Satire and Narrative Distance in 'Gulliver's Travels'

One of the distinguishing qualities of satire is the distance between the author and the narrator. That is how one is able to know satire is not sincere, because the author is not sincerely the narrator. The classic example of this distance is Swift's "A Modest Proposal." The narrative tone is that of earnestness and rational logic in presenting what the audience reacts to as irrational and extreme, thereby exposing the true intension of the author. The author thinks oppositely from the narrator, and that author-narrator gap is mirrored by the audience's distance from the narrator. The audience does not align with the narrator.

Gulliver's Travels works the same way. Swift is not Gulliver, and by the time Part 4 is done, Swift has exposed Gulliver as a convert to the Houyhnhnms and thus rejected their rational, dispassionate world view. Similarly, the audience, especially by the end of Part 4, is thoroughly distanced from Gulliver the narrator and aligned with Swift. Contrary to Gulliver, Swift ultimately shows compassion for the Yahoos and by extension for humanity, despite their overwhelming faults, because the alternative, the world of the Houyhnhnms, is too odious a place to consider.

The first creatures Gulliver meets in Houynhnhnmland are the Yahoos, and he recoils, saying, "I never beheld in all my Travels so disagreeable an Animal, nor one against which I naturally conceived so strong an Antipathy" (189-90). The initial encounter comes long before he realizes that Yahoos are human-like, if not actually human. In contrast, two Houyhnhnms save him from the Yahoos, and he says of them, "Upon the whole, the Behaviour of these Animals was so orderly and rational, so acute and judicious, that I at last concluded, they must needs be Magicians" (191). Of course, after a run-in with wild Yahoos, one would take to the Houyhnhnms. And the audience is right there with Gulliver, completely in step with such an action. The Houyhnhnms seem admirable. They are clean, fair, orderly, and highly rational, especially compared to the Yahoos, their opposites in nearly every characteristic. The Houyhnhnms have no notion of lying or unbelief, a practice "so perfectly well understood among human creatures" (203). The Houyhnhnms also can't understand war or what causes it.

After being among the Houyhnhnms, Gulliver's discourse with them on the failings of human nature begins to enlighten him. He says, "I began to view the Actions and Passions of Man in a very different Light," because his Houyhnhnm friend "daily convinced me of a thousand Faults in myself, whereof I had not the least Perception before, and which among us would never be numbered even among human Infirmities" (217-18). Gulliver, because he cannot associate with the Yahoos, sees how preposterous some negative elements of human nature appear to an outside viewer. The Yahoos are filthy, lazy, manipulating, petty, and unteachable. Perhaps the reader comes along with Gulliver on this enlightened journey.

The more he learns about the Yahoos, the more Gulliver praises them, but the harder it is for the reader to continue to align with him. Swift pushes their logical, dispassionate existence to its extreme. Their highest virtues are friendship and benevolence, and passion never interferes with reason. As a result, their marriages are pragmatic, utilitarian affairs void of love or pleasure. Death has no great impact because an individual life does not either, the result of a world without passion. When they die, their relatives express "neither joy nor grief at their departure" (231). Though he lives with them in peace for three years, learning their language and adopting their customs, they reason that Gulliver is too much like a Yahoo, and thus cannot live as a friend with them anymore. A civilized Yahoo is not according to nature, so he must be dismissed, despite his many professions of happiness and contentment. His Master admits that he does not necessarily agree with that decision, but of course he will comply, and so dismisses Gulliver. Through this seemingly absurd turn, Swift appears to be satirizing the philosophy of logic without emotion. Gulliver departs the island with tears and grief, but he cannot refute the nobility of the Houyhnhnms, nor disguise his reluctance to return to humanity. Maybe the reader still agrees with Gulliver that it would be hard to return to England, but the reader cannot agree with the Houyhnhnms that their logical assessment of Gulliver among them was right, or their decision to exile him a celebration of the best of their civilization. Thus, Gulliver's continuing profuse praise of the Houyhnhnms starts to distance the reader.

Gulliver meets a kind sea captain who offers him clothing, shelter, food, and friendship, and Gulliver finally begins to trust him. The captain seems an exemplary man of compassion and generosity, human nature at its best. He gives treatment opposite that of the Houyhnhnms. But Gulliver is repulsed. His wife joyfully welcomes him home, be he cannot tolerate her presence. He lives as a recluse, horrified by all humanity. Now Swift has finally completed in distancing the reader from his narrator, who cannot stand any human, no matter how generous or lacking vice. He says he can tolerate human weaknesses that are "those Vices and Follies only, which Nature hath entitled them to" (250), but he cannot stand Pride in a human. The Houyhnhnms, whose name, according to their etymology, means "the Perfection of Nature" (199), are entitled to thinking much of their good characteristics because to think otherwise would be untrue.

Perhaps the satirist has now finally satirized himself after exhausting every other subject possible. Or perhaps Swift instead admits that folly, finally, will always be part of humanity, and the self-awareness and cynical distance of the satirist are not the answer. Gulliver learns from the Yahoos the weaknesses of humanity, because he sees them without any redeeming qualities. But there is no place for Gulliver in a world without any of those vices either, because they cannot tolerate him. If there are two possibilities, as Swift seems to be saying, run from all humanity or accept humanity, Gulliver's solution does not work. He is miserable at the end. He has rejected humanity, and his ideal world will not have him. This is not where Swift wants the reader to be at the end. If Gulliver has no compassion for the weakness of humans, then the reader must. If Gulliver cannot see the good in people, such as the wise sea captain, then the reader should.

The reader does not associate with Gulliver at the end because Swift has isolated him, not only from the reader but from Swift as author. Gulliver cannot see the folly of the Houyhnhnms' world view, and he cannot see the good in human nature. Thus Part 4 works to align the reader with Swift against Gulliver. Gulliver's lack of compassion signals for the reader compassion from Swift for human nature because people will always be foolish in spite of themselves, and to expect otherwise is its own folly.