What is the difference between Houyhnhnms and Yahoos?
Table of Contents
What is the difference between Houyhnhnms and Yahoos?
The Houyhnhnms are rational equine beings and are masters of the land, contrasting strongly with the Yahoos, savage humanoid creatures who are no better than beasts of burden, or livestock. Whereas the Yahoos represent all that is bad about humans, Houyhnhnms have a settled, calm, reliable and rational society.
Why do the Houyhnhnms hate The Yahoos?
The arguments for exterminating the Yahoos are compelling: The Yahoos are “the most filthy, noisome, and deformed animals which nature ever produced . . . ” and they are “restive and indocible, mischievous and malicious.” In terms of their evolution, the words used to describe the Yahoos are “degenerating by degrees.” …
What are the similarities between The Yahoos and human beings?
In the novel, they are a race of filthy, wild creatures that are resented by the race of intelligent horses that reside in the same land, the Houyhnhnms. They have a strong humanoid resemblance to humans, but are disgusting, hairy, and lack logic, reason, and morals.
What do The Yahoos symbolize?
The crude, dirty “brutes” of the land of the Houyhnhnms in Gulliver’s Travels, by Jonathan Swift. The Yahoos are irrational people and represent the worst side of humanity. By contrast, the wise and gentle Houyhnhnms, their masters, are rational horses and represent humanity at its best.
What does the master compare Yahoos to?
There is a racialist edge to this comparison of European and Houyhnhnm Land Yahoos: the Master Horse calls Gulliver a “perfect Yahoo” who differs from other Yahoos in the “softness, whiteness, and smoothness of [his] skin” (4.3. 9).
What is the main belief of the Houyhnhnms?
What is the main belief of the Houyhnhnms? They don’t believe that laws are necessary as they are completely governed by reason, unlike the humans of Gulliver’s world.
What can we learn from the Houyhnhnms?
Each Houyhnhnm knows what is right and acts accordingly. They are untroubled by greed, politics, or lust. They live a life of cleanliness and exist in peace and serenity. They live by the grand maxim: Cultivate Reason and be totally governed by it.
What do the yahoos represent in Gulliver’s Travels?
The Yahoos, however, are not merely animals; they are animals who are naturally vicious and represent Mankind depraved. Swift describes them in deliberately filthy and disgusting terms, often using metaphors drawn from dung.
Who were the Yahoos and who were the Houyhnhnms?
Houyhnhnm, any member of a fictional race of intelligent, rational horses described by Anglo-Irish author Jonathan Swift in the satirical novel Gulliver’s Travels (1726). The Houyhnhnms are contrasted with the monstrous Yahoos, members of a brutish humanoid race that the Houyhnhnms have tamed into submission.
