Throughout Gulliver's Travels, Gulliver finds a friend in each of his travels that is a good person, despite living in a group of bad people. When Gulliver discovers the country of the Houyhnhnms, he first discovers these hideous, deformed creatures that seem to have no idea of civilization. Soon after, he meets a horse and discovers the civilized part of this land and meets the rest of the horses, or the Houyhnhnms. He then finds out that these deformed creatures that he met earlier are the Yahoos, whom the Houynynhms hate and are disgusted by. But what he does not realize is that these Yahoos are people in their primitive form, and he is disgusted by what he sees. The Houyhnhnms decide to take Gulliver into their homes and they let him live with them, because they believe that Gulliver is a wise and reasonable Yahoo. Gulliver begins to emulate every way the Houynhnhnms run their lives. But eventually the Houynhnhnms make Gulliver leave because they know he is just a Yahoo, and they are afraid that he will mess up their simple and organized way of life. Gulliver is eventually rescued by a Yahoo, on a Portugese ship, and they take him home.
Swift is making the point that even in a group of bad people, there are always some good people. The Yahoo that saved Gulliver and took him back home was one of a very few wise and courteous Yahoos, but this Yahoo did what was right and therefore we know that there are other people like that in this world.
No comments:
Post a Comment