Power In Gulliver's Travels

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Throughout Gulliver’s Travels, Gulliver becomes understanding and empathetic towards the many different populations he meets. Long after his voyage to Lilliput, Gulliver speaks of himself as a Lilliputian, though he abandons this perspective once he arrives in Brobdingnag and goes from powerful to powerless. Gulliver becomes increasingly less invested in the perspectives of new islands as he becomes more experienced and jaded towards travel,but by the time that Gulliver reaches the island of Houyhnhnms, he must reexamine his own societal power, as he is neither of the dominant Houyhnhnms class or subservient Yahoos. The prejudices and ideology of the Houyhnhnms have been ingrained into Gulliver’s lifestyle and mindset, remaining influential …show more content…
Approached with their paws, he strikes their hands because he cannot believe they have good intentions, and his violence could be interpreted as a move towards dominance. Gulliver cannot immediately recognize them as a population partially deprived by the Houyhnhnms, who view their treatment towards the Yahoos as benevolent, one of the two defining actions of their society. Yahoos and Houyhnhnms are not intellectually unalike compared to Gulliver’s societal standards, for example, neither has written language or clothing, but Gulliver is more willing to approach and learn from the Houyhnhnms partially because of their dominant role and partially because of his prejudices against Yahoos. Like the Houyhnhnms, Gulliver is appalled by the physical working ability of the Yahoo, and when Gulliver is examined by the Houyhnhnms, they conclude that he must be a “perfect Yahoo” from his dress, skin color, and absence of a body utilized made for physical work. Empathy fails Gulliver because he cannot imagine himself equal to the class or nature of the Yahoos, and his vision of humanity itself has been negatively affected by his ostracization from Lilliput, his subservience in Brobdingnag, and even by his shipmates who cast him off of his

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