The Satire of Gulliver's Travel

The Satire of Gulliver's Travel

In Jonathan Swift's masterpiece, Gulliver's Travels, he uses satire to exaggerate the pitfalls of the human race. Swift makes the human an unsavory animal. He then takes a horse, a simple work tool for humans, and makes them the sublime being. In this land, Gulliver soon discovers that he is unable to tolerate any Yahoos and his devotion is for the Houyhnhnms.

Gulliver, after being mistreated by his men on his ship, finds himself in a mysterious land. Ironically, he finds that humans, called Yahoos, are the lowest form of animals. Everything undesirable in humans is magnified in the Yahoos. The intelligent animals are horses, called Houyhnhnm that illuminates all the commendable traits of humans.

Gulliver quickly learns to communicate with the Houyhnhnm. In doing so, he inadvertently displays the undesirable attributes of the Yahoos of England. "I told him, we fed on a thousand things which operated contrary to each other; that we ate when we were not hungry, and drank without the provocation of thirst; that we sat whole nights drinking strong liquors without eating