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Gulliver’s Travels
Gulliver's Travels - M.R. 2013
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Discussion - Week Four - Gulliver's Travels - Part IV
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This is the section where Swift gets his reputation as a misanthrope. The Houyhnhnms are horses with "horse sense", unlike the primitive people, the Yahoos, who behave in a rather uncivilized manner. Gulliver is rather disgusted to find that he appears, to the H's who he admires and respects, to be a Yahoo: exacerbated by an untimely attack from a female Yahoo. Although he has almost convinced them of his logical pov so unlike a Yahoo, the Horses sadly say G cannot be one of them. Gulliver as a result goes unwillingly back to England, where all remind him of Yahoos, even his family members. To me Swift uses his imagination to extend the 18th Century notion of logic and scientific reasoning to an absurd conclusion. He comes off as a typical Age of Reason/ Enlightenment thinker.The symbolism in this story is so heavy handed, unlike the South American magical realists, it is difficult to see a clear literary connection to me. However, whether his adventures were real or not, Gulliver so believes in what he's seen that it becomes a permanent part of his reality and reaction to the world. Some adaptations in movies have gone so far as to make him insane to explain what has happened.
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Once again, Gulliver sets sail for adventure. A mutiny finds him cast upon a strange shore. Amongst Houyhnhnms and Yahoos, Gulliver contemplates man’s nature.