Essay on The Nature of Man in Gullivers Travels - 742 Words

The Nature of Man in Gullivers Travels Swift uses many personae to sketch the nature of man in Book 4 of Gullivers travels. The problem with this is that none of the personae give us the same definition of the nature of man. First of all, there is Gulliver himself, who bases his judgments on the ways in which the Yahoos behave and the way the people from his country behave. He ties it all together at the end in his reflections. Most of all, throughout the book, we get an idea of the nature of man through Gullivers behavior. The Yahoos cannot comment on the nature of man, however, they display it in the ways they behave and interact. Lastly, the Houyhnhnms give us some ideas on the nature of man, through their observations of the†¦show more content†¦By this explanation, it seems as if Gulliver is already beginning to abhor his own race, for instance he is the one who describes lust and envy as terrible, not his master. He does not instead; describe the better attributes that humans are capable of, such as charit y and love. The houyhnhnms have the best grasp on the nature of man, because they are not human. They hear the stories of Gullivers land and compare them to their observations of the yahoos native to their land. Therefore they can make an unbiased statement of what the nature of man is. Simply put, they see the yahoos of their land as greedy, cunning, mischievous, and without reason. Gullivers people seem to be the same as the yahoos, and though the houyhnhnms do not believe they have reason, they believe they possess some quality fitted to increase (their) natural vices (1083). In contrast to the yahoos, Gullivers people practice their waywardness not through the means that nature gave them, but through the things they create. The master houyhnhnm explains many characteristics of the yahoos of his land to Gulliver. The characteristics that the yahoos embody are not all that different from the characteristics that civilized Englishmen possess. For instance, Gullivers master tells him how yahoos hate each other and will fight over food even when there is more than enough to eat, andShow MoreRelatedEssay about Jonathan Swifts Gullivers Travels1664 Words   |  7 Pages Although Gullivers Travels by Jonathan Swift has long been thought of as a childrens story, it is actually a dark satire on the fallacies of human nature. The four parts of the book are arranged in a planned sequence, to show Gullivers optimism and lack of shame with the Lilliputians, decaying into his shame and disgust with humans when he is in the land of the Houyhnhmns. 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