A lot of insight is brought about in book four by Swift. Why do you think that the yahoos are portrayed the way that they are? What is the bigger message that Swift is delivering about the relationship that Gulliver forms with the animals? How are these relationships formed? What is the significance of when the horses agree to stop calling Gulliver a “Yahoo”? and what is the significance of Gulliver not wanting to be associated with this word?
ENGL 201 | British Literature to 1800
Myra Seaman | Fall 2012
I believe at this point Gulliver chooses to portray the Yahoos as vile because of his previous experiences which we don’t have much insight to, this being the fourth book. He seems to have quite the distaste for mankind, describing the Yahoos as if he is not one of them. The relationship Gulliver forms with the Houyhnhnms makes them seem intelligent and capable, maybe even magic. It’s hard for the reader to realize they are simply horses. Gulliver sets himself apart from mankind with his distaste for the word Yahoo. And, when the Houyhnhnms agree that he is no longer a Yahoo, it shows he has been separated from the vile characters and accepted by his hosts.
Gulliver’s experiences up until the island have focused on man as a higher, rational being above all other animals. Gulliver is offended and disgusted when the Houyhnhnms associate him with the Yahoos because he sees them as merely animals. It makes me wonder how Swift felt about the “hack writers” we read about earlier, seeing as the Yahoos could specifically be referring to the uneducated portion of the human race from which Swift wanted to separate himself. It’s obvious that the Houyhnhnms resemble the educated, refined elite of which Swift is a member through their use of the Yahoos, and the sophisticated society and language they’ve created. In this way, I don’t think the Yahoos represent all of mankind, but rather the low-brow portion of which Swift could possibly disapprove.
I agree that the Houyhnhnms represent the upper echelon refined group with which Gulliver would place himself back home in England, but I think a larger point here is that the notion of noble vs savage or rational vs nonrational is totally subjective. The clear reversal of roles between Horses as subservient to Humans in England as opposed to the Houyhnhnms lording over the Yahoos paints this clearly enough. With the slave trade being what it was at the time and many people having a moral issue with it, I think Swift is telling us through Gulliver’s tale that it is not for man to decide if another culture is rational or equal with our own and make decisions about their lives based upon these decisions.
I agree with Carly in that the Yahoos seem to represent the less educated and unreasonable population of Swift’s time. Yahoo seem so lowly in the narrator’s presentation of them possibly because the narrator hears of their status as lowly beings and feels anger and shame at the fact that he appears to be one of them. His negative description of them is almost a form of rebellion for the narrator against what he is. When they agree to stop calling Gulliver a “yahoo” it is a milestone for him because he no longer has to hear himself connected to something he has learned to hate. It’s interesting that Swift chooses horses and men to represent this. Culturally, horses are the ones that do all of man’s labors while man reaps the benefits. Here, it is the opposite.
The Yahoos are portrayed this way because Swift is writing a satire about European society. Swift is saying that humans are actually more animal-like than we realize. We seem barbaric and uncivilized from a different point of view. Gulliver is able to communicate with the horses because he is able to learn their language and the horses respect him for this but he is still at a lower level, which is shown when they force him to leave. The horses agree to stop calling him a “yahoo” because of Gulliver’s ability to communicate with them and has come to realize that the horse society is a lot more peaceful and productive than the human society. It is significant that Gulliver does not want to be associated with this word because it shows that he does not want to be associated with mankind anymore and realizes their weaknesses.
I think Kaya sums up perfectly Gulliver and Swift’s views and interpretations of mankind. The whole book was written with an air of satire and Swift is clearly making a boldfaced criticism of man and society in his day. By so clearly showing his distaste for the Yahoo’s and wanting so badly to distant himself from them and to assure the Houyhnhnm that he is not like them makes a pretty profound statement. In a foreign land where he is all by himself, he does not go to the comfort of his own people, he makes it known that he wants nothing to do with them and instead flocks to gain the approval and acceptance of an unknown race. I think that Swift in a way is trying to show that society and mankind must open their eyes to the other ways of the world and the people living in it. At the time, people in Britain thought that their way was the best, hence the need to go out and seek new territories and colonize native peoples. But clearly, that is wrong. Men, and Britain end up looking like the barbaric, primitive bafoon like creatures that disgrace human kind.
The Yahoos are depicted as barbaric and uncivilized beings. This is significant because they outwardly reflect the inner human corruption Swift is satirizing. They also are in stark juxtaposition with Gulliver. The distinction sets Gulliver apart as being more like the horses, although similar in appearance to the Yahoos. He is intellectual and rational while the Yahoos are servants and incapable of conversation and civility. Gulliver forms a relationship with the horses as he strives to learn their language. This is important because it shows that he is willing to accept their culture and learn from them, as opposed to approaching them with hostility. He does not want to be associated as a Yahoo because he sees how they are viewed as less than the horses and treated as animals. When the horses agree to stop calling Gulliver a Yahoo, a distinction is made. Although the horses can see the external similarities between Gulliver and the Yahoos, they also respect his intellectual capabilities and the fact that he is learning their language to communicate with them. The language is something that the Yahoos were never able to grasp, so that key factor sets Gulliver apart.
I agree with the above statements highlighting the idea that the “yahoos” are to represent the lower, less educated class of people in society during Swift’s time. Even With Gulliver’s depiction of the yahoos and his recognition that he and the yahoos share similar physical characteristics with one another, it is made clear that the yahoos are on a completely lower level in class and intelligence than Gulliver is in. I like the idea that Carly brought up having to do with the yahoos representing the “hack writers” that we read about for this week. This group of people is very likely who Swift had in mind while writing Gulliver’s Travels. When Gulliver is no longer called a yahoo, it is gathered that there has been some level of respect that has been achieved between the master and Gulliver. Gulliver has begun the process of learning not only the language of the horses that he encounters, but also their ways of life and has in return told them about the European ideas and laws which leads to the ultimate decision by the horses that Gulliver is more like the yahoos than he believed.
The relationship between Gulliver and the Houyhnhnm is developed as he learns their language and in the process explains his circumstances to his master. Through his natural curiosity, Gulliver’s master forces Gulliver to think about the European world in new terms (literally). It is through these limited translations that Swift’s satire shines through as Gulliver explains abstract concepts to at a first completely incredulous listener. Gulliver must explain things as if he is explaining things to an infant and in doing so reveals many incongruities in the society of his European world. It is interesting that when Gulliver first comes to the island and discerns signs of communication and greeting between horses that he imagines that men in this land must be akin to gods. It is easy to imagine that in hearing about the reason of Yahoos in Europe that he imagines that European Houyhnhmn would be like gods in that world. Both worlds show roles startlingly reversed.
It would agree with the above statements in that the Yahoos are presented as inferior and all that is distasteful of humankind, which can congruently be compared to the societal class difference between the wealthy and the non-wealthy, and in turn the educated and non-educated. It would seem that Houyhnhm are also representative of all that Gulliver approves of, and in term speaks to the type of people Swift also approved of. It would seem Swift is making a satirical commentary on the very class of people he is making fun of.
A lot of insight is brought about in book four by Swift. Why do you think that the yahoos are portrayed the way that they are? What is the bigger message that Swift is delivering about the relationship that Gulliver forms with the animals? How are these relationships formed? What is the significance of when the horses agree to stop calling Gulliver a “Yahoo”? and what is the significance of Gulliver not wanting to be associated with this word?
When the narrator first sees the Yahoos, he recognizes only the differences between he and them. He only sees that they are like him when his master points out that the only real differences are hairlessness, cleanliness, and speech. So we start with an objective view of mankind’s appearance, and we get a steadily more objective view on humanity’s nature as the narrator describes his culture and man’s “reasoning” for what we do.
The relationship of inferior and “master” between the narrator and the head horse begins with the former being shocked at the latter’s civility, and then he is continually more impressed by the ways in which the horse’s culture seems to be more civil, honorable, and productive than his own. The more he sees his own species from the outside view of the horses, the more he respects them as having a certain sagacity which he now feels inferior to.
When the narrator asks to not be referred to as a Yahoo and the horses accept this, they are respectfully distinguishing him as above the other Yahoos. However, they fall back into referring to him as a Yahoo after learning more about England’s culture and the head horse begins to see the similarities in what he has perceived about the Yahoos in his country and the Yahoos in England.
See, I would agree with the idea that Swift is proving a satirical point about humans with the stark differences between the Yahoo and Houyhnhm societies. But I would disagree with Lauren’s claim that this is a calling out of one particular social class vs. another. I feel like Swift is calling out humanity as a whole, for selfishness and greed. Claiming that though are intelligence is remarkable, we are all so keen on our meeting our own “needs,” or more so, “wants,” that we cannot successfully live amongst each other in society. The Houyhnhm, however, are successful in co-existing because they have this potential for intelligence without the potential to harm one another due to selfishness or even speak an evil word, as they are absent from their language. As a side note, I think it is interesting how Gulliver goes from not wanting to be associated with the word “Yahoo,” simply because it sounded degrading and he didn’t understand why humans were called this. But after living in the Houyhnhm society for a while, he understood that barbaric association to the extreme of attempting to neglect his own family and country out of repulsion. I thought this was a bold move on Swift’s part to very subtly highlight Gulliver’s own humanity through his selfish desire to neglect his homeland and thrive elsewhere, even if it had to be alone.