Jonathan Swift: As a Misanthropist
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In a letter that he wrote to Alexander Pope with regard to this book, he makes several points.Firstly, he says that the chief end of all his labors is “to vex the world rather than divert it”.
Secondly, he declares that he has “ever hated all nations, professions and communities and all his love is toward individuals”. Explaining this remark, he says that he hates the tribe of lawyers, physicians, etc, but he loves particular lawyers and physicians. He goes on to say in this connection that principally he hates and detests that animal called man.
Swift’s satire becomes mare amusing when Gulliver speaks of the conflict between the Big- Endians and the Little- Endians in Lilliput is actually represents the conflict between the Roman Catholics and Protestants. Flimnap the treasurer represents Sir Robert Walpole who was the prime minister of England from 1715 to 1716 and then again from 1721 to 1742. Dancing on a tight rope symbolizes Walpole’s skill in parliamentary tactics and political intrigues the annoyance of the Empress of Lilliput with Gulliver for extinguishing a fire in her palace is a satirical allusion to Queen Anne’s annoyance with Swift for having written “A Tale of a Tub”.
Then there is another satire of a general kind in part I. For instance, the Lilliputians bury their dead with their heads directly downwards because they hold an opinion that in eleven thousand moons, the dead will rise again. Another interesting point is that children in Lilliput are not bought up or educated by their parents but is the responsibility of the state. Swift is here ridiculing the Lilliputians who after all represent human beings reduced to a small scale.
In part ll,not only are the men and women here huge in size, but the animals like cats, rats and monkeys and insects like bees, wasps are also enormous sizes. In part II, Swift satirizes the ugliness, the coarseness, and the foulness of the human body by making us look at human beings through a magnifying glass. Not only is the description of the beggars disgusting but even the maids of honor at the Royal Court produce a disgusting effect upon Gulliver, becomes a very offensive smell comes from their skins. When Gulliver has given to the King an account of the life in his own country, the king has a hearty laugh. The Kings view was that the history of Gulliver’s country seemed to him to be only ‘a heap of conspiracies, rebellions, murders, massacres, revolutions, banishments and very worst effects that avarice, faction, hypocrisy, perniciousness, cruelty, rage , madness, hatred, envy, lust, malice and ambition could produce’. Swift is here ridiculing human pride and pretension. These comments of King almost sum up Swift’s own cynical views about mankind in general.
In part III, Swift ridicule on theoreticians and academies. At the academy of projectors in Lagado, the projectors are busy finding methods to extract sunbeams out of cucumber, to convert human excrement into its original food, to build houses from the roof downwards to the foundation, to obtain silk from cobwebs. All this was intended as a satire on the kind of work the Royal Society in England was doing in those days. Swift here ridicule scientists, academies and intellectuals.
In part IV, the satire becomes universal. The target of attack in part IV, is all mankind. In the first three parts of the book Swift had largely confirmed his attention to England and to the European countries, but now he widens the scope of his satire to cover all mankind. The Yahoos represents not only Englishmen or Europeans in general, but all human beings. The evils which master Houyhnhnms has discovered in Yahoos are to be found in human beings all over the world.
In part IV, Yahoos who are described as unteachable brutes, cunning, gluttonous, are represents the human beings. But contrast with the Yahoos, the Houyhnhnms are noble and benevolent animals who are governed by reason. The Houyhnhnms, on the contrary, are morally so good that there is no word in their language for lying or falsehood. This is how Gulliver expresses his feelings about the Yahoos:
‘Yet I confess I never saw any sensitive being so detestable on all
accounts; and the more I came near them, the more hateful they
grew, while I stayed in that country.’
Swift’s very concept of horses being superior to human beings shows his cynicism and misanthropy.
Gulliver also tells his host that war in European countries was due sometimes to the ambitions of Kings and sometimes to the corruption of ministers. Gulliver speaks of the numerous deadly weapons which the European nations employ. Similarly, he gives a vivid account of the destruction that war causes:
‘Ships sunk with a thousand men, twenty thousand killed on each side; dying groans, limbs flying in the air, smoke, noise, confession, trampling to death under horses’ feet; flight, pursuit, victory; field strewed with carcasses left for food to dogs, and wolves, and birds of prey; plundering, stripping, ravishing, burning, and destroying.’
The effect of Gulliver’s description on his master is one of disgust with the human species.
The whole of this account by Gulliver is an exposure of the evils of wars and the wickedness of lawyers and judges. Gulliver also says that many people on his country ruin themselves by drinking, gambling, and debauchery; and that many are guilty of such crimes as murder, theft, robbery, forgery, rape, and sodomy.
In fact the Houyhnhnms becomes models for human being. Another thing that human beings have to learn from the Houyhnhnms is the control of population. According to Gulliver, this lesson was known to horses in the eighteenth century.
Swift does not hate mankind. He was therefore justified in saying in his letter to Pope that though he hated communities and professions, he loved particular individuals, he writes:
‘I have ever hated all nation, professions, and communities but principally I hate and detest that animal called man……Upon this great foundation of misanthropy the whole building of my Travels is erected.’
To conclude we can say that this great artist was not a misanthrope but a humanist and a moralist of a very high order.
Related Topics:
Jonathan Swift: Political Satire