STEP 5 Think further and prepare for your test: the Houyhnhnms – an uncomfortable ideal?
Read the text which focuses on the Houyhnhnms as possible objects of Swift's satire and decide if the statements are true or false. Then look at the prompts in brackets and write some extra reflections in your exercise book. You can use the final text as revision material for your test.
While Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels – Book IV – clearly presents the brutish Yahoos as a terrible reflection of humanity's worst impulses and lack of reason, the noble Houyhnhnms, too, can be seen as objects of Swift's satire.
The Houyhnhnms embody pure reason, living lives devoid of deceit, greed, or conflict. They speak only truth, live by logic, and maintain perfect order. However, their society lacks the qualities that are essential to humanity. The Houyhnhnms operate without passion, deep affection, or intense emotion. They are incapable of love, joy, grief, or even strong personal attachments. Their logical approach extends to all aspects of life, including reproduction and social interactions, which are conducted with a dispassionate, almost detached, rationality.
Swift's choice to portray these 'ideal' beings as horses is significant: their very nature as horses highlights their fundamental difference from a complete human ideal. (Elaborate on why portraying these 'ideal' beings as horses might be more impactful than if they were, for example, a race of highly intelligent, emotionless humans.) Their cold, calculating virtue, while free from vice, also lacks the warmth, empathy, and complex emotional depth that are integral to the human experience. (Many authors create 'utopian' societies that, upon closer inspection, reveal flaws. How does Swift's portrayal of the Houyhnhnms fit into this tradition?)
Through the Houyhnhnms, Swift subtly suggests that a life governed solely by reason, stripped of all passion, might be as incomplete or undesirable as a life ruled entirely by base impulses.
A: The text suggests that the Yahoos are the only characters in Gulliver's Travels – Book IV – that Swift uses for satirical purposes.
B: According to the text, the Houyhnhnms are portrayed as beings who experience a wide range of human emotions like love, joy, and profound grief.
C: The text states that Houyhnhnm society is characterised by their complete adherence to logic and truth.
D: Swift's choice to make the Houyhnhnms horses helps to underline the inherent difference between them and men.
E: The text implies that a life governed exclusively by reason, without any passion, might be seen as limited or undesirable.