Hybridity In Albert Camus Gulliver's Travels

Albert Camus, a philosopher of the twentieth century, claimed that: “A man without ethics is a wild beast loosed upon this world” (The Tribune). As expressed by Camus, man is depicted as civilized, living in a society of morals and manners, while a beast or animal is considered cruel, coarse, and acts only on instinct. In Life Is A Dream Pedro Calderón de la Barca explores both natures through the hybrid character Sigismund, who begins by embodying a rough filthy nature when he acts maliciously at court, but becomes refined and magnanimous by the end of the play. On the other hand, Gulliver’s Travels, by Jonathan Swift, also examines a hybridity of man versus beast in the character Lemuel Gulliver, who begins as a civilized Englishman, but chooses to follow his more animal-like nature once he travels to Houyhnhnm Land. Calderón creates the hybrid character Segismundo who fights his animalistic nature in order to become a civilized man, while Swift creates the hybrid character Gulliver who fights his civilized nature in order to become more animalistic, demonstrating the changes hybridity can create in an individual as one leans towards a particular state. To argue this point of view, I will demonstrate each of the characters’ hybridity by proving Segismundo’s animal like …show more content…
Calderón does this through the character Segismundo who begins as a beast and changes into a civilized man, while Swift demonstrates the transition from a civilized man to a beast through the character Gulliver. Although both characters move in opposite directions, both experience a change in behavior and thinking due to their hybridity, leading to an embrace of either their beastly natures or in their civilized constitutions. Hybridity creates change, and in this change, we find ourselves both challenging our own dichotomies and accepting them by eventually embodying either only one