Gullivers Travels

In Jonathan Swift's 1726 travel book, Gulliver's Travels, the ideal government is satirically portrayed through a fictional world of horses where reason and truth prevail. Through the depiction of individual sacrifice for the group and passion versus logic, Swift exposes the faults of the "ideal" government and proves the Houyhnhnm way is a dystopia and a dull way to live. Still, in today's society is a very similar view of the "ideal" government. There is also much controversy over the same issues stated above represented by the Yahoos and Houyhnhnms in Swift's novel.

In Gulliver's Travels is the very controversial idea of the group over the individual. When Gulliver arrives at the world of the Houyhnhnms he notices the structural designed government as well as the high values placed on the group rather than the individual. In the Houyhnhnm's society in order for the group to survive the individual must sacrifice. For example, a Houyhnhnm family may produce one colt of each sex. "When the like accident befalls a person whose wife past bearing, some other couple bestows on him one of their own colts" (466) if by casualty one of these colts die, another couple will give their colt to the family and attempt to have another child. As a Houyhnhnm, you do not have the choice as an individual to keep your colt. In fact, there is not a typical parent/child relationship, "They have no fondness for their colts or foals"(466). Another example of how the Houyhnhnms choose society of the individual is hierarchal system upon which it relies. The Houyhnhnms are born into their role for society. A servant will birth servants and leaders will birth leaders. Much like the Great Chain of Being, the Houyhnhnms hierarchal scale is fixed and unchanging. If a horse is born a servant, he will remain a servant. With this system in place, the group will forever produce the needed amount of servants and leaders. Once again, this Houyhnhnm system detracts from the free will of the individual, and places the importance on what will make the group prosperous. By sacrificing the individual's rights to the amount in which the Houyhnhnm's did, proves that this ideal form of government is in fact very far from ideal. Many people can imagine a world where their rights are sacrificed for the sake of society. However, with Swift's satirical depiction of individual versus group, comes the realization that a society like the Houyhnhnms is in fact inhumane.

The Yahoo beings versus the Houyhnhnms are a mask for passion versus logic. Throughout Gulliver's lessons on Yahoos and Houyhnhnm culture, it is obvious the deeper meaning these two groups hold. The Yahoos are the beings who represent passion and imperfection. Unlike the Houyhnhnm's, the Yahoos generate fervor between each other and at one point, to Gulliver, "inflamed by desire, as the nag and I conjectured, came running with all speed, and leaped into the water