It is very hard to do. The Houyhnhnms rejected him as he rejected the English and now Gulliver has no where to go except back to the beginning with his family. They are the only people in society that will welcome him.

The Circle of Life I guess .................

As Gulliver interacts with Houyhnhnms, I think that several ideas are brought to light. The first is the superiority as a race and culture that humans have. (I think that this thread has been prevelant through the book). Gulliver can hardly believe that the horses would have any rational thought or purpose, when he first meets them on the island. I believe that this is emphasized also as Gulliver tries to explain the advancement and rationality of England to the Houyhnhnms, he explains war, violence, weaponry, lying, poor judicial system, and cruelty to animals. Instead of sheading light on what makes the human race so special (the second point of this chapter) the ability to love, the complexity of our nature: Guliver makes the race seem irrational and violent. This of course, is exactly what the Houyhnhnms already think of the Yahoos.

I enjoyed this section because of the parallels of the human race to the yahoos. Gulliver tried to hide his likeness, probably because he was a ashamed of his race. I would guess he isn't the first person to think this way. I think everyone at some point is ashamed of our race.

i felt gulliver spent a great deal of time trying to show how he was really different than the yahoo's. It took him some time to realize that his race was not really that different from the yahoo's, which really impacted him upon his final return to Europe. You have to wonder if he hadn't gone a little mad after all of his adventures. Or maybe he finally found himself in such a place that was was so serene that it spoiled him to any other civilization including his original home. (He sure had forgiving wife and family. i wonder if it was the general practice for men to up and leave for years at a time and then return at a whim! )

I did think that it was interesting that Swift/Gulliver took note of each cultures manner of caring for their children, when Gulliver himself was never present to take care of his own. It seemed to be another area that Swift uses to illuminate the flaws of humanity.