In Part IV of
,aims his at the entire human race.
In this part of the
book, the narrator visits the lands of the Houyhnhnms, a race of clean, intelligent, honest,
well-behaved horses. The Houyhnhnms are served by the Yahoos, a race of
dirty, stupid, violent, foul-smelling humans.
Like all
satirists, Swift lays it on a little thick. Still, he certainly finds plenty to criticize about
us humans. Consider, for example, the narrator's explanation of why his sailors were willing to
abandon their homes to accompany him on his journey:
Some
were undone by Law-suits; others spent all they had in Drinking, Whoring and Gaming; others fled
for Treason; many for Murder, Theft, Poysoning, Robbery, Perjury, Forgery, Coining false Money;
for commiting Rapes or Sodomy...
None of these were
known amongst the Houyhnhnms; nor did they know anything about "Lust, Intemperance, Malice,
and Envy." As for lying, their language did not even have a word to describe it; when the
narrator tries to explain the concept to his Houyhnhnm friend, he must use the phrase
"[saying] the Thing which was not."
No comments:
Post a Comment