Swift's Characterization of Gulliver in Gulliver's Travels

Lemuel Gulliver, the protagonist of Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, is a character that can only be described as deeply misanthropic (Lawall and Mack 432). In revealing the inevitability of Gulliver's transformation from overtly trustful to his eventual detestation of all humankind, Swift allows the reader a glimpse of the impact Gulliver's experiences had on his inherent view of social reality, and, especially, himself. Gulliver's final conversion acknowledges Swift's attempt to prove that given to certain societal standards for a considerable length of time, even the most credulous and hopeful person will begin to accept the ugliness of life, as had Lemuel Gulliver (Lawall and Mack 432).

Swift's Gulliver is a catalyst for the unconscious alteration of one's own spirit under the oppression as defined by certain social class and background. In order to manifest Gulliver's own self-actualization, Swift writes, "The curiosity and impatience of my master were so great, that he spent many hours of his leisure to instruct me. He was convinced (as he afterwards told me) that I must be a Yahoo, but my teachableness, civility, and cleanliness astonished him; which were qualities altogether so opposite to those animals" (445). As Gulliver began this journey, vulnerable and obliging to most he encountered along the way, Swift slightly began to shift Gulliver's thinking. Gulliver sees himself as inferior to the Houyhnhnms as he refers to the one who instructs him as "master," yet Gulliver still believes himself slightly above the vile Yahoos, whose customs are despised and misunderstood by the Houyhnhnms, including Gulliver.

Swift's portrayal of Gulliver's character as coming to the acceptance of his place in the degradation of humanity that is the Yahoo way of life is expressed through Gulliver's thoughts on humankind based on the opinion of the socially superior Houyhnhnms. In order to substantiate this, Gulliver begins, "The reader may be disposed to wonder how I could prevail on myself to give so free a representation of my own species, among a race of mortals who were already too apt to conceive the vilest opinion of humankind..." (Swift 459). Gulliver has verified that he is a part of the Yahoos, whom, in all of worst of their "humanness," leave Gulliver to detest the very core of his own humanity, but also to accept it.

Misanthropic, that is what and who Gulliver has become by the end of Gulliver's Travels. Deeply disturbed by the ugliness of the world in which he is tied to, by birth, by family, by characteristics both physical and mental, Gulliver becomes hugely discontented by his place in the view of the higher echelon, those that could only be described as the Houyhnhnms. Gulliver resolves within himself to provide a place of support for the Yahoo, to reach within himself and accept that he is a part of them (Swift 483). Gulliver states that he will "...apply those excellent lessons of virtue which I learned among the Houyhnhnms; to instruct the Yahoos of my own family as far as I shall find them docible animals; to behold myself in a glass, and thus if possible habituate myself from time to tolerate the sight of a human creature..." (Swift 482).

Gulliver's eventual self-loathing at the end of Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels define him as a man that has allowed the opinions and views of the socially superior creatures of the world to transform him into an unemotional and detached soul, destroyed by his weakened sense of resolve. He continues to abide by the rules of the Houynhnhnm society and truly believes them to be above his station. Gulliver has become a troubled man, ironically, increasingly untrusting of those around him, a man incapable of reaching the true recognition of his destiny.

Works Cited

Lawall, Sarah and Maynard Mack. The Norton Anthology of World Literature 1650 To

1800. 2^nd Ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2000. 432.

Swift, Jonathan. "Gulliver's Travels." The Norton Anthology of World Literature 1650

To 1800. 2^nd Ed. Ed. Sarah Lawall and Maynard Mack. New York: W.W.

Norton & Company, 2000. 445, 459, 482.