Reading Blog: Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift (Part IV.)

In this novel by Jonathan Swift the concept of an ideological paradise, or a Utopia, is clearly reflected through the attitude that the protagonist has toward his species. A Utopia is an impossible thing to achieve in a society (even more if it is composed by humans), however it can be achieved in a person’s mind. Gulliver is a perfect case of what an individual utopia would be. Well, he believes that the country of the Houyhnhnms is perfect, due to the fact that everybody fully completes and follows a social contract in order to live in harmony. He even states that the word evil doesn’t even exist in the Houyhnhnm’s dictionary, “I know whether it may be worth observing, that the Houyhnhnms have no Word in their Language to express any thing that is Evil, except what they borrow from the Deformities or ill Qualities of the Yahoos.” (Swift 4). However, I strongly disagree with Gulliver’s utopist view about his loving country (although not native), since the Houyhnhnms hold him as a slave, they treat him as a inferior race, and even take from him the right to act freely: “I had the Favour of being admitted to several Houyhnhnms, who came to visit or dine with my Master; where his Honour graciously suffered me to wait in the Room…” (Swift 5). In my opinion the Houyhnhnms’ land is far from being a utopia, since it doesn’t conserve any kind of equality with other races. And yeah, they may live in peace, but this doesn’t mean it is a utopia, and if this is considered a utopia, then Norway, and any peaceful country is a utopia, don you think?
Gulliver also criticizes the barbarous ways in which the Yahoo’s submitted to their will their conquered nations. “And this execrable Crew of Butchers employed so pious an Expedition, is a modern Colony sent to convert and civilize and idolatrous and barbarous People.” (Swift 17). This is a completely ironic statement made by Gulliver, or didn’t the Houyhnhnms hunted down in a savage way the Yahoo’s, and then kept their babies to use them as slaves? Isn’t this inhumane, and “Yahoo” like? “That the Houyhnhnms to get rid of this Evil, made a general Hunting, and at last enclosed the whole Herd; and destroying the old Ones, every Houyhnhnm kept two young Ones in a Kennel, and brought them to such degree of Tameness, as an Animal so savage by Nature can be capable of acquiring; using them for Draught and Carriage.” (Swift 1).
I found very awkward the way in which Gulliver after only being three years away from his country of birth, he gathered so much hatred towards the ones of his own species. This event reminded me of Tarzan, who instead of feeling a certain repugnancy over his own species. He felt a certain attraction towards finding out more about himself and the Homo sapiens. Then, when Gulliver was home, he insisted and desperately tried to keep the Houyhnhnms traditions and costumes intact in his mind, reason for why he tried to impose these costumes on his family. However, Gulliver by blindly trying to seek his life as a “Houyhnhnm”, he basically creates a regime in his house where he “enslaved” his own family, to the point that he even prohibited them to be near him. “I began last Week to permit my Wife to sit at Dinner with me, at the farthest End of a long Table…” (Swift 18).