Throughput the book “Gulliver’s Travels” by Jonathan Swift, the character Gulliver changes many times. During and after part two and four of the book a noticeable change in Gulliver starts to occur. He himself may not see it but the reader sees it and ones attitude towards Gulliver might change due to Gulliver’s changes. Throughout these two parts, we see Gulliver as an adventurous man that wants to see everything that has been created in the world.
During his second adventure Gulliver see the opposite side of the spectrum and has to fend for his life because of his small size, which causes him to lose his view of human size when he goes back to England. In addition, he starts to defend England in his talks, which are totally opposite of how he started. In part four we see the most change in Gulliver, he has lost a grip on reality and no longer wants to accept the fact that he is what he is and looks like a Yahoo. In part two and four of Gulliver’s Travels, we see changes within Gulliver.
In the second part of the book, Gulliver finds himself living with a group of giants called Brobdingnagians. During his stays with the giants, he is very pleased with their society and the long conversations that he is able to have with the queen. Since he is so tiny, he finds himself defending himself against animals and one man that is upset that he is no longer the smallest man. During his fights, we see Gulliver turning into a fighter because his life depends on how well he can protect himself. In addition, most of all we see Gulliver’s attitude towards England change.
We start to see this in his talks with the queen. He defended England because he does not want to admit that the queen is right, that her country is better than his is and that England does not have its country set up so that everyone is equal. Gulliver does know about his change in talk about England, he even admits it to the reader. He says, “It was vain to discover my Resentments, which were always turned into Ridicule; And I was forced to rest with Patience while my noble and most beloved Country was so injuriously treated” (123).
This change is not as harmful to Gulliver’s state of mind as the next change that he endures. The last part of the book has Gulliver facing an extreme different point of view that changes Gulliver into a mental state to which he may not recover. He encounter to cultures, the Houyhnhums and the Yahoos. The Houyhnhums are very intelligent horses that live like ordinary humans, and the Yahoos are humans that act like dumb monkeys that are only useful for manual labor, and have almost no intellect. To Gulliver he is not like the Yahoos but to the Houyhnhums people he looks like them but he is smarter.
The whole idea of Gulliver looking like a Yahoo starts to roll around in Gulliver’s head and he starts to lose his mind. He changes his mind about what he looks like and believes that he must never congregate with people that look like them, for example, human beings from England and everywhere else that people have intellect like him. We see the change when he is sent of the island and would rather prefer going to different islands with monsters than going back home were everyone looks like a Yahoo.
When he is finally saved from his boat we see how much his mindset has changed by the way that he treats the sailor that saved him. When on the ship Gulliver is so disgusted by their look that when hearing the men talk he says, “When they began to talk, I thought I never heard or saw anything so unnatural; for it appeared to me as monstrous as if a Dog or a Cow should speak in England, or a Yahoo in Houyhnhum-land” (262). Gulliver can no longer see or compare a human characteristic without comparing it to the Yahoos.
The last depiction of Gulliver believing that all humans are Yahoos is specifically said when he says, “The Captain had often entreated me to strip myself of my savage Dress, and offered to lend me the best Suit of Clothes he had. This I would not be prevailed on to accept, abhorring to cover myself with anything that had been on the back of a Yahoo” (264). In this quote, Gulliver says that the Captain is a Yahoo, when really, he is just a man like Gulliver, but Gulliver refuses to accept the idea that he looks like a Yahoo and that all Yahoos look like humans, even though humans like him are not Yahoos.
Throughout these two parts of the book, Gulliver changes for the worst. He no longer is sane and he does not know who he really is. Gulliver lives for adventure, but it is adventure that ruins him. By going on his adventures he not only changes but also his family does too. He no longer has a place in his home. Time has gone by and his family does not know what has happened to him so he has become the ugly duckling must learn to cope with him changes because no one else can unless he changes back to how he was remembered.