The Vices Of Mankind Through Satire

In chapters three and four of the fourth part of Gulliver’s Travels we are told about the manner in which Gulliver is being treated by the Houyhnhnms and how he dedicates his time to learning their language. We can also see a lot of criticism to the European society in these two chapters and I found that they were loaded with ironical descriptions of human’s actions that were meant as Swift to show people the absurdity of what we do with the tools we are given. In this respect I found Swift to think a lot like Kurt Vonnegut in what we do wrong, with the difference being that Vonnegut is trying to justify it while Swift is pointing it out as pathetic.

“After which like one whose imagination was struck with something never seen or heard before, he would lift up his eyes with amazement and indignation. Power, government, was, law, punishment, and a thousand other things…” (Swift, 183.) Here is just one of the passages where Gulliver uses all of his communication skills to try to explain to these noble creatures what the vices of mankind are. They do not understand what he says at first because in the “utopia” they live in they have no lies, no poverty, no need of laws or punishment, and no greed. Little by little though the creatures come to the understanding of the vices that are being described to them and as can be expected they are appalled by the behavior of such an advanced race. They do not understand, and I think that is exactly what Gulliver wants us to not understand and condemn too, how it is that people who can make huge building, organize themselves into a hierarchy, build weapons that function with fire, travel on water, etc. can use all these technologies and tools for wrong and destruction rather than for good and development. As was said in class at the time the book was written this applied to cannons and boats. Regardless of the time period we can see, though, that the principle holds true. Are we not threatened every day by the amazing power to extract giant amounts of energy from breaking atoms? DO we not fear that any moment a biological bomb developed by medical means will kill us all? Sadly that is the story of mankind: we develop and then use to oppress and kill. It is interesting to see how Swift does this without making any direct reference to it and we can catch on to it by the simple ways of satire.