rounds. The horses are so naГЇve that they ask him what is the meaning for 'falsehood'. The horses lead a life of innocence, and they are synonymous with morality: Adultery, murder, and falsehood fail to exist in the land of the horses. Strongly moved by the good life of the Houyhnhnms, Gulliver scorns humanity and finally becomes an admiring friend of the horses. Even after having reluctantly returned to his hometown, in the end of the story, he buys two horses and is seen interacting with the horses, totally disregarding his family, social status and the society around him.
2.2. Hypostases
At the beginning of the novel, Gulliver is an everyman through whose eyes the reader sees the inhabitants of the places he visits. For most of the book, merely recounts his observations in deadpan mode. He appears to have no will or desires, but is led from land to land by fate. He gives his detailed descriptions without judgment, and without the capacity for reflection and distance that the reader possesses. He often fails to see the ludicrous, greedy, and morally depraved nature of the people around him, whereas this is all too clear to the reader. This gap between Gulliver's and the reader's perception of events leads to dramatic irony (a literary device in which the reader or audience of a work knows more than the character). p> As a middle-of-the-road human being, Gulliver finds himself to be morally superior to the Lilliputians but morally inferior to the Brobdingnagians. In Brobdingnag, his weakness becomes clear. It is his pride in, and loyalty to, England, which leads him to lie to the Brobdingnagian king in order to paint his country in a favorable light. p> As Gulliver's education progresses, he makes more direct judgments on the societies he visits, though at first these are understated. For example, in Part I, Chapter V, after the ministers have plotted to kill Gulliver in gruesome ways for trivial offenses, he notes for the first time that courts and ministers may not be perfect. By the end of his stay in Laputa, he is overtly despondent about the Laputans 'shortcomings and the ruined society that they have sacrificed to theoretical thought.
Gulliver is somewhat more tranquil and less restless at the end of the story than he is at the beginning. In desiring first to stay with the Houyhnhnms, then to find an island on which he can live in exile, Gulliver shows that his adventures have taught him that a simple life, one without the complexities and weaknesses of human society, may be best. At the same time, his tranquility is superficial-lying not far below the surface is a deep distaste for humanity that is aroused as soon as the crew of Don Pedro de Mendez captures him. "From our point of view, after we have looked at the world through Gulliver's eyes for much of the novel, Gulliver undergoes several interesting transformations: from the naive Englishman to the experienced but still open-minded world traveler of the first two voyages; then to the jaded island-hopper of the third voyage; and finally to the cynical, disillusioned, and somewhat insane misanthrope of the fourth voyage "[22].
Gulliver's stay in the land of the Houyhnhnms marks the complete loss of his objectivity and innocence. He finds himself midway between the rationality of the Houyhnhnms and the bestiality of the Yahoos. So impressed is he by the Houyhnhnms and so disgusted is he by the Yahoos that he becomes obsessed with trying to be like the Houyhnhnms, when he physically resembles the Yahoos far more. Finally, he gives way to an insanity in which he seems to believe himself to be a Houyhnhnm and rejects even the best of humankind because he believes them to be Yahoos. At the end of the book, Gulliver is still trying to re-acclimatize to life among humans. While condemning his fellow men for their pride, he fails to see that he himself has fallen victim to pride in his disgust at humanity. As a result, the reader ceases to look through his eyes to judge others and begins to look at him and judge him. He, too, becomes an object of satire.
Most of the time during his travels, Gulliver feels isolated from the societies he visits. He does not fit in anywhere, and even during his brief returns to England, he expresses no wish to stay and leaves as quickly as he can. This has led to some critics calling Gulliver's Travels the first novel of modern alienation. p> The country of the Houyhnhnms is unique among the nations Gullliver visits because of its subjugation of the individual to the good of society as a whole, which leads to an orderly and well-run nation. The price is that there is little room for human-style individuality. Nobody can become attached to their children because they may be assigned to another family that has a shortage of children; mates are chosen not by individual preferenc...
