Candide And Gulliver's Travels Analysis

Voltaire and Swift are two well-known eighteenth century satirists who wrote Candide and Gulliver’s Travels. Their works are social commentaries about their world, in which to protect themselves from their government, they would use satire and fantasy in their works. Voltaire’s Candide and Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels are about individuals who went on journeys to far off lands where these societies and customs were starkly different from what they known, leading the heroes to view their home societies differently. Eldorado and the land of the Houyhnhnm are utopias where the people are living in isolation, governed by reason not by law, and content with their lives. Although Eldorado and the land of the Houyhnhnm are similar in those aspects, …show more content…
The king was also very open to Candide and Cacambo and was a gracious and polite host by inviting them to dine with him, and everyone was very hospitable to them. This was an important aspect because class distinction is a prominent theme in the book, and is explicitly shown in the beginning of the book in Chapter I. The reason Candide was so surprised at the king’s familiarity with him and greeted visitors as his equal is because in the beginning of the novel, Candide was kicked out of his home by attempting to kiss Cunegonde, a woman above his class and her brother prohibited him from marrying her because of her title. Because class distinction and the society Candide grew up in was stratified, in which there were limited interactions among the classes, the king treating Candide as an equal was new to him. In contrast, the land of the Houyhnhnm may appear friendly and equal, however it is not. The Houyhnhnm are friendly to Gulliver at first because they do not view him as a Yahoo even though he is a human due to the fact that he has less hair, he is less athletic, has no claws, has white and smooth skin, walks on two legs, and he is capable of learning languages. Another thing that facilitates his distinction …show more content…
His reason for dressing before the family wakes up was because he wanted to look less like a Yahoo and also want to disguise himself so the Houyhnhnm will see that he is not one of the Yahoos. Gulliver is happy to stay and learn everything about the land of the Houyhnhnm and does not want to leave at all, however, although the Houyhnhnm believe strongly in benevolence and friendship, they wanted Gulliver to go, because many feared that Gulliver can encourage Yahoos everywhere to stage a rebellion and attack the Houyhnhnm. This is a stark contrast from Candide, when Candide wanted to leave Eldorado, but the king did not want him to, however he respected Candide’s wish and even facilitated Candide’s trip. The Houynhnhnm also do not treat everyone equally in their land. One