In book 4, the Yahoos represented our Basic Human flaws, the Lilliputians in book 1 are used by Swift to attack attacks humankind's wildly excessive pride. Swift fully intends the irony of representing the tiniest race visited by Gulliver as by far the most vainglorious and smug, both collectively and individually.
My favourite example of this is the passage: “Most Mighty Emperor of Lilliput, Delight and Terror of the Universe, whose Dominions extend five thousand (about twelve miles in circumference) to the Extremities of the Globe; taller than the Sons of Men; whose Head strikes against the Sun …..”
The language used here is sycophantic and absurdly flattering. The bathos of “about twelve miles” really shows how vainglorious they are as a country and the emperor whose “Head strikes against the Sun” is actually less then an inch taller then all of his citizens showing clearly the excessive individual pride.
I believe that Swift makes the Lilliputians tiny in order to puncture the self-importance of proud military nations. Swift satirises this when the Lilliputians parade their army beneath Gulliver's legs.
The imagery of Gulliver standing in drab, dirty clothes with legs spread far apart, struggling to balance, with 3000 small Lilliputians marching through his legs really highlights how self important and ridiculous the Lilliputians as a military nation. It is basically a pathetic reminder that their grand parade—in full view of Gulliver's nether regions—is supremely silly and is an absurd way to boost the collective ego of the nation.
The Lilliputian who orchestrated this is described by Gulliver as “A great patron of mine” showing how obsequious and gullible Gulliver is.
Gulliver is, in fact, so gullible that he develops a habit of forgetting that the Lilliputians have no real physical power over him. Their formally worded Oath that Gulliver is forced to sign is a model of pompous and self-
important verbiage, but it works quite effectively on the naïve Gulliver who feels bound not to oppose them, but serve under them in the same obsequious manner that the citizens have towards the emperor despite his physical and moral superiority. This naivety allows Swift to show the ridiculousness each nation Gulliver visits by viewing them from an alternate, innocent perspective. Swift may also uses this naïve character to be moulded seamlessly from a “naive individual... to a sceptical misanthrope” to shock the audience at the end of book 4 when Gulliver is forced to leave and return to his Yahoo like society.
I believe that the Lilliputians represent the absurdity of pride that all Human beings have a tendency to feel. Swift is merely showing that an excess of pride is absurd because we are only human and not so special as our ego would have us believe.
Contemptuous intellectualism - Laputa
My final observation of Swifts pessimism of Human nature is that of his views on contemptuous intellectualism and especially our nature of ruining society through acts of pointless change.
Swift begins by singling out theoretical knowledge. His portrait of the disagreeable and self-centred Laputans, who show blatant contempt for those who are not sunk in private theorizing, is a clear satire against those who pride themselves on knowledge above all else. The Laputans do not symbolize knowledge itself but rather the pursuit of a form of knowledge that is not directly related to the improvement of human life.
Swift was a critic of newfangled ideas springing up around him at the dawn of the Enlightenment period and Swift shows his distain immediately in book 3 by naming the floating island “Laputa” meaning “the whore” in Spanish, which was no mistake as Swift was fluent in Spanish. He could have done this so that only “contemptuous theorising intellectuals” could have spotted this.
Swift, himself, recognises that he too is bound by human nature and satirises himself in the text later on in book 4, the incident was when:
The Houyhnhnms state in a contemptuous tone that Gulliver can’t be from beyond the sea cause no other landmasses exist except the one habituated by the Houyhnhnms. I think Swift was poking fun at the person who thinks everything that needs to be known, is known and that there is no need for new knowledge. Swift may be satirizing himself as his attitude towards the changes going on around him during the period of enlightenment was one of distain.
Below the city of Laputa, in Balnibarbi where seemingly normal people are oppressed by floating island above, theoretical knowledge has proven positively disastrous. It is explained to Gulliver that some Laputans came down to create vast collages to perfect their already functioning society. However, these academies result in the ruin of agriculture and architecture and stem the impoverishment of the population.
A perfect example is the quote where Gulliver observes that: “In these Colleges, the Professors contrive new Rules and Methods of Agriculture and Building, whereby, one Man shall do the Work of Ten; a Palace may be built in a Week, with Materials so durable as to last forever without repairing. The only Inconvenience is, that none of these Projects are yet brought to Perfection; and in the mean time, the whole Country lies by miserably in waste”
Overall, Swift presents his pessimism of contemptuous intellectualism through the Laputans as showing how change is not necessarily a good thing and highlighting all the dangers and limitations that abstract and theoretical knowledge have.
That concludes my analysis of Swifts pessimism of human nature through using the Yahoos, Lilliputians and Laputans to expose those proud contemptuous figures of the state and to expose the true nature of mankind’s:
- Basic Human nature
- Excessive Pride
- Contemptuous intellectualism
I will now present Larkin’s pessimism of Human nature, mainly that of Human Failure and Basic Human nature drawing comparisons with Swifts presentation of pessimism.
Philip Larkin’s style of poetry deals mostly with “disappointment in life, love and mankind's long struggle against indifference to human suffering”. All of his poems are meticulously structured with plentiful use of enjambment and rhyme. A perfect example is “Faith Healing” where each line is carefully constructed to be decasyllabic with a strange rhyme scheme of 1231241243, but it was constructed so that every aspect of the poem added to the message that Larkin wanted to convey which was that the structure of religion may seem sturdy and elegant but the truth is that is all constructed and that Faith healing is quackery.
Larkin’s pessimism of human nature is evident and I want to focus on two poems in particular that show how Larkin presents his Pessimism of “general human failure” and his pessimism of “Basic human nature”.
“As Bad as a Mile’ is a poem about human failure. It takes, as is typical of Larkin, a mundane and everyday act of chance and invests it with powerful significance. Larkin takes a simple scene of someone throwing an apple core at a bin and missing. This might strike anyone as unlucky, but Larkin delves deeper into how this represents Human failure as a whole.
Larkin raises the question of whether: Are all of life’s failures are less to do with luck, and more to do with a chain of personal and human failures?
The question is formulated by lines 3 and 4 where we are invited to think about whether throwing the apple core and missing the basket is chance or does it show “less and less of luck, and more and more/ Of failure”. I think that Larkin wants us to realise that this isn’t to do with luck, but to do with our failure as human beings.
In fact, this whole poem is structured so the sequence of events happens in reverse so that we can be encouraged to look back at our failures, with the last two lines show this clearly “Earlier and earlier, the unraised hand calm, /The apple unbitten in the palm.” But with its repetition of ‘earlier and earlier’, the poem also encourages the reader to go back much much further: to the Fall of Man, the Garden of Eden, and to the apple that Eve picked from the Tree of Knowledge.
Therefore, the apple unbitten in the palm –represents original sin and man is poised to make the biggest mistake in history. Larkin has chosen his words very carefully in this poem. “Spreading” for example describes human failure, but it implies that this failure is cancerous in nature, like a disease bound to all humanity. The title in itself is important to the overall message of the poem. “As Bad as a mile” is taken from the well known saying “A miss is as good as a mile” however, Larkin replaces “good” with bad which changes the light-hearted tone into a cold, serious and pessimistic tone which Larkin fully intended. I believe that tone is a very important distinction between these two authors.
Swift often uses a range of tones including humour, satire and bluntness to get his point across; where as Larkin’s poetry rarely delves into humour, but his tone is predominantly pessimistic of the Human condition. Another basic, but important difference is the type of writing that each author uses. Swifts long epic adventures allow him to jump around certain topics and ridicule many different aspects of Human nature. It is specifically the content that is important in these adventures, where as in Larkin’s poetry, Structure, tone, style and technique are vastly important as the poems he writes are generally short and so everything about the poem (as said previously) needs to be co-ordinated to address the issue that Larkin wants to specifically attack.
In “Sunny Prestatyn” Larkin specifically attacks Basic Human nature. It is set around crude graffiti on an outwardly inoffensive poster, and is symbolic of male sexual aggression. I find that Larkin’s pessimism is more aggressive in this poem as seen by the obscene language used to describe these defacements. Larkin dislikes the state of society and commercialism that portrays a superficial life, so, perhaps in a twisted way, he likes the defaced poster as it brings the harsh reality of human nature back from the propaganda ideal. This can be seen in the 4th to last line of the last stanza which says “She was too good for this life”.
This is a similarity between the authors as they both see what Human nature really is. Swift despised the aristocrats who pretended to be the height of reason and decency whereas he knew of the scandal and backstabbing beneath the surface, in the same way Larkin despised commercialism as he knew that beneath the surface there was nothing more then a desire to make money. The message is made clearer by the title Sunny Prestatyn as we conclude by the end of the poem that Prestatyn is simply a money making business and is far from perfect shown by the poem containing unobtainable ideals.
There are two specific techniques that really define this poem. The most obvious is that of the hostile/obscene language, especially in the second stanza.
“Snaggle-toothed and boss-eyed; /Huge tits and a fissured crotch”
This is a good example of the hostile language used to highlight the attitude of men who see women as objects. The line 'slapped up one day in March' suggests casual violence. There is further aggression when the girl is made 'snaggle-toothed and boss-eyed'. These colloquial terms make this stanza all the more forceful. The vandal of the poster was obviously proud; signing his work with 'Titch Thomas' showing that Larkin believes that it is only in human nature to take advantage of the innocent and be proud of it in a sick and mentally primative way.
The second specific technique used throughout the Whitsun weddings collection is the use of Ambiguous language. It allows the reader to interpret what the meaning of the poem in many different ways.
In Sunny Prestatyn; “Slapped up one day in March” acts as dark humour as it is ambiguous whether it is the poster being slapped onto a wall or the real girl being physically hit. The second example of ambiguous language is present in the last line: “Now Fight Cancer is there.”
Larkin leaves it up to the reader whether the cancer is the attitude of men who see women as objects, or whether it is this behaviour which is the cancer of humanity, or more likely; is the cancer a metaphor for the cancer in society such as the advertising industry? Larkin as always brings the harsh reality back to the reader at the end. Swift also believes in this cancer of society, evident in his description of the twisted society of each of the places he visited.
In conclusion, I believe that Swift and Larkin were two people perturbed by to human condition, however, what they believe is so pessimistic about the human condition is its capacity to lie. Swift satirises contemptible figures who are oblivious to their own shortcomings and Larkin shows through his poetry how he detests humans ideals (pause), such as the unobtainable ideals of Prestatyn promoted in the poster or the ideals of Faith Healing that is merely American quackery or that lie that we lead when we dismiss failure to luck or chance as seen in “As bad as a mile”. They wanted to show that we are Human and we are bound by our nature. And we must accept that human nature is never and will never be perfect.
