CHAPTER IV

The Ephemeral Pride of a Nation:

Gullivers Travels

When I behold a Lump of Deformity, and Diseases both in Body and

Mind, smitten with Pride, it immediately breaks all the Measures of

my Patience; neither shall I be ever able to comprehend how such

an Animal and such a Vice could tally together. (Swift 1983: 315)

Vain human kind! Fantastic race!

Thy various follies who can trace?

Self-love, ambition, envy, pride,

Their empire in our hearts divide.

(Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift, D.S.P.D., 1731, Lines 39-42, from

Swift 1813)

If Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe (1719) has been called a

"prophecy of empire" (Mcleod, B. 1999: 177) then Jonathan Swift's

Gulliver's Travels ( 1726) can perhaps be seen as a demonstration.

of the vanity of the empire. What Defoe saw at the beginning of the

eighteenth century England was the birth of a new economy based

on acquisitions of new lands. It was a period of intense competition

with the continental rivals - the Portuguese, the French and the

Dutch, to establish supremacy both on land and water. By the time

Swift was writing Gulliver's Travels England's own standing in the

wider European world had changed - it had definitely made a niche

for itself to be reckoned as the supreme European power and was

exhibiting its claim as the greatest imperial authority. At the same

time the definition and dynamics of nationalism was undergoing

change in this period. There were two competing positions - the

notion of an emergent and inclusive 'British' identity that was useful

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for external colonialism, and the notion of English internal

colonialism in relation with its peripheries, Scotland and Ireland.

Swift's position, as a political character and writer, as a Whig and a

Tory, and his conflicting allegiance towards England and Ireland, is

a reflection of the contradictory and often paradoxical stance of the

English government in its internal and external policies. To

understand Swift's writings, it is necessary to analyze his conflicting

positions - his reactionary and libertarian strands in his political

ideology, his orthodox yet disaffected ecclesiastical sentiments, his

commitment to an exclusive English monopoly of public office and

his support for a non-interventionist foreign policy for Ireland, and

finally his eagerness to gain the favour of the English crown and his

sense of a dispossessed Irish patriot. Moreover, in order to seek

the 'meanings' of such an ambiguous and extremist writer, the full

complexity of contemporary political, polemical and ideological

contexts within which his texts were composed and received have

to be determined. In fact, Swift's writings are so intrinsically linked

to his biography that as Louis A. Landa points out, "it is rare indeed

that a commentator appraises any work of Jonathan Swift without

reference to biographical facts." (Landa 1970: 287)

It cannot be overlooked that .the terms of cultural and ideological

engagements in Swift's writings, whether antagonistic or affiliative,

emerge from the overlapping domains of identity that he shared

with both England and Ireland. An Englishman born in Ireland by "a

perfect accident ... my mother being left here from returning to her

house at Leicester ... and thus I am a Teague, or an Irishman, or

what people please, although the best part of my life was in

England." (Fox 1995: 3) Born in Dublin in 1667, Jonathan Swift

witnessed the profound impact the Civil wars had on the lives of the

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Irish people that led to the crushing of the Irish Catholics and the

supporters of the Royalist cause.

Swift's father, the elder Jonathan Swift had immigrated to Ireland

from England around 1660 and there he married another English

immigrant. They settled in Dublin and Swift was born posthumously

in 1667. During his lifetime, Swift witnessed frequent Anglo-Irish

troubles emerging from the differences between a Protestant

England and a Catholic Ireland. The Glorious Revolution of 1688

brought the Protestant William of Orange to the throne to replace

the Catholic James II. James fled to France in 1688 but in 1689 he

sailed to Ireland and made campaigns to reclaim the English

throne. He suffered a decisive defeat and went into permanent exile

in France. William's victory and the subsequent Act of Settlement of

1701 secured the position of the Protestants in England and sealed

the fates of the Catholics in Ireland. Internally also, Ireland was

divided by various religious factions. The Roman Catholic

population constituted the vast majority, and the rest of the

population was divided between the Presbyterians (the Dissenters)

and the Anglicans.

A look at Irish history would show that in language, religion, land

tenure and social structure, Ireland had always been 'another'

world. In the early 1600's a group of daring pioneers had sailed

across the sea to settle and· to civilize a primitive country inhabited

by a 'barbarous people' of Ireland. Since Henry VIII's proclamation

of himself as the King of Ireland in 1541, English power had been

limited to earlier settlements and fortresses in and around Dublin.

But Ireland being a Roman Catholic country, it could be used by

Spain as an entry point to attack Protestant England. The only

remedy for this danger, as the Tudor queens Mary and Elizabeth

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ordered, was the confiscating of Irish estates and the proposal to

make systematic settlements on the island. The idea was to make

the 'waste', 'desolate' and 'uncivilized' land flow with 'milk and

honey'. Estates of the prosperous landed gentry were confiscated.

James I made it clear that the natives would be removed and the

agriculturally valuable land was given the civil people of England.

The lands or "plantations" as they were euphemistically called,

were parceled and reallocated to "undertakers" who would build

Protestant churches and fortifications. A wall protected the new

Protestant community and the Catholics had to live outside the

walls. The subjugation of Ireland was based more or less on the

same principles that were to be adopted in building an empire -

segregation based on ethnic and religious superiority. By 1673 an

anonymous pamphleteer could confidently describe Ireland as "one

of the chiefest members of the English Empire". (Ferguson 2002:

62)

These strategies of cultural segregations and representations were

bound to affect any literary engagements of this period, especially a

politically conscious writer like Swift. But in Swift's case the

articulation of social difference, and of discrimination and

deprivation, was a complex on-going negotiation that expressed the

deep schism in his identity. On the one hand he had a 'received'

tradition of identity -an Englishman, and on the other hand he

faced the contradictoriness that affect the lives of those who are the

minority- the Irish. This characteristic of the in-between identity, or

as Renee Green says, "the interstitial space between the act of

representation" is to use her architectural metaphor, "a stairwell"

which bridges the polarities of identity. (Bhabha 1994: 3) It provides

temporal movement up and down which allows passage between

fixed identities. Such a borderline engagement of cultural

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differences would bring forward a recognition that either of the

polarities of the fixed identity is only a partial form of identification.

There is always a to and fro movement, a fluidity of identification,

without being able to make any claim to any one specific or

distinctive Self.

Caught in these competing claims of identity, Swift's work reflects

antagonistic and conflicting engagements with nation, identity, race,

history, values and religion. Seen from the unique perspective of a

quasi-colonial relation that Swift shared with England and Ireland,

Gulliver's Travels reflects the attempt to redefine and reformulate

the contradictory claims of 'national' identity.

When Swift wrote Travels, he was about sixty and had seen a·

lifetime of warring religious and political divisions in his country and

its ambiguous relations with England. He was also by then an

established political figure and a satiric writer. When Gulliver's

Travels was published, it received tremendous response and was

"universally read from the cabinet council to the nursery''. (John

Gay's letter to Swift, Nov. 17, 1726, in The Correspondence, Vol.

Ill. 182). Ever since, it is undoubtedly Swift's masterpiece and

indisputably occupies a high place among the 'great' books of

English literature. So much so that we often forget that "Swift's

career as a writer was distinctly that of an Irish writer." (Fox 1995:

3)

When we read Oroonoko or Robinson Crusoe, the text seldom

allows us to forget the national identity of the narrator. In fact, the

popularity of voyage literatures written at this time depended on the

'realism' of its main character, its 'authentic' portrayal of the settings

and its 'recognizable' features of action. The identity of the traveler

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going on a voyage to far off exotic places was unambiguously

familiar and identifiable as the Englishman. But the identity of

Gulliver has been ingeniously manipulated. Gulliver, a sailor and a

surgeon whose family comes from a small estate in

Nottinghamshire, begins an account of his travels, adopting the

same recognizable deadpan pedestrian method of narration of

popular adventure travels. The beginning lulls the reader into

believing that the familiar pattern would be followed here too - the

Englishman not able to make his fortunes in England, setting off on

a voyage to far away places like the East Indies, facing a terrible

storm en route, getting ship wrecked, being marooned on an

unknown island and finally coming in contact with the exotic

specimens who inhabit the island. The unceremonious factual style,

the shower of circumstantial details, the nautical jargon, the letter

from the publisher to the reader are all attempts to lend

verisimilitude to the 'travel literature' which the eighteenth century

public were eager to read. Captain William Dampier, whom Gulliver

claims as a "cousin" was the foremost voyager and explorer of his

times whose scrupulously kept journals stimulated the

unprecedented rage for travel books in the late seventeenth and

early eighteenth centuries.

But Swift's Gulliver's Travels is no ordinary run-of-the-mill travel

book out to impress gullible readers with exotic tales of far-away

places. Swift's opinion of writers of such tales is very clear when

the Captain suggests to Gulliver at the end of his travel to

Brobdingnag to let the world know of his experiences.

My Answer was, that I thought we were already over-stocked with Books

of Travels; That nothing could now pass which was not extraordinary;

wherein I doubted, some Authors less consulted Truth than their own

Vanity or Interest, or the Diversion of ignorant Readers. That my Story

could contain little besides common Events, without those ornamental

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Descriptions of strange Plants, Trees, Birds, and other Animals; or the

barbarous Customs and ldolatory of savage People, with which most

Writers abound. (164-5)

The Gulliver, who writes then, has an abstract factual style. He is

committed to realistic reporting, almost appropriate of a scientist.

He records events, characters and conversations with a detached

accuracy. The lack of modulation is striking. The predominantly

declarative sentences represent the concrete particularity of things.

Even the King of Brobdingnag is struck by Gulliver's impassivity of

sensibility:

He was amazed how so impotent and groveling an Insect as I (these

were his Expressions) could entertain such inhuman Ideas, and in so

familiar a Manner as to appear wholly unmoved at all the Scenes of

Blood and Desolation, which I had painted ... (151)

The impassioned, matter-of- fact style of presentation, very akin to

what Bertolt Brecht would experiment later in the theatre, effectively

produces the alienation effect. The character, his emotions, his

identity, ceases to matter. So, unlike Oroonoko or Robinson

Crusoe, Gulliver has no identity. He is a commentator, an observer

and a mouthpiece for ideas, than a character in his own right.

The advantage of having a persona whose character remains

effectively unchanged is that he can be a safe guide through the

strange countries that he visits. His vein of comments on the

people, their way of life, wars, politics, law, religion, is "cold,

analytical, impersonal ... the unimpassioned tirade slide

imperceptible between indirect and direct discourse, between the

imperfect and the historical present tense, producing sometimes a

feeling of dramatic immediacy, sometimes a feeling of rapid

survey." (Brady 1968: 50) He reports on the vices and follies of

mankind, the depraved human nature, the pride and vanity of

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nations. But his disproportion makes him the oddity, the alien, the

outsider wherever he visits; the giant in Lilliput, the small man in

Brobdingnag, the peculiarity in the land of the Yahoos and the

Houyhnhnms. The reader does not identify with this character,

Gulliver is none of us; so we can safely laugh at his mistakes, take

a jibe at his pompous and egocentric outlook and distance

ourselves from his morbid pessimism. Gulliver is both a comic and

an ironic figure; the mouthpiece to voice his ridicules at what he

observes, and himself an object of ridicule. As readers we

apprehend and respond to the Travels simply by following the story

and drawing such inferences from it concerning ourselves as it is

calculated to produce in us. Swift was capable of producing a satire

where the object and the subject of satire are the same - one man,

some men or all mankind. We laugh at ourselves at the expense of

Gulliver. For Swift, "SATYR is a sort of Glass, wherein Beholders

do generally discover every body's Face but their Own." (Preface to

The Battle of the Books in Williams 1982: 140) The reader is

Gulliver, proud, treacherous envious and cruel, and as defiant, silly

and petulant as Gulliver in accepting this truth.

Seen from a philosophical point of view, the reader can be

representative of Everyman, and Gulliver's Travels can be read as

a fable or an antithesis of the state of Man as propounded by Locke

and Hobbes. Or it could be seen as a specifically Christian allegory

of the Fall. Ever since the publication of this book, critics have

"busied" themselves "with the problem of what Swift was trying to

do". (Crane 1970: 331) The diversity of interpretation to which the

Travels is subjected to is no doubt proof of the richness of Swift's

thoughts. Or it could conversely be the result of obscurity in Swift's

ideas. And the obscurity could have been deliberate with the

purpose to hide behind a fa<;ade. This is where Swift's political

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ideology, his views on nationhood and national identity, and his

contradictory allegiance to the Crown and his homeland get

reflected. We cannot ignore the importance of the historical forces

and the power relations of the time, nor the colonial experience that

shaped Swift's world. As Edward Said says about Swift, what he "is

doing above all is writing in a world of power." ('Swift as

Intellectual', Ashcroft 2004: 87)

Whether it is Aphra Behn, or Defoe, or Swift, each author, to begin

with, sets out on his/her 'travels' with the intention of reaffirming

what is already known back at home. Their protagonist is the lone

Englishman who braves hardships to discover exotic places which

he has heard of, in search of riches, facing naked terrifying savages -· .,,

who inhabit these places, and finally erecting in that strange land·

the edifice of the English Empire and turning the primitive island

into a profitable commercial venture~ Swift too adopts the familiar

outline of the innumerable travel writings of the period but unlike

Behn, or Defoe, or the other travel writers, Swift's. genius and

ingenuity lies not just in asserting the greatness of the Empire, but

more importantly in revealing the petty, sordid, egotistic and often

inhumane face of the nation. He unmasks the ugly, prejudiced,

dogmatic ideas of nation builders, particularly of the 'greatest'

nation on Earth, Great Britain.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that we cannot understand

the full impact and significance of Gulliver's Travels without

Oroonoko or Robinson Crusoe. Swift's work can be seen as a point

of departure from the other two. Considered side by side they

present two entirely disparate views of a nation in the making. In

fact, Swift's work can be said to begin from where Defoe's ends.

Defoe's Robinson Crusoe portrays the advantages ofindividualism

and capitalism. His island is the manifestation of how free

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enterprise aided by divine sanction can prosper and become an

example of successful imperialism. Defoe's savage is the outsider

who has to be tamed and educated. He believes that colonization

confers civilized benefits on the savage. From the English

ethnocentric perspective, these exotic places are legitimate objects

for conquest and subjugation. On the contrary, the purpose of

Swift's satire is to deny the validity of this perception. His islands

are already populated by the so-called civilized, cultured people

who reveal their gross and ugly side. Swift's satire presses forward

from where Defoe left to reveal the worm at the core of eighteenth

century English Empire.

Swift holds up for the readers, especially the eighteenth English

readers, a mirror in which they can see their image. But the picture

shown to them is deliberately distorted, so that like Gulliver the

reader too observes the picture with an air of condescending

superiority. But sometimes the reader is shocked to realize that the

image of the monster is his own.

When I happened to behold the Reflection of my own Form in a Lake or

Fountain, I turned away my Face in Horror and detestation of myself, and

I could better endure the sight of a common Yahoo, than of my own

Person. (298)

But the shock tactics comes only after the reader has been lulled

into a state of 'willing suspension of disbelief. From the start, we

witness Gulliver, the representative Englishman, fallen into the

hands of the midgets of Lilliput. These little people immediately win

our hearts with their fascinating little city and their efforts to feed

Gulliver. At first they are scared of the 'Man Mountain' but Gulliver's

gentleness and good behaviour dispels their fears. They endeavour

to show their talents, rope dancing being one of the skills in which

they surpassed any nation for their dexterity and magnificence.

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When an office at the Emperor's court falls vacant, several people

try to get the position by showing their dexterity and whoever

jumped the highest on the rope without falling succeeded in the

Office. Again, the Emperor rewarded those who could best

complete the feats of leaping and crawling under a stick that he

held out to them. Gulliver then presents a detailed account of the

functioning of their Court and the Cabinet, the rigorous laws of their

country, in short "a general Description of this Empire, from its first

Erection, through a long series of Princes, with a particular Account

of their Wars and Politics, Laws, Learning, and Religion ... " (29)

When Gulliver sends a number of petitions to the King for his

liberty, a long list of the Articles of Law is handed to him.

The first book is a magnificent and imaginative satiric

representation of specific persons, especially Walpole, Nottingham,

Harley, Queen Anne, Oxford and Bolingbroke; and policies like the

Treaty of Utrecht and the Whig policies before and after the War of

the Spanish Succession. The topical meanings of these allusions

have emerged bit by bit over the years, brought to our attention by

literary critics and researchers on Swift. As a satirist, Swift

expressed his meanings through references to contemporary

politics and people and therefore we have to read his work as far as

possible in the light of the happenings of eighteenth century

Europe. Moreover, Swift was deliberately obscure and ambiguous.

He himself had to perform a fine balancing act between not

displeasing the English Crown and voicing his displeasure at the

functioning, policies, and traditions to which he was altogether

hostile. His material and method of satire, the content and form,

had to be artfully disguised. The readers of Gulliver's Travels are

enabled by analogy, allusion and echo to make topical connections.

Swift could not risk publishing explicit anti- government political

statements against the Court and the ministry. Despite the Whig

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associations and influences in his life, particularly that of Sir William

Temple, in his early political career, Swift professed to be a 'natural'

Tory of the Queen Anne and Hanoverian period. During the

Hanoverian period Swift was a bitter critic of Whig political policies,

especially the government's Irish and ecclesiastical measures. Yet

in his Correspondences to Richard Steele and Thomas Sheridan

written in 1726, Swift professes to have been always a member of

the Whig party. (Correspondences of Jonathan Swift, Vol. Ill) He

hides his contradictory political position behind fictive characters

and the use of irony, allusions, ambiguity and concealments. The

radical political critique of the Whig establishment was deliberately

disguised and sufficiently indeterminate so as to confound any

attempts by the authorities to convict the author of seditious libel.

Gulliver's Travels was published pseudonymously in London by

Benjamin Motte Jr on 28 October 1726. Alexander Pope in his letter

to Swift wittily alludes to the clandestine way the manuscript was

delivered to the printer:

Motte receiv'd the copy (he tells me) he knew not from whence, nor from

whom, dropp'd at his house in the dark, from a Hackney-coach. (Carr.,

Ill, 181)

The plea of ignorance attributed to Motte here was the standard

response of contemporary publishers when inquiries were made by

the government about th~ authorship of objectionable or subversive

writings.

The first voyage seemed apparently to be as Johnson thought

about big people and little people. Both Pope and John Gay in their

letters to Swift reflect on the immediate response to the book. Pope

wrote:

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I find no considerable man very angry at the book: some indeed think it

rather too bold, and too general a Satire. (Corr., Ill, 181)

And Gay observed:

... nothing is more diverting than to hear the different opinions people

give of it, though all agree in liking it extreamly. From the highest to the

lowest it is universally read, from the cabinet-council to the Nursery. The

Politicians to a man agree, that it is free from particular reflections, but

the Satire on general societies of men is too severe. Not but we now and

then meet with people of greater perspicuity, who are in search for

particular applications in every leaf; and it is highly probable we shall

have keys published to give light into Gulliver's design .. (Corr., Ill, 182)

Swift's purpose of writing the brilliant political satire was, if we are

to take his words seriously, "to vex the world". (Corr., Ill, 178) The

statement is typically Swiftian in its heightened exaggeration. But it

is true that his book did manage to vex the Augustan readers,

especially those, as Gay pointed out, "people of greater

perspicuity".

Modern scholarship on Swift, especially the notable work of Sir

Charles Firth in 1920 (Firth 1920) have identified the events and

figures in Lilliput as allegories of politicians and political events in

the England of Walpole's time. For over six years prior to the

publication of the Travels, Swift was primarily writing political tracts

voicing his displeasure at England's policies towards Ireland.

Carole Fabricant's Swift's Landscape (1982) has given further

impetus to study his Anglo-Irish experience and the reflection it has

in his works. She looks at Swift's most outstanding work defending

the cause of Irish nationalism, The Drapier's Letters. In this he

protested against not just England's unjust political and economic

policies but also wrote passionately on the implicit ideological

impact of colonialism. In the person of the Drapier, Swift espoused

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his anti colonialist views and denounced England's stance of moral

superiority and political assertion over Ireland. Addressing "the

Whole People of Ireland" Swift wrote that the English "look upon us

as a Sort of Savage lrish ... and if I should describe the Britons to

you as they were in Caesar's Time, when they painted their Bodies,

or cloathed themselves with the Skins of Beasts, I should act as

reasonable as they do" (Prose Works 10: 64). What is notable here

is Swift's feeling of non-belonging and the deep schism that exists

between the 'us' and the 'them'. He further attempts to reveal the

falsity of stereotyping any national identity when he writes:

As to Ireland, [the English] know little more than they do of Mexico;

further than tlfat it is a country subject to the King of England, full of

Boggs, inhabited by wild Irish Papists; who are kept in Awe by

mercenary Troops sent from thence... I have seen the grossest

Suppositions pass upon them; that the wild Irish were taken in Toyls; but

that, in some Time, they would grow so tame, as to eat out of your

Hands: ... And, upon the Arrival of an Irishman to a Country Town, I have

known Crouds coming about him, and wondering to see him look so

much better than themselves. (Prose Works 10: 103)

This reminds us of the early parts of Gulliver's travels where he is

an object of awe to be gazed at by curious onlookers. He is the

Outsider who has to depend upon the whims and fancies of the

Court to get his food and shelter. He has to learn their language

and their way of living. But however hard he tries to ingratiate

himself with the King, his position is clearly subordinate·and inferior.

Thus Gulliver at first finds himself an object of awe, then suspicion,

and then abject hostility. He is kept a prisoner, his pockets

searched and all belongings are confiscated. He cannot leave their

"celestial Dominion", and a long list of articles are drawn, to which

Gulliver had to subscribe to "with great Cheerfulness and Content"

if he was to have his liberty. Gulliver's desire for liberty represents

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the plight and anguish of the Irish desirous of their independence

from the domination of England.

But what is evidently the focus of Swift's satire is the vanity of a

handful of people who consider themselves as the greatest power

on earth. It reveals the moral degradation of any nation where petty

struggles for power dominate and which inevitably lead to

hypocrisy, egotism and meanness. Book I exposes man in his

myopic self-esteem whereby man in his pride is reduced to the

stature of an insignificant insect and yet thinks of himself as the

most powerful force on the earth. Gulliver's description of the

Monarch of Lilliput reveals the comic conceit of people in power

and the ludicrous effect of their arrogance and short sighted ness.

GOLBASTO MOMAREN EVLAME GURDILO SHEFIN MULL Y ULL Y

GUE, most mighty Emperor of Lilliput, Delight and Terror of the Universe,

whose Dominions extend five Thousand Blustrugs, (about twelve miles in

circumference) to the Extremities of the Globe: Monarch of all Monarchs:

Taller than the Sons of Men: whose Feet press down to the Center, arid

whose Head strikes against the Sun ... {58)

Also, the episodes where the little people, less than six inches, are

divided into two struggling political parties, the High Heels and the

Low Heels, distinguished by the heels on their shoes; or the bloody

wars and massacres which have taken place because of the

religious controversy of breaking the egg at the big end or the small

end, demonstrate the absurdity of such situations.

Whereupon the Emperor his Father, published an Edict, commanding all

his Subjects, upon great Penalties to break the smaller End of their

Eggs. The people so highly resented this Law, that our Histories tell us,

there have been six Rebellions raised on the Account; wherein one

Emperor lost his Life and another his Crown ... It is computed that eleven

Thousand persons have, at several Times, suffered Death, rather than

submit to break their Eggs at the smaller End. (64)

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The English are the pygmies, insignificant creatures in the larger

plan of mankind, involved in the ludicrous political disagreement

between the Whigs and the T aries, and their pointless argument

over their religious faith. Swift's allusion to Henry VIII who broke

with Rome over the question of papal authority, throws light on the

acrimonious religious dissent between the Catholics and the

Protestants that was to plague Europe in between 1688-1720. Swift

relates the folly of religious wars between Lilliput (England) and the

neighbouring Blefuscu (France) to immediate European politics.

The war between the two over the religious question of egg­

breaking symbolizes the long series of wars between Catholic

France and Protestant England. Not only does this show the

absurdity of religious dogmas, but it also reveals how quarrel over

material objects like land and wealth can be garbed to make it look

like a 'holy war'. And unfortunately, the ordinary people are caught

in their ruler's battle of preposterous pride.

And so unmeasurable is the Ambition of Princes, that he seemed to think

of nothing less than reducing the whole Empire of Blefuscu into a

Province, and governing it by a Viceroy; of destroying the Big-Endian

Exiles, and compelling that People to break the smaller End of their

Eggs; by which he would remain sole Monarch of the whole World. (68)

Swift's views are clearly "That all true believers shall break their

Eggs at the convenient End: and which is the convenient End,

seems in my humble Opinion, to be left to every Man's

Conscience."(64-65) Also, Gulliver's attempt to dissuade the

Emperor's design to destroy Blefuscu because he does not want to

be instrumental in "bringing a free and brave People in

Slavery"(68), is suggestive of Swift's fight to protect the interest of

the Irish (once a free and brave people) from the political and

religious pressures of England. This is how England rules its

colonies, including Ireland, is what is being resonated here. Unlike

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Defoe's work, Robinson Crusoe, which demonstrates a belief in the

superiority of Christianity and therefore becomes a justification for

the subjugation and colonization of the non-western world, Swift's

work can be read as an opposition to colonization based on

religious and moral superiority.

What is so remarkable about Swift's satire in Gulliver's Travels is

that the focus is not just the reader, or the nation, or Mankind, but

sometimes Swift himself. Swift directs the spotlight of his irony and

ridicule frequently on himself. Acutely aware of the marginality of

his position as an Irishman asking for the English Court's favour

and patronage, Swift lampoons his contradictory and ambiguous

situation. The fire fighting episode where the Queen is offended

with the method Gulliver adopts to put out the fire in the palace, can

be seen as Queen Anne's displeasure with Swift for trying to

defend the Church of England against its Puritan and Roman

Catholic enemies. Because of this she was unwilling to confer the

position of a dean or bishop on him in England. Within the context

of the palace politics, Swift was clearly never accepted as their

own. He was regarded as the outsider and to be frequently treated

with hostility and suspicion.

The ambiguous position that Swift occupied as Anglo-Irish, the

insider-outsider, the us and them, the colonized and the colonizer,

has shaped Gulliver's Travels to a considerable extent. Critics like

Richard Sympson, Terry Castle and Peter Wagner have pointed out

the linguistic and generic instability in Travels, which gives an

illusory sense of reality to the text. In Place, Personality and the

Irish Writer, Andrew Carpenter feels that this position produces a

curiously "double vision" in Travels that "operates outrageously on

the reader's sensibilities." (Carpenter 1977:183) Whether the

'double vision' affects the reader's sensibilities or not, it certainly

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has shaped Swift's own perspective of a displaced person. He was

caught between the traditional ideal of service to the government,

and the failure of that system to reward him.

When Gulliver describes the laws and customs of Lilliput, he

laments, "I told them that our Laws were enforced only by

Penalties, without any mention of Reward." (74) The Lilliputian

society has a set of excellent laws and customs, method of learning

and education, which is very utopian to say the least, and yet it is

evident that both the ruler and the ruled are corrupt, treacherous

and ungrateful. Gulliver, in spite of his projected naivete, is sharp

enough to perceive this.

In relating these and the following Laws, I would only be understood to

mean the original Institutions, and not the most scandalous Corruptions

into which these People are fallen by the degenerate Nature of Man. (75)

The ideal laws of the nation exist only on paper to be exhibited to

the outside world as an exemplum; hence a justification for a nation

that God has ordained would rule over the entire world. The

Lilliputians validate their actions as just, civilized and rational

though to an outsider these are gross and sometimes violent

crimes. When Gulliver offended the King by violating his orders to

capture Blefuscu, it was decided keeping in view the well-known

friendship between His Majesty and Gulliver

That his Majesty, in Consideration of your Services, and pursuant to his

own merciful Disposition, would please to spare your Life, and only give

order to put out both your Eyes; he humbly conceived, that by this

Expedient, Justice might in some measure be satisfied, and all the World

would applaud the Levity of the Emperor, as well as the fair and

generous proceedings of those who have the Honour to be his

Counsellors. (86)

It was argued that the act of blinding Gulliver would in fact be

beneficial to both parties.

125

That the Loss of your Eyes would be no Impediment to your bodily

Strength, by which you might still be useful to his Majesty. That

Blindness is an Addition to Courage, by concealing Dangers from us ...

and it would be sufficient for you to see by the Eyes of the Ministers. (86)

Swift underpins the constructedness of all 'objective' truth and

defines the fine line that demarcates what is and what appears to

be. What the world considers the 'true' image of England is what

England chooses to project to the outside world. The mental

colonization can be complete only when the colonized is blinded

and can see by the eyes of the dominant power. In its economic

policies towards its colonies in general and Ireland in particular,

England adopted this outrageous method. The colonial mercantile

policies were guided by selfish interest, profit at any cost, even if it

meant exploiting the colonies and resulting in their severe

economic hardship. The purpose was clearly the uncontested

monopoly of the English for which they banned· all exports from the ~

colonies except to English ports. The economy of the colonies were

systematically strained and destroyed. The English government's

philosophy was clear: "You shall in all things endevour to advance

and improve the trade of that our kingdom so far as it shall not be a

prejudice to this our kingdom of England, which we mean shall not

be wronged how much soever the benefit of [Ireland] might be

concerned in it." (Fox 1995: 6)

But the argument of the ruling government was that they were

doing this for the benefit of the ruled. When the Monarch of Lilliput

orders Gulliver's eyes to be impaled, he has to "gratefully and

humbly submit to it." Gulliver observes:

It was a Custom ·introduced by this Prince and his Ministry, (very

different, as I have been assured, from the Practices of former Times)

that after the Court had decreed any cruel Execution, either to gratify the

Monarch's Resentment, or the Malice of a Favourite; the Emperor always

126

made a Speech to his whole Council, expressing his great Lenity and

Tenderness, as Qualities known and confessed by all the World ... it was

observed, that the more these Praises were enlarged and insisted on,

the more inhuman was the Punishment, and the Sufferer more innocent.

(88)

Swift relates the vices, ambitions and passions of the Lilliputians to

the power politics that existed in contemporary England. When

Gulliver is in Lilliput he is the observer who gives the reader his

views and perception of the kingdom. As Allan Bloom points out, "in

Lilliput and Laputa, he tells nothing of his own native country. He

need not, for the reader should recognize it." ('An Outline of the

Gulliver's Travels', Greenberg 1973: 648) The characters are

indeterminate but clearly identifiable as personages in British

politics. Gulliver's perspective is literally that of a gigantic tall man

who can see the miniature kingdom from above.

When Gulliver travels to Brobdingnag, his perception is inverted.

He is the small man in the land of the giants. He is the Englishman

in an alien land, and the Brobdingnagians are the standard against

whom the English are being measured. According to Aristotle, big is

synonymous with strength. Men whose bodies are physically

superior, resembling the statues of Gods, would readily be

accepted as masters. (Aristotle, Politics, 27-39) In Man therefore,

pride is usually proportionate to his stature; the bigger his size, the

higher his position in society, the greater his arrogance and vanity

over the rest of the world. But by making Gulliver disproportionate

to the strange creatures in the first and second voyages, Swift

highlights the absurdity of Man's pride. The diminutive Lilliputian

thinks he is the "terror of the universe", and similarly Gulliver

appears to be contemptibly petty when he boasts of his strength in

front of the Brobdingnags who are ten times the size of the

127

Europeans. Swift echoes Pascal's idea of man's position in the

great chain of being: What is man in nature? What is his position

when compared to the Infinite?

I reflected what a Mortification it must prove to me to appear as

inconsiderable in this Nation, as one single Lilliputian would be among

us ... As human Creatures are observed to be more Savage and cruel in

Proportion to their Bulk; what could I expect but to be a morsel in the

Mouth of the first among these enormous Barbarians who should happen

to seize me? Undoubtedly Philosophers are in the Right when they tell

us, that nothing is great or little otherwise than by Comparison: It might

have pleased Fortune to let the Lilliputians find some Nation, where the

People were as diminutive with respect to them, as they were to me. And

who knows but that even this prodigious Race of Mortals might be

equally overmatched in some distant Part of the World, whereof we have

yetno Discovery? (103)

All perceptions are then relative, depending on the perceiver's

insight and position. Big, small; grand, vulgar; good, bad; civilized,

savage; and all binary oppositions are relative terms. Nothing exi~ts

per se; nothing is a reality; nothing can act as the standard

yardstick for comparison. No person or nation can claim to be the

greatest, wisest or the fairest. Such a claim is absurd and

hypocritical. When Gulliver gives an account of the customs,

religion, laws and government of 'my own beloved country' to the

King of Brobdingnag, the King, "could not forbear taking me up in

his right Hand, and stroking me gently with the other; after an

hearty Fit of laughing, asked me whether I were a Whig or a

Tory."(123) Gulliver cringes to hear the King's opinion, and his pride

shrivels through the humiliating knowledge of his insignificance.

He observed, how contemptible a Thing was human Grandeur, which

could be mimicked by such diminutive Insects as I. (123)

... I cannot but conclude the Bulk of your Natives, to be the most

pernicious Race of little odious Vermin that Nature ever suffered to crawl

upon the Surface of the Earth. (149)

128

And thus he continued on, while my Colour came and went several

Times, with Indignation to hear our noble Country; the Mistress of Arts

and Arms, the Scourge of France, the Arbitress of Europe, the Seat of

Virtue, Piety, Honour and Truth, the Pride and Envy of the Worlds, so

contemptuously treated. (123)

Unlike the Lilliputians the Brobdingnagians are not arrogant or

malicious. But, when it comes to power, the strong will dominate

the weak, or at best treat the weak with pity and sympathy.

Gulliver's treatment in the hands of the giants vacillates between

these two extremes; he is either bullied, ill-treated and humiliated,

or ignored as "a Creature who had no sort of Consequence"(135).

The Queen's Dwarf feeling jealous of the importance given to

Gulliver, misses no opportunity to dunk him in a bowl of cream,

push him down a bone marrow, and a number of such deeds which

could prove fatal for Gulliver. The Maids of Honour complete their

dressing and toiletries with total disregard for his presence. Even

the animals, birds and insects either ignore his presence or show

their strength and power over him.

The farmer, who had found Gulliver in the field, decides upon the

advice of his friend, to exploit the potential of money making by

showing Gulliver in different cities. On Market-Days, he is taken in a

box and his frolicking is shown to the public for a fee. Gulliver is like

the animal in the circus, to be exhibited, without any consideration

for his discomfort or exhaustion. "My Master finding how profitable I

was like to be, resolved to carry me to the most considerable cities

of the Kingdom" and Gull liver was forced to show the same antics,

"till I was half dead with Weariness and Vexation." (114-5) His

nurse and companion, the farmer's daughter, who truly has

Gulliver's welfare in mind, weeps with grief at the indignity he has

"to be exposed for Money", and realizes that her parents "meant to

129

serve her as they did last Year, when they pretended to give her a

Lamb; and yet, as soon as it was fat, sold it to a Butcher." (113)

The power equation between the strong and the weak always

remain one of exploitation and suppression, be it in the relation

between Gulliver and the giants, or between England and her

colonies. Gulliver's mistreatment in a way alludes to the step­

motherly and insensitive treatment of England's dependent

colonies, especially Ireland. England would always consider these

lands as alien, only 'to serve her', to be fattened and then fleeced

for its worth. Swift had, in his earlier writings, complained against

the "contemptuous Treatment of Ireland" (Prose Writings 9: 20),

especially England's mercantile policies towards Ireland. Through·

the Woolen Act in 1699, Ireland was prohibited from exporting its

woolen goods to any place other than England. This gave England

virtual monopoly over Ireland's economy. Moreover, most of the

Irish estates were owned by English landlords. Ireland's

dependency on England was to such an extent, that Swift later in

his Modest Proposal (1729) suggested in his characteristic way,

that in order to survive the Irish should sell their children to the

butcher;

... a young healthy Child, well nursed, is, at a Year old, a most delicious,

nourishing, and wholesome Food; whether Stewed, Roasted, Baked, or

Boiled; and I make no doubt, that it will equally serve in a Fricasie, or

Ragoust ... I grant this Food will be somewhat dear, and therefore very

proper for Landlords; who, as they have already devoured most of the

Parents, seem to have the best Title to the Children. (Prose Works 12:

111)

Much before he had written Gulliver's Travels, Swift had become a

national hero by attacking the English government in his Proposal

for the Universal Use of Irish Manufacture, (1720) where he called

130

for a complete boycott of "Every Thing Wearable that comes from

England." The final culmination of his resentment can be seen in

Drapier's Letters (1724-25) when William Wood, an English

manufacturer got the patent to provide Ireland with a new copper

coinage. The patent had been granted without the consent of any

Irish representative, and the Irish were apprehensive that the

massive increase in copper coins would drive out all the gold and

silver from the kingdom. Swift's anguish is very evident:

We are at a great distance from the King's Court, and have nobody there

to solicit for us ... he [Mr. Wood] is an Englishman and had Great

Friends, and it seems, knew very well where to give money ... (PW 10: 5)

More than the political or economic issues, Swift was concerned

about the broader psychological and ideological impact of such

dominating treatment. Like Gulliver who is constantly being carried

in the hands of the Brobdingnagian Queen, the colonies are putty in

the hands of the Imperial power. Swift is distressed at the inability

of his people to protest. In the Drapier's Letters, Swift rebukes the

Irish for their indifference:

It is your folly, that you have no common or general interest in your view,

not even the wisest among you; neither do you know or enquire or care

who are your friends, and who are your enemies. (PW 10: 5)

In fact, the constant state of subjugation and enslavement becomes

so much of a habit with those who have been colonized, that after

sometime It is accepted as normal. Apathy then leads to

acquiescence. As Gulliver says in his second voyage:

But as I was not in a Condition to resent Injuries, so, upon mature

thoughts, I began to doubt whether I were injured or no. (123-4)

The Brobdingnagians derive their strength, Swift seems to imply,

not just from their giant physique, but also because the weak is

meek and compliant. Gulliver, as can be seen from the first and the

131

second voyages, is eager to ingratiate himself with the rulers and

the authorities. The physical size is therefore not the main issue in

computing the strength of any person or kingdom. Gulliver's desire

to conform, abide and follow, almost bordering on sycophancy,

stems from wanting to demonstrate on which side of the fence he

is. Gulliver is clearly eager to be assimilated into the dominant

group. But at the same time Swift acutely understands the position

of the colonized and how useless it is to try to be even accepted as

one of the powerful 'Other'. Gulliver points this out:

This made me reflect, how vain an Attempt it is for a Man to endeavour

doing himself Honour among those who are out of all Degree of Equality

or Comparison with him. (140)

What Swift's satire seems to point out is that inequalities would

always exist, disproportion in strength and intellect would be

evident in man, but w~at is comically tragic is Man's great pride and

pretension that make him oblivious of his faults and deficiencies.

The Brobdingnagian king; who can think rationally and practically,

can unveil the defects of the English nation in Gulliver's grandiose

description of the society, laws, institutions, history and military

glory of England in the seventeenth century. In spite of Gulliver's

best attempts to "hide the Frailties and Deformities of my Political

Mother, and place her Virtues and Beauties in the most

advantageous Light" (150), the King's contempt is evident in his

devastating pronouncement:

... it was only an Heap of Conspiracies, Rebellions, Murders, Massacres,

Revolutions, Banishments; the very worst Effects that Avarice, Faction,

Hypocrisy, Perfidiousness, Cruelty, Rage, Madness, Hatred, Envy, Lust,

Malice, and Ambition could provide. (148)

The contradiction between Gulliver's discourse on the British

institutions and the Brobdingnag king's contemptuous response,

reflects the disagreement that existed between the political parties

132

of the 1720's. The controversy that divided Walpole and the Whig

party from the opposition Tory was the issue of the contemporary

constitutional settlement. According to the Whigs, England's

prosperity lay in continuing with the virtues of a mixed and balanced

government; whereas, the opposition pointed out that recent

political events prove that the powers were not upholding a

balanced constitution. Gulliver presents one side of the debate

when he presents "an Account of the Government of England',

(144) and how its Parliamentary system runs on the three pillars of

the Prince, the Legislature and the Courts of Justice. He

emphasizes the balance and separation of power, and the fact that

the members of each of the powers are distinguished by wisdom

and worthiness. When the King of Brobdingnag questions Gulliver

and seeks clarification and details, he presents the other side of the

coin. He exposes the inescapable discrepancy that exists between

what appears to be politically correct and what the reality is. He is

able to single out the huge disparity that exists between the rich

and the poor, the strong and the weak, the private interest of the

corrupt rulers and general good of the public. Swift's own opinion is

clearly what the King of Brobdingnag pronounces at the end:

I observe among you some Lines of an Institution, which in its Original

might have been tolerable; but these are half erased, and the rest wholly

blurred and blotted by Corruptions. ( 149)

The extent of degradation is so complete that there is no institution

or occupation that is free from ignorance, idleness or vice, and Man

has been reduced to the "race of little odious Vermin." In much the

same way that vermin and parasites survive on the hosts' body, so

the various corrupt institutions eat into the body politic of a nation.

The King's insight exposes the hypocrisy and anarchy that exists in

such parasitic bodies that threaten to consume a society originally

based on order. The scrounging sycophant that crawls, clings and

133

sucks is clearly more dangerous than those who pursue their self­

interest. Kathleen Williams has drawn attention to the large number

of references to insects and creeping creatures in the second part

of Swift's work. (Williams 1958: 165-77) Frequent allusions to

spiders, weasels, toads, mice, louse, and equating Gulliver with

these "hateful Creatures", show Swift's disgust with that class of

men whom he equates with the lowest strata of creation.

The Brobdingnagian government, as the King tells Gulliver, is

based upon consent and not on coercion. He expresses his

amazement upon hearing Gulliver talk of a

Mercenary standing Army in the Midst of Peace, and among a free

People. He said, if we were governed by our own Consent in the

Persons of our Representatives, he could not imagine of whom we were

afraid, or against whom we were to fight. (147)

The Brobdingnagians choos~ their government 'by Ballot', but as is

likely to happen to any country or political system, they too have

faced Civil Wars and troubles arising from the ambitions of kings

and their desire for power. But their solution lay in maintaining

equilibrium. Political conflict

... was happily put an End to by this Prince's Grandfather in a general

Composition; and the Militia then settled with common Consent hath

been ever since kept in the strictest Duty. (156)

In the modern political framework when conflicts are endemic and

in fact inevitable to any political system, Swift is debating for an

alternative way of approaching strife, warfare and dissent. Force

and intimidation will not work in ensuring political stability. A strong

powerful monarch, like the king of Brobdingnag who works with the

consent of his people and keeps their interest in mind, is required to

maintain political peace and solidity. Hence, the king is horrified to

hear the "impotent and groveling an Insect" like Gulliver, propose to

134

impart the knowledge of gunpowder and its potential power which

can "batter down the Walls of the strongest Town in his Dominions

in a Few Hours; or destroy the whole Metropolis, if ever it should

pretend to dispute its absolute Commands." (151) The King's

disapproval, and his strong denouncement of such methods as the

idea and work of "some evil Genius, Enemy to Mankind" (151 ),

reiterates Swift's idea that the use of force and fear with complete

disregard for limits, would only lead to an impermanent state of vain

glory.

Swift's angst is evidently directed at what he saw to be a weak

English monarchy with pretensions of autocratic power trying to

level political, cultural and religious differences and obliterating

boundaries and identities. As a Tory and a conservative, Swift

distrusted the absolute power of government. He disapproved of

experimentation in politics, favoring a royalist government that was

concerned with human welfare. He was against the new moneyed

class which would have meant an imbalance of financial, and

concurrently, political power. As a champion of the Irish

nationalists, Swift fought for the cause of the oppressed and those

exploited by the English Parliament, Court and the Church. A

kingdom that rules its dependents on the principles of mastery and

subjugation, force and fear, and absolute power without mass

consent, is surely heading towards unrest, dissent and ultimate

breakdown of civil order.

Firmly believing that a system based on intimidation and coercion

will not mean any progress for the country and its people, Swift

reposed his trust in the traditional agrarian practice. As the king of

Brobdingnag very succinctly puts it, the need of the times is not

gunpowder, but

135

Whoever could make two Ears of Corn, or two Blades of Grass to grow

upon a Spot of Ground where only one grew before; would deserve

better of Mankind, and do more essential Service to his Country, than the

whole Race of Politicians put together. (152)

Based on Swift's views and ideology, it would be unjust to dismiss

him as an unenlightened, unprogressive reactionary. What Swift

was probably emphasizing was a system that would maintain

equilibrium between personal interest and public good, between

tradition and progress, and between science and art. The learning

of the people of Brobdingnag is "wholly applied to what may be

useful in Life" (153), an education which is simple, practical and

sensitive to moral values. Hence they excel in Morality, History,

Poetry, Mathematics and Agriculture, and have no conception of

Ideas, Entities, Abstractions and Transcendentals.

Gulliver fails to conform to the Brobdingnagian principles.

Physically he is an anomaly, a paradox - a strange creature

resembling a small animal or a dwarf, but nonetheless possessing

the features of a human being. He lacks the capacity for self­

preservation. He cannot climb trees or dig holes in the ground nor

can he sustain himself by eating other animals. He is therefore an

amazing object, an exotica. The Brobdingnagians make an effort to

domesticate the weird creature found in the fields, and to transform

it from an object of fear and disgust into a marvel, "a Curiosity." The

King was even "strongly bent to get me a Woman of my own Size,

by whom I might propagate the Breed." (156) Gulliver too makes an

effort to be like them, to ingratiate himself with the them:

I was indeed treated with much kindness; I was the Favourite of a great

King and Queen, and the Delight of the whole Court. (156)

But what Gulliver dislikes is the ignominy of being in a subjugated

position, the unequal treatment

136

... upon such a Foot as ill became the Dignity of human Kind. (156)

His desire to escape from the confinement of the Brobdingnagian

empire, is because

I should rather have died than undergone the Disgrace of leaving a

Posterity to be kept in Cages like tame Canary Birds; and perhaps in

time sold about the Kingdom to Persons of Quality for Curiosities. (156)

Gulliver, like Swift, resents the dehumanizing treatment and the

deprivations of a quasi-colonial existence. He wants to "be among

People with whom I could converse upon even terms" (156} and to

live freely without fear, Gulliver is finally delivered by an eagle,

which carries away the box in which he lived, and subsequently

rescued from the ocean by a Captain of a ship.

Back in his country, Gulliver has problem in adjusting with his fellow

beings. Having seen gargantuan creatures for such a long time, he

is "confounded by the sight of so many Pigmies." He thinks he is a

giant and "they" were "the most contemptible Creatures I had ever

beheld." (165) Gulliver clearly belongs nowhere; he is a misfit both

in Brobdingnag and in his own country. In Brobdingnag, he did not

look at the mirror, "because the Comparison gave me so

despicable a Conceit of myself'(165), and back at home he is

looked upon by his wife and daughters as someone who has lost

his wit. Like Swift who was never comfortable with his Angle-Irish

identity, Gulliver too represents the fragmentation of the Self, a

disjointed personality, someone who is neither accepted here nor

there. Ashis Nandy in The Intimate Enemy has reconstructed the

psychological structures and cultural forces that shape colonial

consciousness. Nandy points out how the colonial :

ego and his vaguely defined authority can lead to a

weak

of the

self - "a self from whom one is already somewhat abstracted and

alienated." (Nandy 1983: 1 08-9). The duality of the self therefore

ensures that the humiliation and violence that the subject suffers is

137

not his. To protect his dignity and sanity he disaffiliates the

humiliation on his 'other' self. Hence Gulliver transfers the

Brobdingnagians contempt for him on to his fellow beings. The tone

of condescension and derision that Gulliver uses for the 'Pygmies'

and 'the contemptible Creatures' indicates his alienation from his

own people. He is in this world but refuses to recognize that he is a

part of it. The full psychological impact of what colonization can do

to an individual's and a nation's sense of identity is to be seen in

the final voyage that Gulliver undertakes.

But before this, Swift has to show in the third voyage, the complete

disintegration of the political, social, cultural- and religious fabric of

not only the nation that is subjugated, but also the nation that

. dominates. The colonial ideology was handled in two mutually

inconsistent ways. The .first method was to legitimize colonialism

both in the eyes of the colonizer and the colonized as a

machination of progress and civilization. The promoters of

colonialism tried to project the benefit of material products, new

land and cheap labour. The second, and in general the repressed

notion among the eighteenth century British public was that

imperialism could not be completely beneficial for England without

having some reductive side effects. The obvious grievance was the

depletion of the taxpayer's money which was being diverted to

foreign shores and in the upkeep of the navy and the army. But the

main threat to the colonizers, it was popularly believed, was not just

the heat, dust or alien culture, but what a constantly hyper

competitive, achievement oriented and aggressive machismoism

would ultimately do to the mental health of the settlers. Writers and

psychoanalysts like Franz Fanon, Albert Memmi and Octave

Mannoni have demonstrated the broad psychological contours of

colonialism. They echo the sentiment of the minority of British

138

intelligentsia who felt that the subject communities were not the

only losers, but that the colonizers are as much affected by it and

their degradation can be as much horrifying.

The problem of colonization did not only concern the overseas countries.

The process of decolonization - which is in any case far from complete

in those countries - is also under way at home, in our schools, in female

demands for equality, in the education of small children and in many

other fields ... If certain cultures prove capable of destroying others ... the

destructive forces brought forth by these cultures also act internally ...

(Mannoni 1972: 93-4)

The internal political, social and moral degeneration that is the

inevitable by-product of colonization is the main theme of Gulliver's

third voyage. The conflicting and ambivalent relationship that the

dominating and the dominated nations share, their interdependence

and yet mutually antagonistic attitude, the give and take of power,

are some of the issues which Swift highlights in the Voyage to

Laputa.

Laputa, the flying or the floating island is apparently isolated from

the main land, suspended above it. A magnet that acts as a

loadstone can be manipulated to allow the island to move up and

down, to come closer to the earth below or away from it. The

loadstone is under the care of astronomers who control and

position it as the Monarch of Laputa directs them to do. And yet,

there are topographical limitations:

But it must be observed, that the Island cannot move beyond the Extent

of the Dominions below; nor can it rise above the Height of four Miles .. .

the Magnetic Virtue does not extend beyond the Distance of four Miles .. .

and in the Sea about six Leagues distant from the Shoar, is not diffused

through the whole Globe, but terminated with the Limits of the King's

Dominions. (188)

139

Riding above its principal cities, the kingdom of Laputa from its

aerial realm can control and subjugate whatever country lay within

the attraction of the magnet. But, of course, the ridiculous part of it

is that "the Advantage of such a superior Situation" (188) does not

extend beyond four miles. From its advantageous position they

seek to maintain their authority by cruelly suppressing those below

them. By operating the loadstone, the island itself becomes the

ultimate weapon. If any town should rebel or refuse to pay tribute,

the King had his methods of "reducing them to Obedience." (190)

The "mildest" method would be to position the island in such a way

that those below would be deprived of sun and rain thereby leading

to disease and death. Next, the rebellious subjects would be pelted

from above with stones and their houses broke. As a final

demonstration of his authority; the king would let the island drop

directly upon the heads of his subjects which would ruin their men

and houses completely. The reluctance of the King and his

ministers in taking recourse to this extreme action is a matter of

self-interest, as (a) "it would render them odious to the people", (b)

"it would be a great Damage to their own Estates that lie all below'',

and (c) the broken rocks, pillars and the fire in the city below would

destroy the adamantine bottom of the island and then "the Load­

stone could no longer hold it up, and the whole Mass would fall to

the Ground." (190-1)

Arbitrary, cruel and rigidly hierarchical power can reduce the

dependent country to submission, but absolute authoritarianism

would ultimately lead the superior edifice to crumble to the ground.

The very existence and survival of both the powerful and the

subject nations depend on each other. Being cut off from the main

land below, the Laputans have to depend on the Balnibarbians for

food and wine, which are drawn up by pullies. But they are

140

completely divorced from the community on whom they are

dependent for their sustenance.

It was not difficult for Swift's readers to recognize the many political

references and allusions in this tale. Laputa is easily identifiable as

contemporary England and the King of Laputa is a close caricature

of George I. Like George I who patronized Music and Mathematics,

the King of. Laputa and his Court are preoccupied with abstract

speculations upon the subjects of "Mathematicks and Musick".

(181) The English Court's squabble over political parties and the

arbitrary Hanoverian reign is lampooned as the Laputan Court's

"strong disposition ... towards news and Politicks ... passionately

disputing every inch of a Party Opinion". (182) The King's desire to

"be the most absolute Prince in the Universe" (189), the

considerable number of strangers from the Continent present in his

court, and the King's inability to leave the country is analogous to

the rule of George I. The over bearing and tyrannical attitude of

Laputa over Balnibarbi parodies the English crown's policies

towards Ireland. Oliver W. Ferguson in his Jonathan Swift and

Ireland presents a clear picture of the severe prohibitions inflicted

by England on Ireland.

Though in title a kingdom, eighteenth-century Ireland was in fact virtually

an English colony. Almost all important government and ecclesiastical

positions were held by English appointees. In addition, a number of

minor posts, pensions, and sinecures held by nonresident Englishmen

were a constant drain on the nation's economy. The country had its own

parliament, but its powers were so curtailed as to make it little more than

a rubber stamp for measures enacted in England. (Ferguson, 0. 1962: 7)

Laputa, too is seen as a kingdom that constantly drains the

resources of its subjects without being politically or morally

responsible for their welfare. The Laputans are oblivious of their

141

surroundings, deeply immersed in their own self, so much so that

they require flappers to slap them and awake them from their

reverie; otherwise, there was the "manifest danger of falling down

every precipice, and bouncing his Head against every Post."( 177)

They are a race of odd looking mortals with "their Heads all reclined

to the Right or the Left; one of their Eyes turned inward, and the

other directly up to the Zenith."(176) Their distorted physical feature

is obviously an allegory of their intense egotistical behaviour on the

one hand, and their concentration on abstract ideas on the other.

Their lives are predominated by two subjects - Music and

. mathematics - the most intangible sciences. Their clothes,

furniture, and even food are in the shape of triangles, rhombuS';

cones, and cylinders or shaped like flutes, harps and fiddles. Of all

the beings that Gulliver has met in his voyages up till now, the

Laputans are the most dehumanized. They are like mechanical

clockwork toys that are completely isolated from the realities of the

outside world. They have lost the human qualities of feelings and

emotions. "Imagination, Fancy and Invention, they are wholly

strangers to, nor have any Words in their Language by which those

Ideas can be expressed."(181) Ignoring all that is creative,

constructive or beautiful, they are absorbed in their own abstract

world of speculations. In turning away from the ordinary concerns of

life, they become purely emblematic of all that is abstract, abnormal

and inhuman.

The Laputans obsessively absorbed in speculative sciences and

divorced from the realities of life, are dismal failures in whatever

they do. They are devoted to music, but cannot play music well.

They are fanatically immersed in mathematics, but cannot figure

accurately enough to build houses or even tailor clothes. They are

142

completely incompetent in practical affairs, or in reasoning or

appreciating the beauty of nature .

... in the common Actions and Behaviour of Life, I have not seen a more

clumsy, awkward, and unhandy People, nor so slow and perplexed in

their Conceptions upon all other Subjects ... ( 181)

They are abject failures as workmen, intellectuals, philosophers,

and even as men, so that the men are even blind to the needs of

their wives and daughters who in turn amuse themselves with

strangers from the continent below.

Swift's satire is directed towards societies that strictly run on the

principles of reason and calculation, with their sight fixed on new

discoveries. Being completely insensitive to the needs of its people

and not caring for what is practically happening in the present

moment, would hasten the degeneration of the individual, society

and the nation. It would eventually lead to a complete collapse of

the very system which supports it. That the system is falling apart

under the repressive and indifferent rule of the king of Laputa is

plainly evident when Gulliver visits the subject country of Balnibarbi,

whose capital city is Lagado. During his perambulation of the

metropolis, Gulliver is shocked to see the sad state of the city and

its people:

... 1 never knew a Soil so unhappily cultivated, Houses so ill contrived and

so ruinous, or a People whose countenances and Habit expressed so

much Misery and Want. (193)

Gulliver's observation of the plight of Balnibarbi, echoes Swift's

comments on the condition of Ireland dominated by an apathetic

and exploitative England:

Whoever travels this country [Ireland], and observes the face of nature,

or the faces, and habits, and dwellings of the natives, will hardly think

himself in a land where either law, religion, or common humanity is

professed. (Nokes 1985: 267)

143

The only place that was flourishing in the barren land of Balnibarbi

was the estate of Lord Munodi, the former governor of Lagado and

Gulliver's host. His land was a pleasant contrast with its neatly

arranged houses and farms lush with corns and vines. When

Gulliver expresses his surprise, Munodi explains that about forty

years ago, a group of Balnibarbian inventors and promoters went to

Laputa. Upon their return they disliked everything that they saw in

their country. They had new theoretical schemes for improving their

island but the plans never worked; the island became a miserable

waste and the people lived in penury. The reason why Munodi had

a thriving estate was because he refused to follow the new

innovative methods of the 'experimentalists'. He believed in and

practiced the tried tested traditional methods.

That, as for himself, being not of an enterprising Spirit, he was content to

go on in the old Forms; to live in the Houses his Ancestors had built, and

act as they did in every part of Life without Innovation. (196)

But for this he has to incur the wrath of the King and face a lot of

pressure from the people who wanted that

... he must throw down his Houses in Town and Country, to rebuild them

after the present Mode; destroy all his Plantations, and cast others into

such a Form as Modern Usage required. (195)

Swift's aversion to pointless experimentation is quite evident here,

and more than that, the incident alludes to the fight between the

moderns and the ancients during Swift's time. Sir William Temple

had written an essay defending the ancient authors, which was

bitterly criticized by the "moderns" who dismissed the ancients and

praised the new wave of science and technology. Swift wrote the

Battle of the Books to defend the position of the ancients. In the

Battle, the Spider and the Bee are the advocates of the Moderns

and the Ancients respectively. After the debate between the Spider

and the Bee is over, the decision is:

144

He [the spider] displays to you his great Skill in Architecture, and

Improvement in the Mathematicks. To all this, the Bee as an Advocate,

retained by us the Antients, thinks fit to answer ... Erect your Schemes

with as much Method and Skill as you please; yet if the materials be

nothing but Dirt, spun out of your Entrails (the Guts of Modern Brains)

the edifice will conclude at last in a Cobweb. As for Us, the Antients, We

are content with the Bee, to pretend to Nothing of our own, beyond our

Wings and our Voice: that is to say, our Flights and our Language ... The

Difference is, that instead of Dirt and Poison, we have rather chose to fill

our Hives with Honey and Wax, thus furnishing Mankind with the two

Noblest of Things, which are Sweetness and Light. (Williams 1982:151)

In the failure of the experiments undertaken by the Laputan and the

Balnibarbian inventors, Swift reiterates the same argument stated

above. The experiments fail because they disregard and transgress

the boundaries of natural laws. Instead of living on nature's terms

and trying to use the advantages of nature for Mankind's benefit,

they defy, degrade and denounce nature.

In his visit to the Balnibarbian Grand Academy, Gulliver presents

before the readers, the ludicrous attempts of their scientists to

extract sunshine out of cucumbers, to reduce human excrement to

their original food, and in their method of building houses from the

top to the bottom. These projects not only violate natural laws, but

are absolutely useless - the equivalent of the dirt and the poison

that the spider spews, as compared to the natural gift that the bee

presents to Man. Here too in this voyage, Swift uses the symbolism

of the spider and the bee to emphasize the. usefulness of the latter

over the former. At the Balnibarbian Academy, the scientists are

involved in trying to extract silk threads from the spider's cobwebs.

As Kathleen Williams points out, "The experiments and their results

allow Swift to collect together various images which, as so often,

express his meaning through producing a certain atmosphere

145

which must affect our response to Laputa and Balnibarbi. These

projects leave an impression of uselessness, dirt, ephemerality, or

death ... thus turning the useful into the unusable and the vital into

the atrophied." (Kathleen Williams, 'Gulliver in Laputa', Brady 1968: 65)

The Grand Academy of Lagado is a burlesque, based as it is in part

on actual experiments conducted under the auspices of the Royal

Society of London, founded in 1660 for the improvement of Natural

Knowledge and Sciences. It supported the 'new' or 'Experimental'

form of philosophy. The Royal Society strove to establish an

"Empire of Learning" to remove language barriers within the

sciences. (Source: Internet, Wikipeidia) In 'A Voyage to Laputa'

Swift's satire is directed towards inventors and promoters involved;.·

in impractical scholarship, absurd and pretentious schemes, and

"Speculative Learning".

The first Professor I saw was ... employed in a Project for improving

Speculative Knowledge by practical and mechanical Operations. But the

world would soon be sensible of its usefulness ... Everyone knew how

laborious the usual Method is of attaining to Arts and Sciences; whereas

by his Contrivance, the most ignorant Person at a reasonable Charge

and with a little bodily Labour, may write Books in Philosophy, Poetry,

Politicks ... without the least Assistance from Genius or Study. (201)

Again when the Academy attempts to start a "scheme for entirely

abolishing all words whatever" (203), the focus of Swift's ridicule is

Thomas Sprat, the first historian of the Royal Society who tried to

evolve a new prose style. Under Sprat, the Royal Society came up

with

The only Remedy that can be found for this extravagance: [ornateness of

style] and that has been, a constant Resolution; to reject all the

amplifications, digressions · and swellings of style; to return back to

primitive purity, and shortness, when men deliver'd so many things,

almost in an equal number of words. (Hammond 2003: 63)

146

~---

Sprat's recommendation of a 'primitive' plain style seems to Swift a

wish to avoid language itself. He therefore suggests the comical

impracticality of carrying around sackful of objects to represent

things and to communicate with others.

An expedient was therefore offered, that since Words are only Names for

Things, it should be more convenient for all Men to carry about them,

such Things as were necessary to express the particular Business they

are to discourse on. (203)

Swift's hostility towards these experiments cannot just be attributed

to the fact that he was against empirical science, or innovations in

mechanical fields. These experiments fail not because they are

scientific but because they depend upon theories which are

misguided, and based on irrational premises. Laputa and its

dependent countries remain a wasteland because its innovators are

busy putting in decades of aimless effort in creating meaningless

things. The implication is that since not "one Ear of Corn, or Blade

of Grass" (194) grows in this desolate country, it would be more

sensible if like the King of Brobdingnag, they could put in their

efforts to "make two Ears of Corn, or two Blades of Grass to grow

upon a Spot of Ground where only one grew before."

Next, Swift directs his scathing satire towards the political projects

of the country which reflects the structural infirmity of the society.

By showing the "strict universal Resemblanc.e between the natural

and the political Body" ,(206) and their afflictions by diseases, Swift

proposes that it is essential to preserve the health of both. The

"illustrious Person" at the School of Political Projectors is employed

In finding out effectual Remedies for all Diseases and Corruptions, to

which the several Kinds of publick Administration are subject by the

Vices or Infirmities of those who govern ... (205)

147

Having observed all this, Gulliver conveys a mood of pessimism

and bewilderment. The political institutions are diseased by bribery,

corruption, dishonesty, inefficiency, strife, and duplicity to such an

extent that these have become endemic with no hope of being ever

corrected. It is the rampant corruption and vices from the ruler

down to the people that has turned the Kingdom of Tribnia where

Gulliver "had long sojourned" into a people of "Discoverers,

Witnesses, Informers, Accusers, Prosecutors, Evidences,

Swearers." {209)

Swift's relentless and unending tirade against the functioning of

such empires and people is carried forward with Gulliver's visit to

Glubbdubdrib, the island of sorcerers and magicians. Here, the;~

governor of the island, who has some magic powers, calls up the

dead of famous people like Hannibal, Alexander, Ceaser, Socrates,

Homer and Descartes. What Gulliver learns from these visions is

that the basis on which Europe claims its superiority over the rest of

the world is entirely baseless, a sham. The Englishmen's assertion

of greatness based on the divine rights granted to the rulers is a~.

myth, an attempt to justify and legitimize power which was in most

cases based on murder, duplicity and vices. Power was just not

granted by the Heavens to the chosen few, as the ideology of

colonialism perpetuated, but was rather the result of manipulation:

... the Roguery and Ignorance of those who pretend to write Anecdotes,

or secret History ... how a Whore can govern the Back-stairs, the Back­

stairs a Council, and the Council a Senate ... I hope I. may be pardoned if

these Discoveries inclined me a little to abate of that profound

Veneration which I am naturally apt to pay to Persons of high Rank, who

ought to be treated with the utmost Respect due to their sublime Dignity,

by us their Inferiors. (217 -9)

148

It leads Gulliver to sadly ponder on the radical and pervasive

degeneration of Man. By comparing the present with the past,

Gulliver laments the loss of "pure native Virtues" (220), and how the

simplicity, justice, valour, love and the spirit of liberty found in the

English Yeomen of the past has been "prostituted for a Piece of

Money by their Grand-children."(220)

Gulliver gets further removed from reality and enters a world of

illusions and darker somberness when he meets the Struldbrugs of

Luggnagg. Up till now, Swift has ridiculed the transitoriness of the

causes of man's vanity, be it regarding his position, strength,

stature, wealth or achievements. Whether it was the Lilliputians,

Brobdingnagians or Laputans, pride is always to be ridiculed

because the reason of pride is shown to be ephemeral; position,

strength, power will not last for ever. More over, no achievement

can be considered the greatest per se. In Luggnagg, Gulliver pays

obeisance to the King by following "the Court Style", which was "to

lick the Dust before his Footstool" (222). He then proceeds by

"striking my Forehead seven Times against the Ground" and

pronouncing the compliment, "May your Celestial Majesty out-live

the Sun, eleven Moons and an Half." (223) Gulliver's understated

opinion that the Struldbrugs were not without some share of pride

makes the satire on Man's arrogance more cutting and inexorable.

When Gulliver learns that some Struldbrugs were immortals

I cryed out as in a Rapture; Happy Nation, where every Child hath at

least a Chance for being immortal! Happy People who enjoy so many

living Examples of antient Virtue, and have Masters ready to instruct

them in the Wisdom of all former Ages! But, happiest beyond all

Comparison are those excellent Struldbrugs, who being born exempt

from that universal Calamity of human Nature, have their minds free and

149

-I

disengaged, without the Weight and Depression of Spirits caused by the

continual Apprehension of Death. {225)

But Gulliver learns that the ancient wisdom and counsel of the

immortal Struldbrugs are disregarded, as the Court and the young

men are too opinionated and conceited about their knowledge and

ability. The invaluable experience of life, maturity of understanding

and judgment of these wise men go completely wasted whereas

they could have become the "Living Treasury of Knowledge ... and

the Oracle of the Nation."(227) Instead, immortality makes them

horrible specters, "the most mortifying Sight I ever beheld." (231) It

was not only the deformities of age that made them so repulsive to

look at, but "many more which arose from the dreadful Prospect of

never dying. They were not only opinionative, peevish, covetous,

morose, vain, talkative; but incapable of Friendship and dead to all

natural Affection ... " (229-30) They are envious of the young and

particularly of those who die. Ironically, the longetivity of Man is a

curse for himself and the society; the longer Man lives the more

degenerate he becomes physically and morally. Swift therefore

shows the last bastion of Man's pride crumbling to dust- the desire

for immortality. Man aspires to be immortal by his deeds and

actions and there is rarely a "Man who died willingly", yearning to

"put off death for sometime longer." Swift has shown Man's vain

pride upon the conquest of less powerful creatures, weaker nations

and people, but what the great satirist seems to imply that even if

Man can conquer life and death it would be a futile and insignificant

achievement in the greater plan of Life.

Gulliver's fourth and last voyage 'A Voyage to the Houyhnhnms'

has been the subject of intense speculation ever since it has been

published. If the first three voyages have been relatively easy to

interpret in terms of contemporary politics, religion, education and

150

science, the last voyage has commanded most attention and

provoked most debate. Thackeray thought that it was

A monster gibbering shrieks, and gnashing imprecations against

mankind - tearing down all shreds of modesty, past all sense of

manliness and shame, filthy in word, filthy in thought, furious, raging,

obscene. (The Dean and the Drapier, p. 318)

T. 0. Wedel in his essay 'On the Philosophical Background Of

Gulliver's Travels' (1926) thinks that the underlying emphasis of the

voyage is to show the contrast between Men in Hobbes' and

Locke's state of Nature. Men in Hobbes' state of Nature are like the

Yahoos, "in that condition which is called war. .. as is of every man

against every man ... with no arts, no letters, no society ... and the life

of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short." Men in Locke's

state of Nature are like the Houyhnhnms, "living together according

to reason, without a common superior." (Wedel 1968: 30) R. S.

Crane in 'The Houyhnhnms, the Yahoos, and the History of Ideas'

(1962) thought Swift was exploiting the idea present in the existing

Latin textbooks of logic which emphasized Man as "Homo est

animal rationale." Enest Tuveson believes that when Swift

pronounces that "the whole building of travels is erected upon this

great foundation of misanthropy", it is perfectly in keeping with

Swift's theological views and his belief in Man's Original Sin. ('Swift:

The Dean as Satirist', 1953) Maynard Mack's view ('Gulliver's

Travels', 1961) that the Houyhnhnms and the Yahoos are "only a

part of the whole. Neither extreme answers the actual human

situation", was seminal in determining the trend of recent criticism

of Swift's work. While Ricardo Quintana disapproves of the

"sensationalism" of the fourth voyage, John F. Ross considers the

last voyage to be "concerned with the springs and causes of action,

in other words, with the inner make-up of man." ('The Final Comedy

of Lemuel Gulliver', 1941) For Louis A. Landa (Landa 1970: 287)

151

the principles embodied by the Houyhnhnms are normative ideals

to be universally followed, and for Kathleen Williams the

Houyhnhnms and the Yahoos are the dual nature of man and in

between these two extremes "stand Swift's examples of fulfilled

humanity." (Wiliiams 1958, conclusion)

The various and varied readings of Swift's voyage to Houyhnhnms

only indicate the often ambiguous and diverse interpretations,

leading Swift to be labeled as a misanthrope, misogynist, insane,

and Gulliver's Travels to be seen as a spiritual biography of Man, a

philosophical treatise, an exemplary fable or a neurotic phantasy~

Of course the brilliance of Swift lies in the multiplicity of

interpretations, as there cannot be a single conclusive meaning of

the last voyage, but at the same time no modern critic or reader can

disregard the previous views and readings of this work. Hence, my

attempt to read the last voyage in the light of the effect of

colonialism on the identity of the dominant group and its subjects

would invariably be dependent on preceding interpretations of the

journey.

The first three voyages have typified a logical progression to

demonstrate what colonization can do to an individual's and a

nation's sense of identity. The fourth voyage carries the theme

forward to a heightened climax. In the Voyage to Lilliput and

Brobdingnag, the Body became a symbolic manifestation of the

Matter within. Hence, the miniature Lilliputians stood for the

smallness, pettiness and meanness that their body indicated. The

exaggerated vanities and ego of these tiny creatures becomes the

object of ridicule. In Brobdingnag the mind- body dualism is carried

forward when we see the perspective from the other end of the

magnifying glass. The giants are magnanimous, fair and possess a

152

largeness of vision; and Gulliver who appears as a 'pygmie' now

emerges to be mean, petty and ludicrously boastful of his powers.

The third voyage further emphasizes the dichotomy between Body­

Mind-Matter. The scientists experimenting at the Academy of

Lagado, are apparently great minds but they are involved in matters

which are absurd, foolish and sometimes highly dangerous for

Mankind. The immortal Struldbrugs are caught in their decaying

infirm bodies and are the most melancholy indictment of man's vain

attempt to transcend his mortal limitations. The three voyages have

thus condemned man's pride, be it his arrogance of power, wealth,

land or greatness, and shown its comical effect on man - reducing

him to a petty, selfish, blabbering idiot.

Whereas in the first three voyages the literal becomes

metaphorical, in the fourth voyage Swift inverts this expectation and

reduces the symbolic to the physical. The Houyhnhnms who are

the "Perfection of Nature" (253) epitomizes Locke's Man in the state

of Nature. At first Gulliver is awed by the physical perfection of the

horses, their "Strength, Comeliness and Speed".

I was amazed to see such Actions and Behaviour in Brute Beasts; and

concluded with myself, that if the inhabitants of this Country were endued

with a proportionable Degree of reason, they must needs be the wisest

People on Earth. (243)

Then the Houyhnhnms impress Gulliver with their mental faculty.

" ... the Behaviour of these Animals was so orderly and rational, so acute

and judicious, that I at last concluded, they must needs be Magicians"

(244),

who Gulliver thinks must have metamorphosed into the shape of

horses. Finally, we are told that the Houyhnhnms lead a perfectly

moral life, so that lying, deceiving, and controversy are unknown to

them. They lead austere lives devoted to hard work, temperance,

153

J

and cleanliness. They know no vice, lust or passions; they are

solely governed by reason.

The Yahoos on the other hand are a beastly and degenerate

species of man. When Gulliver first beholds the ugly and deformed

Yahoos he is filled with "Contempt and Aversion" (242) for, as he

says,

I never beheld in all my Travels so disagreeable an Animal, or one

against which I naturally conceived so strong an Antipathy. (241-2)

They closely resemble Man as Hobbes described him. They are

nasty, brutish, jealous and lustful. They have an insatiable desire

for things; they hoard their possessions and fight for other's

belongings. They eat the dead and diseased flesh of animals which

they hold in their claws and tear with their teeth.

There can be no doubt that Swift portrays two contrasting and

extreme sides of Man -the benevolent and the depraved. If the

Houyhnhnms are the embodiment of goodness, then the Yahoos

are the extreme examples of the bestial. In this last part, Swift

therefore represents the symbolic through the physical attributes.

Virtue, reason, and goodness are embedded in a beautiful body,

appropriately a horse which was a familiar eighteenth century

emblem for strength, loyalty and gentleness. The degenerate

animalism, the appetitive passions, the corrupt nature is housed in

the body of surprisingly Man, considered the most rational of all

creatures.

By extrapolating two extremes, Swift is presenting here the

dichotomy between good and evil, the rational and the savage, the

god and the beast. Perhaps Swift wanted to deconstruct the

prevalent eighteenth century belief which formed the basis of

154

imperialism, that while the Europeans were the embodiment of

rationality, the rest of the world were primitive savages. The

Houyhnhnms and the Yahoos, like any other binary oppositions,

represent the positive and the negative, and a close reading would

show Swift's attempt to destroy all such preconceived stereotypes

of the positive.

Gulliver abhors the sight of the Yahoos whom he considers to be

disgusting brutes. Their heads and chests were covered with hair,

the rest of their body was bare. Their nails on their fore feet were

longer and their skin was coarse and brown. When the

Houyhnhnms compare the countenance of both the Yahoos and

Gulliver, the latter recognizes with "horror and amazement" that the

"abominable Animal" was "a perfect human Figure". (248) Gulliver

realizes that the Yahoos are not too different from him.

The Fore-feet of the Yahoo differed from my hands in nothing else, but

the Length of the Nails, the Coarseness and Brownness of the Palms,

and the Hairiness on the Backs. There was the same Resemblance

between our Feet, with the same Differences ... the same in every Part of

our Bodies, except as to Hairiness and Colour. (248)

But he refuses to accept the Yahoos as 'man' or 'human'. He

considers himself human and the Yahoos as a lower species of

animal. The superficial physiological differences between the

Yahoos and Gulliver are the differences one would associate

between the primitive savage man and the civilized man. Like

Robinson Crusoe who finds no kinship between himself and the

cannibals whom he sees on his island for the first time, Gulliver too

manifests the same horror and amazement when upon landing on

the island he observes the Yahoos move towards him. Gulliver's

description of the features of the Yahoos indeed remind us of the

savages that Crusoe described on his island.

155

The face of it indeed was flat and broad, the Nose depressed, the Lips

large, and the Mouth wide: But these differences are common to all

savage Nations, where the Lineaments of the Countenance are distorted

by the Natives ... (248)

By presenting the rational horses and the brutish Yahoos, Swift

thereby subverts the prevalent distinction between man in the state

of Nature and civilized man which stated that Man's preeminence

over the brute creation consists in his power to reason. The same

logic was extended to distinguish one society from another, races

and nations, thereby declaring one superior on the basis of virtue,

reason and knowledge. Swift unmasks the speciousness of

hierarchical power structures that are based on the argument of

Locke and Hobbe, Pascal and Rousseau, the continuing debate of

whether to preside in a state of "sensual ignorance" or "the

perfection of man in the establishment of true civilization."

(Wollstonecraft 1985: 99)

Gulliver refuses to accept his close resemblance with the Yahoos.

He is careful not to undress himself in front of the Houyhnhnms lest

they identify him as a Yahoo.

I had hitherto concealed the Secret of my Dress, in order to distinguish

myself as much as possible, from that cursed race of the Yahoos. (254)

That Gulliver without his clothes is nothing but a Yahoo is

confirmed by the behaviour of the young female Yahoo who sees

him bathing and expresses her lust for him. Further, when his

Master Houyhrihnm finally observes him undressing, he states:

... it was plain I must be a perfect Yahoo. (255)

The Houyhnhnms' judgment shatters Gulliver

I expressed my uneasiness at his giving me so often the Appellation of

Yahoo, an odious Animal, for which I had so utter an Hatred and

Contempt. I begged he would forbear applying the Word to me ... (255)

156

Swift makes the Yahoos correspond to a negative model - all that

is odious, primitive and repellant, so that being a Yahoo becomes

an insult. Thus Gulliver takes care not to be associated with them in

his mannerisms, clothing or dietary practices. What is significant is

that Swift makes a clear demarcation between two models of

civilization in which it is not the individual who is civilized or

degraded, but the entire group. This ensures the dichotomy

between the master and the slave, the privileged and the

unprivileged, the powerful and the marginalized.

Gulliver's repudiation of his identity clearly stems from his desire to

be accepted as one of the Houyhnhnms. The fact that he is not a

perfect Yahoo in look or behaviour (his skin is whiter and smoother,

and he has the "Capacity for Speech and Reason"(256)) makes

him straddle the indeterminate and shifting boundary between

barbarism and civility. Gulliver's condition can be best understood

from the perspective of Frantz Fanon's brilliant work 'Black Skin,

White Mask' (Fanon 1982) where he analyses the social

antagonism that arises in a colonial relation. Fanon determines the

formation of a colonial subject as it comes to be developed in the

colonial condition. He provides a psychoanalytical explanation that

emerges from the colonial subject's desire to dissociate himself

from his own identity and culture. This results in a splitting of

identity, on the one hand a dislocation and alienation of the Self

and on the other hand the desire for acceptance by the Other.

Gulliver presents all the manifestations of social, cultural and

psychic alienation. He detests the physical looks, social behaviour,

the habits and practices and even the smell of the Yahoos. He

refuses to accept he is one of them. Gulliver's consciousness

vacillates between self-hatred and an utopian identity. In The

Location of Culture, Homi K. Bhabha examines the problem of

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identity, especially in postcolonial texts, and concludes that it rests

on two traditions in the discourse of identity:

... the philosophical tradition of identity as the process of self-reflection in

the mirror of {human) nature; and the anthropological view of the

difference of human identity as located in the division of Nature/Culture.

(Bhabha 1994: 46)

Caught in this struggle of contradictory representations of identity,

Swift's hero articulates the problem of cultural alienation. The

earlier voyages had denoted Gulliver's pride in his people and in his

nation's "Actions and Passions", but now he feels only shame and

abhorrence for his fellow creatures. It is significant that it is the

Houyhnhnms who are responsible for this, as they have "opened

my Eyes, and enlarged my Understanding". (276) Gulliver's

repulsion for his self arises from the image that the Houyhnhnms

create in his mind. They point out the polarity between the rational

and the brute, the civilized and the disgusting, and insinuate into

Gulliver's mind a self-impression that is increasingly degrading for

him. Besides, Gulliver cannot escape the social and psychological

pressures of the Houyhnhnms as

it was impossible for me to do before a Person of so acute a Judgement

as my Master, who daily convinced me of a thousand Faults in my self,

whereof· I had the least Perception before, and which with us would

never be numbered even among human Infirmities. (276)

Rather than accept his personal traits as distinctively different from

the rational horses, Gulliver unconsciously acknowledges his

nature as negative. From the feeling of loathing arises Gulliver's

estrangement from his own people and he finds the "Honour of my

own kind not worth managing."(276) Not only does the self get

drifted away from "my own kind", but it also transfers the humiliation

heaped upon it to its alter ego, the Yahoos.

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Having drifted away from a fixed identifiable position Gulliver now

strains to reach the 'ideal' construction of otherness. Gulliver can

only be accepted as a rational creature if he tries to erase the

difference by ingratiating himself to his Houyhnhnm masters. This is

the only way he hopes to gain the favour and acceptance of the

Houyhnhnms.

I now began to be a little comforted; and took out some Toys, which

Travellers usually carry for Presents to'the Savage Indians of America

and other Parts, in hopes the People of the House would be thereby

encouraged to receive me kindly. (246)

Fanon explicates this subconscious desire to identify with the

dominant social authority: " ... there is no native who does not dream

at least once a day of setting himself up in the settler's place."

(Bhabha 1994: 44) The fantasy of the subject is to occupy the

master's place for which he has to deny his intrinsic identity and

demonstrate his separateness from his group. Gulliver now longs to

imitate the infinite perfections of the Houyhnhnms. It is significant

from the colonial context that Gulliver seeks to bridge the difference

by beginning to learn the Houyhnhnm language, trying to

pronounce the words correctly and using the right accent. He is

commended by his Houyhnhnm Master for his "teachableness"

(252) He eats oat and milk, tries to put food in his mouth with his

fore paw, and further emulates his masters' way of talking and

walking.

By conversing with the Houyhnhnms, and looking upon them with

delight, I fell to imitate their Gait and gesture, which is now grown into a

Habit; and my Friends often tell me in a blunt Way, that I trot like a

Horse; which, however, I take for a great Compliment: Neither shall I

disown that in speaking I am apt to fall into the Voice and manner of the

Houyhnhnms, and hear myself ridiculed on that Account without the least

Mortification. (298)

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It is evident that Gulliver's "Love and Veneration" for the

Houyhnhnms make him totally disregard the absurdity of the

situation and the ridiculous object that he turns out to be. He is

completely ready to reject his own· people and makes a "firm

resolution never to return to human Kind". (277)

Though he prattles about his "beloved England" and tries to give a

"favourable" turn to all the faults, "For, indeed, who is there alive

that will not be swayed by his Byass and Partiality to the Place of

his Birth?" (277), it is self-evident that he brackets ''the Bulk of our

People" (271) as the "European Yahoos" (304) who indiscriminately

suffer from the imperfections of the mind and the body, "of Spleen,

Dulness, Ignorance, Caprice, Sensuality and Pride." (275) Gulliver's"

description of the state of England under Queen Anne does throw

light on the inadequacies, evils and absurdities of its constitution, its

court, ministers and people

But of course it would be foolish to attribute Gulliver's

disillusionment and antipathy towards his race to Swift's>

misanthropy. The first reason, often surprisingly overlooked, is that

Gulliver is not Swift. Swift could not have presupposed the entire

human race to be degenerate, brutish and entirely without any

sense, because he was evidently writing for the intelligent,

educated and civilized Augustan readers who were capable of

understanding and forming their own judgment. So when we read

Gulliver's criticism of the human Yahoos, we recognize a

considerable degree of truth in it, but at the same time we are

conscious of the degree of unnatural exaggeration, which is the

result of Gulliver's psychic metamorphosis. As A. E. Dyson points

out, Swift is playing "an intellectual game", full of "fantastic turns

and contortion of the irony" which he "expects his readers to enjoy"

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and for this he obviously expects his readers to possess

intelligence and moral awareness. (Dyson 1970: 350)

The second reason why we need to review our understanding of

Swift's last voyage is because the object of Swift's attack is not just

the English or the Europeans or even Mankind in general; the

spectrum of his satire is much broader than that. Swift targets

negative human characteristics, its self-indulgence, avarice,

bestiality, corruption, and we as readers realize in the last voyage

that the evils in man and his failings are not due to his religion,

nation or class. The uncivilized savage need not necessarily be

found in far off countries. Such brutes can exist closer home. While

explaining the workings of the state of England to his Houyhnhnm

master, Gulliver states that it is perfectly justifiable for the English

Prince to

send forces into a Nation, where the People are poor and ignorant, he

may lawfully put half of them to Death, and make Slaves of the rest, in

order to civilize and reduce them from their barbarous Way of Living.

(264)

Gulliver's account makes us reach the same conclusion that his

Houyhnhnm Master derives:

... he at last arrived at a competent Knowledge of what human Nature in

our Parts of the World is capable to perform. (262)

All the Yahoo characteristics, the "barbarous Way of Living" can be

found in "our Parts of the World", and Swift thereby emphasizes

that "our Bulk of the people" are actually "worse than Brutality itself'

because of their pretensions to reason. (262-266)

But Gulliver fails to realize that vices and follies can exist in

everyone, irrespective of class or national boundaries, small or big

people, debased or morally upright. Swift presents Gulliver who is

split between conviction and assumption; he is convinced that the

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Self posits everything that is negative, and assumes that the Other

denotes the positive. For him the Houyhnhnms denote an ideal

state, a perfection of nature, the epitome of wisdom and reason.

But as readers if we found Gulliver's abhorrence for the Yahoos too

neurotic, we cannot fail to see his obsessive admiration and

servility for the noble horses as ridiculously fixated. The

Houyhnhnm land is a mechanical abstraction, a "curiously dead"

place. (Daiches 1979: 618) They know no emotion; they have no

fondness for their colts, their children being the product of a cold

calculated rational duty. If lying, cunning and jealousy are not in

their vocabulary, then they are also bereft of any understanding of

courtship, Jove or joy .. Their language and sciences are purely

functional and they continue to live prudently, suffering no disease;

What Gulliver accepts uncritically as an ideal, appears to be a dull

and· monotonous utopia obviously unattainable by human

standards.

But Swift presents the mental transition in Gulliver, his

unquestioning acceptance of the moral superiority of the:

Houyhnhnms with such subtlety and dexterity that he tricks the

readers into believing in Gulliver. Gulliver's frame of mind becomes

completely plausible because Swift cunningly leads us to think that

the positive is being positioned against the negative. It is not

immediately apparent and we have to be on the alert, otherwise like

the gullible Gulliver we too are likely to fall in the trap where we

unconsciously start believing and colluding with the binary

constructs. But the Houyhnhnms are an abstraction, a conceptual

construction created by the Houyhnhnms themselves. It is they who

engrave in Gulliver's psyche the monolithic fixed categories of the.

desirable versus the undesirable. They may appear to be the

embodiments of perfection but their palpable anger and violent

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hatred lead them to a vicious desire that the Yahoos "be terminated

from the face of the Earth ... alledging, That, as the Yahoos were the

most filthy, noisome, and deformed Animal which Nature ever

produced." (290) The negative representation of the Yahoos

defines the superiority of the Houyhnhnms; in fact the very

presence of the Yahoos is necessary for the Houyhnhnms, against

whom their power and supremacy can be measured. There is

clearly a hierarchy that the Houyhnhnms subsume: they consider

the Yahoos a threat to themselves and seek to tame the Yahoos, to

cultivate order in them and to impose their will on them. The society

is antagonistic, divided into the ruler and the ruled, the superior and

the deprived, the master and the slave. They can sustain their

authority only by taming and domesticating the wild and indomitable

Yahoos. Since they find this task quite a difficult and challenging

one, they try "to cultivate a Breed of Asses, which were a comely

Animal, easily kept, more tame and orderly" than the Yahoos. (290)

The other aspect of the psychological influence asserted on

Gulliver is a projection of his 'difference ' from the Yahoos - a

production of an image of identity and an invitation to the subject for

assuming and adopting that image. Gulliver can occupy the

disturbingly ambivalent in-between space because of his

'difference'- he is more rational and cleaner than the Yahoos. He is

a rational Yahoo, an anomaly like the noble Savage. The frame in

which Gulliver now sees his image is significantly what the

Houyhnhnms want him to see.

When I happened to behold the Reflection of my own Form in a Lake or

Fountain, I turned away my Face in Horror and detestation of my self;

and could better endure the sight of a common Yahoo, than of my own

Person. (298}

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This split in identity results in Gulliver disowning his Yahooness and

becoming an ardent votary of the superiority of the rational horses.

As he finally takes leave of his Master

... I was going to prostrate myselfto kiss his Hoof, he did me the Honour

to raise it gently to my Mouth ... Detractors are pleased to think it

improbable, that so illustrious a Person should descend to give so great

a Mark of distinction to a Creature so inferior as I. (302)

It will also be observed that side by side with Gulliver's collusion

with the superior creatures, there is a simultaneous development of

his alienation from his own people. He begins with a natural awe for

the rational horses and dislike for the ways of the Yahoos. As the

tale unfolds, Swift brilliantly portrays the gradual change that comes

in Gulliver. On the one hand his adulation for the Houyhnhnms gets:

slowly exaggerated, till it achieves a preposterous proportion where

Gulliver prostrates himself before them; on the other hand his

disapproval of the Yahoos' way of life steadily converts into disgust,

loathing and extreme hatred so much so that he now begins to

wear the hides of Yahoos and making a canoe, "covering it with the

Skins of Yahoos well stitched together" and "stopping all the Chinks:

with Yahoos Tallow''. (301) Swift's satire thus effectively shows that

adopting any of these positions is to have an absurdly prejudiced

and blinkered view of reality.

Gulliver's expulsion from Houyhnhnmland is rooted in the

anomalous position he occupies- he is n"either a complete Yahoo

nor a true Houyhnhnm. The combination of strength and intellect

makes him a potent threat to the· Houyhnhnms. He returns to his

native land but clearly there is no possibility of ever reverting back

to his former complacent un-fractured self. His disgust for his wife

and family, his inability to tolerate human presence and his comfort

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in the presence of the horses in his stable finally completes his

estrangement and makes him a misfit in society.

The last chapter, surprisingly the most neglected by critics, is what

sums up Swift's purpose of writing Gulliver's Travels. Of the

numerous themes that critics have discovered and analyzed in this

work, there remains no doubt that, as Swift himself concludes, this

establishes the "author's veracity, his design in publishing this

work."(310) That Swift wanted his book to be read predominantly in

the backdrop of colonialism and the consequent effect of

imperialism on both the ruler and the ruled nations, is what this last

chapter drives home so cogently. Swift's writings had always

espoused the Irish interest, not just the political and economic

issues, but ·also the psychological and ideological implications of

England's domination over Ireland. Here too, Swift exposes the

fiction of racial Otherness that serves to legitimize assumptions of

moral superiority and political dominance.

Here commences, a new Dominion acquired with a Title by Divine Right.

Ships are sent with the first Opportunity; the Natives driven out or

destroyed, their Princes tortured to discover their Gold; a free License

given to all Acts of Inhumanity and Lust; the earth reeking with the Blood

of its inhabitants: And this execrable Crew of Butchers employed in so

pious an Expedition, is a modern Colony sent to convert and civilize an

idolatrous and barbarous People. {314)

Swift also highlights the effect that story telling, fact or fiction, can

have on the minds of the readers, their psychology, their belief,

their concept of their self, their country, and the other nations of the

world. Swift draws the attention of his "gentle Readers" towards the

control that writers wield over their readers, and thus the distortion

that occurs in any form of representation.

165

.. .for then the World would no longer be deceived as it usually is, while

some writers to make their Works pass the better upon the Publick,

impose the grossest Falsities on the unwary Reader. (311)

When travelers narrate about their journeys to far away countries

usually not seen or visited by Englishmen or other Europeans,

seldom can such descriptions be slated as the truth. A lot of

exaggeration, suppression, oversimplification, or misrepresentation

accompany these tales. If there are "remote Nations where Yahoos

preside" (312), as has been the general impression of the

Englishmen and the Europeans about the non-Christian, non-white

people occupying the rest of the world, aren't there also nations

where the Brobdingnagians live, ''whose wise Maxims in Morality

and Government, it would be our Happiness to observe"? (312, my

emphasis)

Swift's hero continues, with the same degree of naivety and

gullibility with which he began his travels, his pompous and at times

foolish prattle about the experience and knowledge he has gained

from his voyages. Nevertheless, the readers cannot miss Swift's

satiric jab at the pretentious and supercilious attitude of the English

regarding themselves and their nation. Their pride in their

civilization, moral superiority and territorial conquests make them

blind to the ability and worth of any other nation. If, as Gulliver tells

his readers with his hindsight of having seen the "Capacity and

Disposition" of several nations, the Brobdingnagians or . the

Houyhnhnms were "to send a sufficient Number of their Inhabitants

for civilizing Europe" they could teach a few things like "Honour,

Justice, Truth, Temperance ... " (313). As these countries "do not

appear to have any Desire of being conquered, and enslaved,

murdered or driven out by Colonies; nor abound either in Gold,

Silver, Sugar or Tobacco; I did humbly conceive they were by no

Means proper Objects of our Zeal, our Valour, or our Interest."

166

Behind the guise of the comical, fawning and adulatory Gulliver

stands Swift who exposes the truth behind the fa<;ade of

imperialism. His Gulliver's Travels becomes a means of protest

against colonialism, something he had been doing in his political

and literary career even half a decade before the publication of his

masterpiece. What is so amazing is that Swift writing in the

eighteenth century was precisely addressing issues which would

concern socialists, historians and litterateurs a couple of centuries

later. His work depicts the interrelation between the reader, the

novel, the author, and what the latter chose to represent in his

work.

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