Gulliver's Travels

In part 4 of Gullivers Travels Swift's Savage Indignation finds its fullest expression in lashing human nature and institutions. Explain in detail

In part 4 of Gullivers Travels Swift's Savage Indignation finds its fullest expression in lashing human nature and institutions. Explain in detail

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Gulliver seems willing to turn his back on the English people in favor of those he deems better than the English. Now that he has been exposed to many alternatives, he can think carefully about who to admire and what political systems to favor, and the English certainly come up short in relation to the Houyhnhnms.

Also interesting in these chapters is Gulliver's plain admonishment of lawyers and doctors. Gulliver's negative commentary about lawyers is in many ways not surprising except for its level of ferocity. Lawyers seem no better than politicians, going to court over the petty human squabbles that Gulliver satirized as early as Part I. Gulliver's description of doctors as shallow and greedy people who would kill a patient as soon as cure him is surprising to contemporary readers, especially because Gulliver has spent so many years working as a surgeon. One should remember that eighteenth-century medicine was still rather poor.

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