READING PLAN: GULLIVER´S TRAVELS

THIRD STORY: GULLIVER IN THE COUNTRY OF HOUYHNHNMS

BY JONATHAN SWIFT

Before you read

This story is about horses. Discuss and answer these questions.
How do people use horses in your country? Is a horse´s life good or bad?

People use horses for dance, for example: sailor dance, for sports:
horse riding, among others.
In my opinion, the life of horses is bad since sometimes they are not
fed in a good way or they are sacrificed or good if they are given good
care.

While you read

Activity 1: Which sentences are wrong about the Yahoos?
Correct the wrong ones.

a. They have long hair on their heads and bodies. Their hair was different
colours.TRUE
b. They live in groups and don’t live very near the Houyhnhnms. TRUE
c. Their front feet are like the hands of a man. TRUE
d. They are not afraid of the Houyhnhnms. TRUE
e. They can climb trees. TRUE
f. They love to wash their hair and to be clean. FALSE
The Yahoos love to be dirty.

Activity 2: what did you learn about Houyhnhnms? Write 5 true sentences about Houyhnhnms.

 Houyhnhnms are the bosses because they are a kind of owners.

 Houyhnhnms use Yahoos to work in the farms.
 Houyhnhnms like to be clean.
 Houyhnhnms have their own language, which is too difficult to learn.
 Houyhnhnms teach their young horses too well.

Activity 3: Complete these sentences.

a Finding new men in Barbados was a mistake for Gulliver because they take his ship
and have him captive.
b When Gulliver met the first horse, he put his hand on its back but the horse did
not like it.
c The grey horse’s wife looked at Gulliver in an unfriendly way because she didn’t
know him well.
d They grey horse, his family and his servants wanted Gulliver to learn their language
because they want to make him important questions.
 e Gulliver has to leave. He can no longer live in the grey horse’s house so he tells the gray
horse to give him some wood, so he can left that place.

Activity 4: After you read.

1. What does Swift want to teach us about life in the story? Do you think he is right? Cite
at least one quote from the story to support your ideas.
What Swift wants to teach us with this is that each person has their own problems which can be difficult
or just funny that we have to face every day and see these problems from different perspectives in
order to adapt, just as the author did when to learn a new language “They did this, and in about three
weeks I could speak quite well”. (Swift, 2009, p.9), it will help us to deal with these problems in a better
way.