Gulliver’s Travels : The Houyhnhnm

Utopian

". . . he said he had been very seriously considering my whole story, as far as it related both to myself and my country; that he looked upon us as a sort of animals to whose share, by what accident he could not conjecture, some small pittance of reason had fallen, whereof we made no other use than by its assistance to aggravate our natural corruptions, and to acquire new ones which nature had not given us."

(Gulliver's Houyhnhnm master gives his damning verdict on Gulliver's fellow men)

-Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels, part IV

Philmus, Robert.  Visions and Revisions: Reconstructing Science Fiction.  Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2005. 

Robert M. Philmus is an acclaimed science fiction writer, as well as a retired English professor at Concordia University in Montreal.  In Philmus’s book, he dissects the langauge of utopia used in famous works of literature, one of them being Gulliver’s Travels book of The Houyhnhnms.  The Houyhnhms, who are a breed of horses, have a society based purely on reason and law, and in their perfection some words are left out of their vocabulary.  For example, since no one lies, they do not have the word ‘lie’ instead they must say “the thing which was not.”  In his book Philmus takes an excerpt from part four The Houyhnhms regarding language:

“I remember in frequent Discourses with my  [Houyhnhnm] Master concerning the Nature of Manhood, in other Parts of the World; having Occasion to talk of Lying and false Representation, it was with much Difficulty that he comprehended what I meant; although he had otherwise a most acute Judgement.  For he argued thus; That the Use of Speech was to make us understand one another, and to recieve Information of Facts; now if any one said the Thing which was not, these Ends were defeated; because I cannot properly be said to understand him; and I am so far from receiving Information, that he leaves me worse than in Ignorance; for I am led to believe a Thing Black when it is White and Short when it is Long.”

In his writing on the language of utopia, Philmus points out that the barrier in communication is just part of the Houyhnhnm society’s conceptual and physical closure from the rest of the universe.  However this closure is necessary for them to retain their utopian ideals.  Philmus stresses the importance of language for the Houyhnhnms, stating: “The Houyhnhmn’s liability to disaccreditation depends especially on (their) language: as long as their linguistic usage remains unaltered, there is no danger that the word Houyhnhnm will lose its original meaning, and with it the guarantee that they are by definition perfect.”  Through his dissection of the utopian Houyhnhnms, Philmus points  out the fragility that constantly hangs in the air, the danger lurking at every corner, threatening to collapse their uptopian world. 

Working with combining my imagery to create a made up space, I have become interested in the idea of utopia, and what constitutes and defines a utopian space.  What continues to fascinate me about the idea of utopia is the constant lack of human beings, since we are intrinsically flawed and prone to irrationality.  Reading about Swift’s Houyhnhmns was interesting to see how a constraining and vulnerable a utopian society really is. 

Image:

http://thelategreats.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/houyhnhnm.jpg