How does Gulliver feel about the Houyhnhnms?

In the last voyage in Jonathan Swift's book Gulliver's Travels, "A voyage to the country of the Houyhnhnms," Swift describes his idea of an ideal society. There are many examples provided in this part of the book to convince the reader that Swift is indeed illustrating his idea of a utopia. By using horses as the most reasonable creature, Swift not only defaces human society by making a beast a more powerful creature, but also shows that humans are unable to attain this perfectly reasonable society.

The society that the Houyhnhnms live in is unlike any society known to man. The Houyhnhnms are perfect in the way they live their lives; they are always doing what is best for the society as a whole, as opposed to thinking only of themselves as individuals. They truly believe that the best interest for themselves is the same as the best interest of the entire species. When they choose their mates they do so with the best interest of the race as a whole in mind. "Strength is chiefly valued in the male, and comeliness in the female, not upon the account of love...," (217). This quotation illustrates that even when it comes to something like choosing their mates, they are not concerned with their own happiness. It is not even a choice that they choose to act in the best interest of the society; they do not know of an alternative way to act. They are raised to put themselves secondary to the health and well being of others. The Houyhnhnms are so perfect that Gulliver has to explain many different basics of the human lifestyle that do not apply to their being.

The Houyhnhnms do not understand the idea of justice because they are not capable of doing anything wron...

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...to be extremely rational, in an effort to break away from his human tendencies. His attempt will not be successful as humans are full of passion, and therefore will never be purely rational. Gulliver eventually becomes insane in his attempt to be like the Houyhnhnms, which is Swift's way of showing that humans can not live in a society based on reason.

In this section of the book, it becomes unmistakable that Swift is describing his ideal society and at the same time proving that it cannot be attained by humans. By making the perfect society one in which the ruling creature is in fact a beast in the eyes of humans, Swift portrays his hate toward the human race. This also precisely shows, that this is in fact his utopia, but that it is never attainable for human beings.

The Houyhnhnms say that the Yahoos, a name given to us by them, are savages, animals who lead useless lives. They teach that the Houyhnhnms are the masters, and they train us, send us away, or keep us near to work for them, picking crops and eating wild animals and plants (Swift 336). The Yahoos are described as the opposite of the Houyhnhnms who praise themselves for their actions and thoughts. We may be the opposite, but it does not mean that Houyhnhnms are perfect. There are many flaws in the Houyhnhnms that we, the Yahoos, despise. The Yahoos do not understand these behaviors, for they make the Houyhnhnms’ lives dull and lifeless.

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The Houyhnhnms pride themselves on being better than the Yahoos, but they view some of their people as worse than others. The Yahoos are equal, except for the leader who has a strong will to make others do what they must. The Houyhnhnms judge their kind by the most useless of traits, like color. A gray horse is no different from a brown horse, yet the sorrel nag (a brown horse servant) works for the master from birth without any choice of what they can do (Swift 315). How can a horse be born a slave, when the Houyhnhnms say they are all a great nation? The Houyhnhnms do not treat the servants as badly as the Yahoos, but they see differences where there should be none (Serdar 697). A leader of the Yahoos takes control, but the Houyhnhnms decide for others what they should do.

The most horrible part of the Houyhnhnms’ lives is how they treat the Yahoos. They see us as brutes and use our energy for their own needs. The Yahoos work tirelessly only to receive nothing but hate. The Yahoos are slaves, a word that Englishmen like Gulliver know well (Kupske and de Souza 41). So, the Houyhnhnms are not kind or gentle as they see themselves; they describe the Yahoos as cruel, but we do not enslave our people. The Yahoos carry the Houyhnhnms and work in the gardens, although we never wanted to do it. The Yahoos do not want to work for the Houyhnhnms or anyone else, but the horses make men and women their pets and workers, taking away freedom to pillage or steal. Who is greedier, then, the Yahoos, who take what they can get with their own two hands, or the Houyhnhnms, who take from others’ work and give nothing back?

The thoughts of the Houyhnhnms are as hard to understand as their deeds. The Yahoos act as their heart moves them – fighting and loving are parts of life that make it fun. The Houyhnhnms lead dull lives where nothing happens but existence and death. The word “lie” does not exist in their language, but the Houyhnhnms cannot be true to themselves when they say that love has no place in their relationships (Reznikov 80). As a Yahoo, I see no joy in marrying to have children and nothing else. The whole nation deciding what is reasonable seems impossible, because the horses must have some differing thoughts. They are hiding their true natures and pretending that they do not feel. The Yahoos are not cowards in the end, but the Houyhnhnms are! They are afraid to disagree or to feel love and desire for one another, choosing an emotionless existence. Reason cannot explain love or passion, and breeding for the best characteristics means that the Houyhnhnms fear becoming even a little similar to the Yahoos.

In their feeling of superiority, the Houyhnhnms also become ignorant of others. They do not learn about the Yahoos to live with us but to control us. The Houyhnhnms view their system as the best and do not want to see how we can live without them and be happy in our way. The bland and unchanging lives that the Houyhnhnms live are not appealing. If there were other people, like Gulliver, who lived beyond the sea, the Houyhnhnms would not welcome them. Instead, they would treat them like they do us – putting themselves above all and judging harshly traits that do not fit their view of goodness (Serdar 707). If they were to act like us, we would welcome them regardless of appearance; if we were to do what they do, they would still hate us.

In the end, the Houyhnhnms are worse than the Yahoos, as they call us, in many ways. They treat us horribly, and they decide the fates for other nations – our people are slaves whose lives depend on the decisions of the Houyhnhnms. They even manipulate their kind into believing that they are not equal to each other – a problem we never had. They live in ignorance and pretend that by exploiting us, they are helping the Yahoos to live properly. The Houyhnhnms do not feel joy and lose out on fun and desire. The choice of reason over feelings makes them stubborn to change and fearful of any relation to our people.

Works Cited

Kupske, Felipe Flores, and Márcia de Souza. “The Smell of the Yahoos: The Eighteenth-Century England in the Novel Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift.” Revista e-scrita: Revista do Curso de Letras da UNIABEU, vol. 7, no. 1, 2016, pp. 38-49.

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Reznikov, Andrey. “Swift’s Language of Houyhnhnms and Its Influence on Orwell’s Newspeak.” The Image of Adventure in Literature, Media, and Society, 2019, pp. 79-84.

Serdar, Hamdi Ali. “Gulliver’s Travels: An Example of Alienation.” Gaziantep University Journal of Social Sciences, vol. 18, no. 2, 2019, pp. 695-708.

What describes Houyhnhnm society in Gulliver's Travels?

How do the Houyhnhnms treat Gulliver?

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