gulliver's travels fourth voyage summary

Gulliver's Travels

By jonathan swift, gulliver's travels summary and analysis of part iv, "a voyage to the country of the houyhnhnms," chapters i-vi.

"The Author sets out as Captain of a Ship. His Men conspire against him, confine him a long Time to his Cabin, and set him on Shoar in an unknown Land. He travels up into the Country. The Yahoos , a strange Sort of Animal, described. The Author meets two Houyhnhnms ."

After five months at home, Gulliver leaves his children and pregnant wife yet again to go on his fourth voyage, this time as captain. Not long into the trip, his crew mutinies, locking him into his cabin for a great deal of time and threatening to murder him. Eventually the crew, who plan to become pirates, drop Gulliver off on an unknown island.

Gulliver walks inland until he comes across a field of strange creatures. After observing them for some time he comments, "Upon the whole, I never beheld in all my Travels so disagreeable an Animal, nor one against which I naturally conceived so strong an Antipathy." Soon Gulliver comes to realize that these are actually naked human beings behaving like cattle. Gulliver comes face to face with one of them. He hits it with the side of his blade when it comes at him violently. The animal-like human (which Gulliver later learns is called a Yahoo) cries out, causing the rest of the forty Yahoos to surround Gulliver.

Gulliver fears the worst until the Yahoos suddenly flee because of a grey horse coming toward them. The horse takes an interest in Gulliver and circles him until another horse comes along. Gulliver observes that their whinnies to each other sound almost like a language. Gulliver hears the word Yahoo several times and repeats it to the great surprise of both horses. The horses then teach Gulliver the word Houyhnhnm, which Gulliver later learns is their word for themselves-for horse. Afterward, the grey horse signals to Gulliver that he should walk in front of him, which he does.

"The Author conducted by a Houyhnhnm to his House. The House described. The Author's reception. The Food of the Houyhnhnms. The Author in Distress for want of Meat. Is at last relieved. His Manner of feeding in this Country."

Gulliver and the grey horse arrive at a home where Gulliver expects to meet the horse's human masters. The two move through every room of the house and meet several other horses before Gulliver realizes that the grey horse is the master of the house.

After some discussion between the horse and his wife about whether or not Gulliver is in fact a Yahoo, he is brought out to the stable where the Yahoos are kept and is made to stand next to one of them. Aside from the extra hair, longer nails, and nakedness of the Yahoo, they are the same.

Gulliver makes a kind of bread out of the horses' oats for his dinner and is given a small room near the house with some hay to sleep in.

Chapter III

"The Author studies to learn the Language. The Houyhnhnm his master assists in teaching him. The Language described. Several Houyhnhnms of Quality come out of Curiosity to see the Author. He gives his Master a short Account of his Voyage."

After about three months of living among the Houyhnhnms, Gulliver has learned their language quite well and can answer most of their questions. He tells them about the mutiny that landed him on their shores, but they have a very difficult time understanding, because they have no concept of what a lie is. They tell Gulliver that "The Word Houyhnhnm, in their Tongue, signifies a Horse, and its Etymology, the Perfection of Nature."

The horses believe that Gulliver is a Yahoo-but a more rational and civilized Yahoo. Gulliver, wanting to separate himself from the Yahoos as much as possible, asks not to be called a Yahoo anymore.

"The Houyhnhnms' Notion of Truth and Falsehood. The Author's Discourse disapproved by his Master. The Author gives a more particular Account of himself, and the Accidents of his Voyage."

Gulliver continues explaining the concept of lying to his master. He also explains the relationship of horses and humans back in England. The horses cannot believe that humans would be able to control creatures that are so much stronger than they are, but Gulliver explains that horses are tamed beginning at a very young age.

"The Author at his Master's Commands informs him of the State of England. The Causes of War among the Princes of Europe. The Author begins to explain the English Constitution."

Over the next two years, Gulliver explains much about the English government and political systems. Gulliver tries to explain war and the reasons why humans kill each other. His master says that Yahoos in England are worse than Yahoos because they use their reason to gain power but use it badly.

"A Continuation of the State of England. The Character of a first Minister."

Gulliver continues telling his master about the vices of the English people. He paints a particularly disturbing picture of lawyers and doctors, saying that lawyers are the stupidest among the Yahoos and doctors are corrupt and seldom cure their patients.

In the country of the Houyhnhnms, Gulliver meets the species that is the most skeptical of him-and for good reason. Gulliver must do everything he can to separate himself from the Yahoos, a very different situation from his distinct positions in Lilliput and Brobdingnag. In order to accomplish this, Gulliver does small things daily like using his best manners, eating with a knife and fork, keeping his clothes on, and being as clean as possible. He shows that he can use language, can reason well, and can be prudent and mannerly.

It is interesting to note that from the very beginning of his time in the country of the Houyhnhnms, Gulliver strives to separate himself from his own species. Is this what Swift has been trying to do his entire life? It often is difficult to strive for individual human greatness among a mass of people who hardly try and have hardly any notion of what greatness would be. In Brobdingnag, when Gulliver explained the English people and their way of life to the king, the king decided they were lowly creatures and Gulliver became offended, trying to defend his people. Something is different now in the country of the Houyhnhnms. When the grey mare tells Gulliver that he thinks his people are worse than the Yahoos, Gulliver is quick to agree.

What is different here? Only Gulliver's experiences since Brobdingnag and his contact with the Yahoos. Through the Yahoos, Gulliver has come to see some awful aspects of human nature, and Swift has shown his readers what they would be (and often are) without the intelligence and graces of which they are capable. Gulliver seems willing to turn his back on the English people in favor of those he deems better than the English. Now that he has been exposed to many alternatives, he can think carefully about who to admire and what political systems to favor, and the English certainly come up short in relation to the Houyhnhnms.

Also interesting in these chapters is Gulliver's plain admonishment of lawyers and doctors. Gulliver's negative commentary about lawyers is in many ways not surprising except for its level of ferocity. Lawyers seem no better than politicians, going to court over the petty human squabbles that Gulliver satirized as early as Part I. Gulliver's description of doctors as shallow and greedy people who would kill a patient as soon as cure him is surprising to contemporary readers, especially because Gulliver has spent so many years working as a surgeon. One should remember that eighteenth-century medicine was still rather poor.

Gulliver’s Travels Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Gulliver’s Travels is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift

Swift used exaggeration, parody, and irony to satirize politics and the human nature. Blind adherence to traditions without reflection is what he criticizes through caricature. In this way, in Lilliput, Gulliver becomes a giant in comparison with...

How old is Guillver?

An additional preface, attributed to Gulliver, added to a revised version of the work is given the fictional date of April 2, 1727, at which time Gulliver would have been about 65 or 66 years old.

What does Gulliver do with his penknife?

He cuts the strings that the rabble ringleaders were bound with.

Study Guide for Gulliver’s Travels

Gulliver's Travels study guide contains a biography of Jonathan Swift, literature essays, a complete e-text, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About Gulliver's Travels
• Gulliver's Travels Summary
• Gulliver's Travels Video
• Character List

Essays for Gulliver’s Travels

Gulliver's Travels essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift.

• The Child-like Scientist: A Study of the Similarities Between Jonathan Swifts' Gulliver's Travels and Voltaire's Candide in Reference to Satire Developed through Naivete
• Book Four of Swift's Gulliver's Travels: Satirical, Utopian, or Both?
• Gulliver's Travels and the Refinement of Language and Society
• The Duality of Book Four of Gulliver's Travels

Lesson Plan for Gulliver’s Travels

• About the Author
• Study Objectives
• Common Core Standards
• Introduction to Gulliver's Travels
• Relationship to Other Books
• Bringing in Technology
• Notes to the Teacher
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• Gulliver's Travels Bibliography

E-Text of Gulliver’s Travels

Gulliver's Travels e-text contains the full text of Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift.

• THE PUBLISHER TO THE READER
• PART I--A VOYAGE TO LILLIPUT
• PART II--A VOYAGE TO BROBDINGNAG
• PART III--A VOYAGE TO LAPUTA, BALNIBARBI, LUGGNAGG, GLUBBDUBDRIB,
• PART IV--A VOYAGE TO THE COUNTRY OF THE HOUYHNHNMS

Wikipedia Entries for Gulliver’s Travels

• Introduction
• Composition and history
• Major themes

• Gulliver's Travels

Jonathan Swift

• Literature Notes
• Book Summary
• About Gulliver's Travels
• Character List
• Summary and Analysis
• Part I: Chapter 1
• Part I: Chapter 2
• Part I: Chapter 3
• Part I: Chapter 4
• Part I: Chapter 5
• Part I: Chapter 6
• Part I: Chapter 7
• Part I: Chapter 8
• Part II: Chapter 1
• Part II: Chapter 2
• Part II: Chapter 3
• Part II: Chapter 4
• Part II: Chapter 5
• Part II: Chapter 6
• Part II: Chapter 7
• Part II: Chapter 8
• Part III: Chapter 1
• Part III: Chapter 2
• Part III: Chapter 3
• Part III: Chapter 4
• Part III: Chapter 5
• Part III: Chapter 6
• Part III: Chapter 7
• Part III: Chapter 8
• Part III: Chapter 9
• Part III: Chapter 10
• Part III: Chapter 11
• Part IV: Chapter 1
• Part IV: Chapter 2
• Part IV: Chapter 3
• Part IV: Chapter 4
• Part IV: Chapter 5
• Part IV: Chapter 6
• Part IV: Chapter 7
• Part IV: Chapter 8
• Part IV: Chapter 9
• Part IV: Chapter 10
• Part IV: Chapter 11
• Part IV: Chapter 12
• Character Analysis
• Lemuel Gulliver
• The Lilliputians
• The Brobdingnagians
• The Houyhnhnms
• Character Map
• Jonathan Swift Biography
• Critical Essays
• Philosophical and Political Background of Gulliver's Travels
• Swift's Satire in Gulliver's Travels
• Gulliver as a Dramatis Persona
• Full Glossary for Gulliver's Travels
• Essay Questions
• Practice Projects
• Cite this Literature Note

Summary and Analysis Part IV: Chapter 1

After five months at home, Gulliver is offered and accepts the position of captain of the merchant ship. During the voyage, several of his crew become ill, and Gulliver is forced to hire replacements. Unfortunately, those hired are pirates who organize a mutiny on the ship and leave Gulliver on an island where he encounters a pugnacious, "odious" group of animals that look and act like primates and that attack him by climbing trees and defecating on him. Their attack ends when a horse appears on the road. This horse studies Gulliver with great curiosity and is soon joined by another horse, both of which seem to converse using words which Gulliver understands as Yahoo and Houyhnhnm .

Gulliver's narration of his fourth voyage begins much as the others have. He uses a dry and matter-of-fact tone, and he offers a great deal of nautical detail. The style is deliberately prosaic. Swift is reaffirming Gulliver's unimaginative and credulous character. We can expect Gulliver to report what happens in Houyhnhnm land just as exactingly and as reliably as he does sailing dates, cargo information, and ports of call.

One other matter that might be noted before the adventure proper begins concerns the circumstances which have deposited Gulliver in the various foreign lands. Increasingly, these circumstances have become more serious. The sailors, in this section, maroon Gulliver out of treachery, malice, and ingratitude, whereas earlier he had been abandoned because of bad luck, fear, and greed. As Gulliver's mishaps become more threatening, the subject of each section becomes weightier.

Gulliver's description of the Yahoos displays one of Swift's most effective techniques: He describes the familiar in terms that are new. At first, the Yahoos seem familiar, but who, or what, they are is obscure. Then, with a jolt, Swift's point is obvious; the Yahoos are humans. Swift also captures the interest of his reader by posing a problem. He does not identify the Houyhnhnms as rational horses in this first chapter; therefore, the reader, like Gulliver, must try to solve the puzzle of who, or what, they are.

Gulliver describes the Yahoos as " . . . deformed . . . . Their heads and breasts were covered with thick hair . . . but the rest of their bodies were bare . . . . They had no tails and often stood on their hind feet . . . ." Then he adds, "I never beheld in all my travels so disagreeable an animal." The behavior of these animals is equally disgusting as Gulliver describes defending himself from them by drawing his sword and backing up to a tree for protection, but they then climb the tree and begin defecating on him. On the other hand, Gulliver's description of the horses, the Houyhnhnms, is almost idyllic: "The behaviour of these animals was . . . orderly and rational . . . acute and judicious." Indeed, it is a horse that rescues him from the Yahoos — not by any overt, physical action, but by simply appearing on the road — no physical action being necessary.

Bay of Campeche an arm of the Gulf of Mexico, west of the Yucatan peninsula.

calentures any fever caused, as in the tropics, by exposure to great heat.

Leeward Islands a group of islands in the West Indies, extending from Puerto Rico southeast to the Windward Islands.

debauched led astray morally; corrupt; depraved.

expostulate to reason with a person earnestly, objecting to that person's actions or intentions.

sold the lading sold the (ship's) cargo.

pudenda the external genitals of the female.

dugs a female animal's nipples, teats, or udder.

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Gulliver's Travels

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Gulliver's Travels: Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World.

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Chapter Summaries & Analyses

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Part 1, Chapters 5-8

Part 2, Chapters 1-4

Part 2, Chapters 5-8

Part 3, Chapters 1-6

Part 3, Chapters 7-11

Part 4, Chapters 1-6

Part 4, Chapters 7-12

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Part 4, Chapters 1-6 Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 4: “a voyage to the country of the houyhnhnms”, part 4, chapter 1 summary.

Gulliver is home for five months before once again setting out on another journey. This time, he is the captain of a ship. He begins losing some of his crew to illness and replaces these men with recruits from Barbados, whom he soon learns are buccaneers. Eventually, these recruits lead a mutiny against Gulliver and take over the ship. They imprison Gulliver in his cabin until they escort him to the shores of some unknown island before abandoning him.

As Gulliver tries to figure out what to do to survive, he observes unfamiliar creatures. The grotesqueness of these creatures disturbs Gulliver. He is approached by one and defends himself by hitting it with the dull edge of his sword. This causes the creature to roar and soon there is a larger group of about forty that gather around the stricken one. Faced with this daunting threat, Gulliver hides behind a tree and tries to fend off the creatures, who have begun throwing excrement at him.

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Gulliver's Travels

By jonathan swift, part four: a voyage to the country of the houyhnhnms: chapter 4.

• Year Published: 1906
• Language: English
• Country of Origin: Ireland
• Source: Swift, Jonathan. (1906). Gulliver's Travels . London; Routledge.
• Flesch–Kincaid Level: 10.1
• Word Count: 1,972
• Genre: Satire
• Keywords: fantasy, satire, society
• ✎ Cite This

Swift, J. (1906). Part Four: A Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms: Chapter 4. Gulliver's Travels (Lit2Go Edition). Retrieved April 20, 2024, from https://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/177/gullivers-travels/3722/part-four-a-voyage-to-the-country-of-the-houyhnhnms-chapter-4/

Swift, Jonathan. "Part Four: A Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms: Chapter 4." Gulliver's Travels . Lit2Go Edition. 1906. Web. https://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/177/gullivers-travels/3722/part-four-a-voyage-to-the-country-of-the-houyhnhnms-chapter-4/ >. April 20, 2024.

Jonathan Swift, "Part Four: A Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms: Chapter 4," Gulliver's Travels , Lit2Go Edition, (1906), accessed April 20, 2024, https://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/177/gullivers-travels/3722/part-four-a-voyage-to-the-country-of-the-houyhnhnms-chapter-4/ .

My master heard me with great appearances of uneasiness in his countenance; because doubting, or not believing, are so little known in this country, that the inhabitants cannot tell how to behave themselves under such circumstances. And I remember, in frequent discourses with my master concerning the nature of manhood in other parts of the world, having occasion to talk of lying and false representation, it was with much difficulty that he comprehended what I meant, although he had otherwise a most acute judgment. For he argued thus: "that the use of speech was to make us understand one another, and to receive information of facts; now, if any one said the thing which was not, these ends were defeated, because I cannot properly be said to understand him; and I am so far from receiving information, that he leaves me worse than in ignorance; for I am led to believe a thing black, when it is white, and short, when it is long." And these were all the notions he had concerning that faculty of lying, so perfectly well understood, and so universally practised, among human creatures.

To return from this digression. When I asserted that the Yahoos were the only governing animals in my country, which my master said was altogether past his conception, he desired to know, "whether we had Houyhnhnms among us, and what was their employment?" I told him, "we had great numbers; that in summer they grazed in the fields, and in winter were kept in houses with hay and oats, where Yahoo servants were employed to rub their skins smooth, comb their manes, pick their feet, serve them with food, and make their beds." "I understand you well," said my master: "it is now very plain, from all you have spoken, that whatever share of reason the Yahoos pretend to, the Houyhnhnms are your masters; I heartily wish our Yahoos would be so tractable." I begged "his honour would please to excuse me from proceeding any further, because I was very certain that the account he expected from me would be highly displeasing." But he insisted in commanding me to let him know the best and the worst. I told him "he should be obeyed." I owned "that the Houyhnhnms among us, whom we called horses, were the most generous and comely animals we had; that they excelled in strength and swiftness; and when they belonged to persons of quality, were employed in travelling, racing, or drawing chariots; they were treated with much kindness and care, till they fell into diseases, or became foundered in the feet; but then they were sold, and used to all kind of drudgery till they died; after which their skins were stripped, and sold for what they were worth, and their bodies left to be devoured by dogs and birds of prey. But the common race of horses had not so good fortune, being kept by farmers and carriers, and other mean people, who put them to greater labour, and fed them worse." I described, as well as I could, our way of riding; the shape and use of a bridle, a saddle, a spur, and a whip; of harness and wheels. I added, "that we fastened plates of a certain hard substance, called iron, at the bottom of their feet, to preserve their hoofs from being broken by the stony ways, on which we often travelled."

My master, after some expressions of great indignation, wondered "how we dared to venture upon a Houyhnhnm's back; for he was sure, that the weakest servant in his house would be able to shake off the strongest Yahoo; or by lying down and rolling on his back, squeeze the brute to death." I answered "that our horses were trained up, from three or four years old, to the several uses we intended them for; that if any of them proved intolerably vicious, they were employed for carriages; that they were severely beaten, while they were young, for any mischievous tricks; that the males, designed for the common use of riding or draught, were generally castrated about two years after their birth, to take down their spirits, and make them more tame and gentle; that they were indeed sensible of rewards and punishments; but his honour would please to consider, that they had not the least tincture of reason, any more than the Yahoos in this country."

It put me to the pains of many circumlocutions, to give my master a right idea of what I spoke; for their language does not abound in variety of words, because their wants and passions are fewer than among us. But it is impossible to express his noble resentment at our savage treatment of the Houyhnhnm race; particularly after I had explained the manner and use of castrating horses among us, to hinder them from propagating their kind, and to render them more servile. He said, "if it were possible there could be any country where Yahoos alone were endued with reason, they certainly must be the governing animal; because reason in time will always prevail against brutal strength. But, considering the frame of our bodies, and especially of mine, he thought no creature of equal bulk was so ill–contrived for employing that reason in the common offices of life;" whereupon he desired to know "whether those among whom I lived resembled me, or the Yahoos of his country?" I assured him, "that I was as well shaped as most of my age; but the younger, and the females, were much more soft and tender, and the skins of the latter generally as white as milk." He said, "I differed indeed from other Yahoos, being much more cleanly, and not altogether so deformed; but, in point of real advantage, he thought I differed for the worse: that my nails were of no use either to my fore or hinder feet; as to my fore feet, he could not properly call them by that name, for he never observed me to walk upon them; that they were too soft to bear the ground; that I generally went with them uncovered; neither was the covering I sometimes wore on them of the same shape, or so strong as that on my feet behind: that I could not walk with any security, for if either of my hinder feet slipped, I must inevitably fail." He then began to find fault with other parts of my body: "the flatness of my face, the prominence of my nose, mine eyes placed directly in front, so that I could not look on either side without turning my head: that I was not able to feed myself, without lifting one of my fore–feet to my mouth: and therefore nature had placed those joints to answer that necessity. He knew not what could be the use of those several clefts and divisions in my feet behind; that these were too soft to bear the hardness and sharpness of stones, without a covering made from the skin of some other brute; that my whole body wanted a fence against heat and cold, which I was forced to put on and off every day, with tediousness and trouble: and lastly, that he observed every animal in this country naturally to abhor the Yahoos, whom the weaker avoided, and the stronger drove from them. So that, supposing us to have the gift of reason, he could not see how it were possible to cure that natural antipathy, which every creature discovered against us; nor consequently how we could tame and render them serviceable. However, he would," as he said, "debate the matter no farther, because he was more desirous to know my own story, the country where I was born, and the several actions and events of my life, before I came hither."

I assured him, "how extremely desirous I was that he should be satisfied on every point; but I doubted much, whether it would be possible for me to explain myself on several subjects, whereof his honour could have no conception; because I saw nothing in his country to which I could resemble them; that, however, I would do my best, and strive to express myself by similitudes, humbly desiring his assistance when I wanted proper words;" which he was pleased to promise me.

I said, "my birth was of honest parents, in an island called England; which was remote from his country, as many days' journey as the strongest of his honour's servants could travel in the annual course of the sun; that I was bred a surgeon, whose trade it is to cure wounds and hurts in the body, gotten by accident or violence; that my country was governed by a female man, whom we called queen; that I left it to get riches, whereby I might maintain myself and family, when I should return; that, in my last voyage, I was commander of the ship, and had about fifty Yahoos under me, many of which died at sea, and I was forced to supply them by others picked out from several nations; that our ship was twice in danger of being sunk, the first time by a great storm, and the second by striking against a rock." Here my master interposed, by asking me, "how I could persuade strangers, out of different countries, to venture with me, after the losses I had sustained, and the hazards I had run?" I said, "they were fellows of desperate fortunes, forced to fly from the places of their birth on account of their poverty or their crimes. Some were undone by lawsuits; others spent all they had in drinking, whoring, and gaming; others fled for treason; many for murder, theft, poisoning, robbery, perjury, forgery, coining false money, for committing rapes, or sodomy; for flying from their colours, or deserting to the enemy; and most of them had broken prison; none of these durst return to their native countries, for fear of being hanged, or of starving in a jail; and therefore they were under the necessity of seeking a livelihood in other places."

During this discourse, my master was pleased to interrupt me several times. I had made use of many circumlocutions in describing to him the nature of the several crimes for which most of our crew had been forced to fly their country. This labour took up several days' conversation, before he was able to comprehend me. He was wholly at a loss to know what could be the use or necessity of practising those vices. To clear up which, I endeavoured to give some ideas of the desire of power and riches; of the terrible effects of lust, intemperance, malice, and envy. All this I was forced to define and describe by putting cases and making suppositions. After which, like one whose imagination was struck with something never seen or heard of before, he would lift up his eyes with amazement and indignation. Power, government, war, law, punishment, and a thousand other things, had no terms wherein that language could express them, which made the difficulty almost insuperable, to give my master any conception of what I meant. But being of an excellent understanding, much improved by contemplation and converse, he at last arrived at a competent knowledge of what human nature, in our parts of the world, is capable to perform, and desired I would give him some particular account of that land which we call Europe, but especially of my own country.

A Summary and Analysis of Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Gulliver’s Travels , first published in 1726 and written by Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), has been called one of the first novels in English, one of the greatest satires in all of literature, and even a children’s classic (though any edition for younger readers is usually quite heavily abridged).

How should we respond to this wonderfully inventive novel? Is it even a ‘novel’ in the sense we’d usually understand that term? Before we launch into an analysis of Gulliver’s Travels and consider some of these questions, it’s perhaps worth recapping the plot (briefly).

Gulliver’s Travels : summary

Gulliver’s Travels is structurally divided into four parts, each of which recounts the adventures of the title character, a ship’s surgeon named Lemuel Gulliver, amongst some imaginary fantastical land.

In the first part, Gulliver is shipwrecked and knocked unconscious on the island of Lilliput, which is inhabited by tiny people. They take Gulliver prisoner, tying him to the ground, and he encounters the rival factions among the Lilliputians, such as the Big Endians and Little Endians, whose enmity started because they disagree over which side of a boiled egg to cut.

Then, he is enlisted into a campaign the Lilliputians are waging against a neighbouring island, Blefuscu. Gulliver drags the enemy fleet ashore so their invasion is foiled, and the Lilliputians honour and thank him – that is, until he refuses to be further drawn into the two countries’ war, at which moment they turn against him. It doesn’t help when he urinates on a fire to help put it out.

Gulliver takes refuge on Blefuscu, until a boat is washed ashore and he uses it to return to England, where he raises money for his family before embarking on a second voyage.

This time, in the second part of Gulliver’s Travels , our hero finds himself in Brobdingnag, a country which is inhabited by giants, rather than miniature people. When his ship runs aground, it is attacked by giants, and Gulliver is taken prisoner and given to the princess of Brobdingnag, a forty-feet-high girl named Glumdalclitch, as her plaything.

After arguing with the King over political matters – with Gulliver defending English attitudes and the King mocking them – Gulliver is picked up by a giant eagle and plopped into the sea, where he is rescued by a ship.

In the third part of the novel, Gulliver finds himself taken prisoner once again, this time by pirates, and taken to the floating island of Laputa. On a nearby island, Balnibarbi, he meets mad scientists and inventors who are engaged in absurd experiments: trying to extract sunbeams from cucumbers, or building a house from the roof down.

On a neighbouring island, Glubbdubdrib, Gulliver meets some magicians who can summon the dead; they summon numerous historical figures for him, including Julius Caesar, Homer, and Aristotle.

After this, on the island of Luggnagg, Gulliver meets the Struldbrugs: creatures who are immortal. However, this simply means they are foolish and weak than old men back in England, because they’ve had much longer to develop more folly and more illnesses.

Gulliver leaves Laputa behind, becoming a ship’s captain and continuing his voyages. Next, he encounters apelike creatures who, when he attacks one of their number, climb a tree and start discharging their excrement upon his head. (Excrement turns up a lot on Gulliver’s Travels , and Swift seems to have been obsessed by it.)

Gulliver is saved from a literal shower of sh … dung by the arrival of a horse, but this turns out to be a horse endowed with reason and language. Indeed, Gulliver soon learns that these horses rule this strange land: the horses, known as Houyhnhnms, are the masters, and the apelike creatures, known as Yahoos, are their semi-wild slaves. What’s more, Gulliver is horrified to learn that the Yahoos bear more than a passing resemblance to him, and to the human form!

What follows in this fourth part of the novel is a lengthy debate between Gulliver and the Houyhnhnms, who repeatedly show up the folly or evil of human behaviour as Gulliver describes it to them: war, money, and the legal system are all calmly but firmly taken apart by the intelligent horses.

However, Gulliver comes to prefer the company of the Houyhnhnms to the Yahoos, especially when he discovers, to his shock, that female Yahoos are attracted to him as one of their own kind. Gulliver resolves to stay with his new equine friends and shun humanity forever. He admires, above all else, the Houyhnhnms’ devotion to reason over baser instincts or desires.

But he is not allowed to stay with them for long. Fearing that he may inspire the Yahoos to rise up against their horsy overlords, they tell him to leave, and Gulliver regretfully builds a boat, is picked up by a Portuguese ship, and makes his way back to England. However, he struggles to readjust to human society, after he has spent time among the Houyhnhnms, and he prefers to pass his time in the company of the horses in his stable.

Gulliver’s Travels : analysis

We often celebrate great works of literature for their generosity of spirit: we talk of Shakespeare’s ‘humanity’, of Wordsworth’s empathy, George Eliot’s humanistic ability to feel for another person. But Swift is in quite a different tradition. He was disgusted by us all with our filthy bodies and rotten, wrong-headed attitudes.

Yet he wrote a great work of literature in Gulliver’s Travels , which tells us much about who we really are, especially through his depiction of the Yahoos, and who we could be, through Gulliver’s conversations with the Houyhnhnms.

Perhaps the key aspect of the novel here is its satire: it means that we can never be sure when Swift is being serious and when he is pulling our leg, when he is inviting us to share Gulliver’s views and when he wishes us to long to clout the silly fool round the head. That, too, is one of the signs of a timeless novel: its multifaceted quality. Gulliver’s Travels has more facets than you can shake a mucky stick at.

The same difficulty of interpretation – or divining authorial intention and meaning – often attends great works of satire. Sir Thomas More’s Utopia (1516), which was probably an influence on Swift and Gulliver’s Travels , is similarly difficult to analyse in terms of its author’s own views. Critics can’t quite agree whether More is pulling the reader’s leg in Utopia or sincerely offering a vision of a perfect world.

There are, however, some clues that much of the book, if not the whole thing, is supposed to be satirical: it’s hard to see the staunchly Roman Catholic More seriously advocating divorce by mutual consent, something that is encouraged in the book, nor is it likely that he was in favour of women priests, very much a feature of More’s looking-glass island republic.

So the same issue probably attends Gulliver’s Travels . Is Gulliver right to view the Houyhnhnms as the pinnacle of rational humanism – something that actual humans should aspire to emulate? Or should we be shocked by the Houyhnhnms’ proposal that the Yahoos should be forcibly sterilised, even exterminated, as a decisively in human attitude towards their fellow living creatures?

Swift’s disgust with his fellow humans was real, especially in the last few decades of his life when he wrote Gulliver’s Travels , but this does not mean he was not acutely aware of the dangers attendant on such misanthropy. It’s one thing to have a dim view of the human race as falling short of what they could achieve; it’s quite another to suggest that, because they succumb to wars and other dangerous follies, they deserve to be wiped from the face of the earth.

It’d be like a satirist writing in the present century suggesting that, because humans have been the main drivers behind climate change, the best thing would be for all human life to be annihilated from the planet. It’d be a solution to the problem (or part of it), but it wouldn’t be a very morally humane one.

And is Swift’s book, for all that, a novel as such? Like Robinson Crusoe , Defoe’s pioneering work published seven years earlier, Gulliver’s Travels presented itself to the reader as a genuine account, recounting four voyages made by Lemuel Gulliver.

Readers embarking on their journey of reading the book in 1726 may well have been forgiven for thinking it a travel book, like the bestselling books by explorers of the day such as William Dampier (who was one of the first to travel to Australia, around whose coast Swift locates the islands of Lilliput and Blefuscu). But then the book takes a fantastical turn and we gradually realise we are in a work of the imagination.

So it’s perhaps best to answer the question ‘is Gulliver’s Travels a novel?’ with a cautious ‘yes … but only if we bear in mind it was written before the word “novel” had even first been applied to works like Gulliver’s Travels .’

3 thoughts on “A Summary and Analysis of Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels”

I heard that the severe-faced Swift claimed to have laughed only twice in his life – once when Tom was swallowed by a cow on stage in Henry Fielding’s “Tom Thumb the Great” (the little man with a great soul – or mirror image of Prime Minister Robert Walpole, aka “The Great Man” – presumably “with a diminutive soul” in Fielding’s satire). I can’t remember the other time Swift laughed. But he can sure get others to do so!

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An analysis of the fourth voyage of Gulliver's travels and its relevance to the twentieth century

Angelo Rodriguez , University of the Pacific

Date of Award

Document type, degree name.

Master of Arts (M.A.)

First Advisor

Robert Knighton

First Committee Member

Ruth Marie Faurot

Second Committee Member

Clair C. Olson

Any work of art, by definition, is so designated because it speaks to all generations, irrespective of time or place, and regardless of artistic, political, economic, or ideological fads. To accept a work as art with anything less than these universalities is blind acceptance and pure idolatry. Each generation must determine the validity of the label art by determining the relevance of the work to its own generations. Unless a work of art can successfully meet such a test, the label is no more than a gentleman's agreement among self-designated arbiters of taste. Two recent critics, writing on the philosophy of literary criticism, have defined what is perhaps the best test which a work of art must meet. Both agree that a work of art must go beyond the contemporary concern of the author.

Swift’s “controversies,” particularly his famous indictment of men, have neve lapsed into memories, for the assertions Johnathan Swift makes about man in Gulliver’s fourth voyage are incontrovertible. And were it not so, his indictment of man is a valid one. Hopefully, however -- and Swift held out such hope -- the course of human history may be altered.

Recommended Citation

Rodriguez, Angelo. (1969). An analysis of the fourth voyage of Gulliver's travels and its relevance to the twentieth century . University of the Pacific, Thesis. https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/uop_etds/1694

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Gulliver's Travels

Jonathan swift, ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.