Big Men and Little Men, Houyhnynms and Yahoos: Structural Parallels 

and Meaning in G
​ ulliver’s Travels 
Part 2/Part 1 
 
Lilliputians  ←Gulliver →  Brobdingnagians 

  physically similar?   
Gulliver is huge  Gulliver is small 
European clothing  European Clothing 
Majorly White-skinned 
 
 

As himself?     In actions? 
     
 
Ambitious  He tries to listen to other 
 
Greedy  people. 
Morally, socially, politically 
When it comes to  He is curious and 
similar? 
personal gain, doesn’t  investigative. 
hesitate if it meant  Interested in other 
hurting others.  cultures and personality 
   

As humanity?  In capability? 
   
Fight about minute  He is incapable to 
trivial problems.  comprehend sharing 
Takes everything as a  and freedom of 
threat.  fundamental rights. 
Afraid something will  Such as, sharing food 
overpower them  without paying, sharing 
Think they are better  the royal castle with the 
than anyone else  people. 
   

 
Swift places Gulliver - and humankind - physically and morally between the Lilliputians 
and the Brobdingnagians. That placement creates enormous tensions that pull 
desperately at Gulliver - and readers of ​Gulliver​ - from various sides.  
 
 

 
 Yahoos  ←Gulliver →  Houyhnhnms 

Two legs  physically-emotionally  He has the emotion of 

Size  similar?  compassion and love. 
Look like a yahoo  The willpower to control 
The emotion to hate  your body and mind. 

As himself?     In actions? 
     
 
Chaotic nature/ brutality  He tries to act like the 
 
Dirty nature = sex, body,  Houyhnhnms, by looking 
Rationally, morally similar? 
war.  imitating their neighing. 
   

As humanity?  In capability? 
   
We all look the same  However, he is incapable 
inside without clothes.  to fully imitate them, 
Rich or poor, we all look  because he isn’t as 
the same inside (nude).  innocent and wise as 
them, with their 
 
compassion and liberty 
of mind.   
 

 
He is pushed by physical resemblance toward identifying with the Yahoos but resists 
that pressure because he finds the creatures repellent in behaviour. He tries to identify 
with the Houyhnhnms because their use of reason appeals to him but is held back by 
his physical dissimilarity and his feelings of inferiority. As in parts 1 and 2 where Gulliver 
misses the point of the nastiness and viciousness evident in the Lilliputians and the 
generosity, magnanimity, and reasonableness of the Brobdingnagian king, so he misses 
the point in part 4 and isolates the physical aspects of both Houyhnhnms and Yahoos as 
his sole concern. Instead of seeing and emulating those things in the H that he could 
learn and improve from, Gulliver tries to become a horse and back in England buys two 
horses and spends four hours a day talking to them. And because of his revulsion for 
the Yahoos, he ends up hating his own species on account of its physical similarity to 
Yahoos (not the emotional-behavioural similarity, which should cause him to be 
eevolted). Thus he is utterly unable to distinguish between savages (in chapter 11), who 
attempt to kill him, and the magnanimous Portuguese captain Don Pedro de Mendez, 
who treats him so well. 
 
He cannot stand the touch of his wife and finds the sight and smell of his children 
revolting. And he hates himself because of his physical nature, as evident in his 

 
determination “to behold my Figure often in a Glass, and thus is possible to habituate 
myself by Time to tolerate the Sight of a human Creature”.