Since its first publication nearly three hundred years ago, Jonathan Swift's satirical prose Gulliver's Travels has been the subject of a wide variety of literary critique and social interpretation. Although many readers, at first glance, take this tale to be simply a fantastic narrative of a common man and his encounters with unusual locations and people through several journeys, further inspection reveals Swift's true purpose of creativity - satire.

Using the then contemporary style of the Travel Narrative, Swift is able to insert his own personal criticisms of modern life into the experiences of Gulliver. Gulliver, representing a common man, encounters a wide variety of characters along his travels, each representing a subject Swift wishes to criticize. Ranging from relatively simply political criticisms in his experiences in Book I and II, to a socio-political criticism in Book III, to the social, philosophical criticism of man in Book IV. It is to this final book that we turn our attention.

If Book IV is read literally, with no knowledge of satire, it appears to be another bizarre jo

Crane expands on the satirical force at play in Book IV's "man as a rational animal" theme.

Book IV of Gulliver's Travels, in my own personal opinion, contains the most interesting encounter in Gulliver's journey. It is here that Swift not only is able to satirize on political matters of his time, but on the nature of man and many preconceived notions still existent today. I find that Crane's essay further explained the origin of the Yahoo and the Houyhnhnm, particularly why the horse was chosen as the "rational" animal. Even though the Isagoge "horse" reference may be lost on modern readers, the message is still clear. Gulliver is able to see that man, that is, European "civilized" man, is not very different than the Yahoo. Swift's opinion, through Gulliver, seems to say that man is one of the most irrational animals who, based on circumstance, evolved to dominate all other animals. Perhaps this is taken to an extreme, although I would have to generally agree with Swift's perspective that man is not as "rational", or civilized, as we like to think of ourselves as being.

A particular fact worth noting in Book IV is Swift's choice of the rational creature and irrational animal. Crane is able to explain where this comparison is derived - the write

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Approximate Word count = 854
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)