Humanity as a balance between rationality and passion“A journey to the country of the Houyhnhnms”Gulliver's Travels by Jonathon Swift takes place in four parts, each of which describes the adventures of Gulliver with fantastic species of foreign nations. Swift's search for meaning was controversial; The novel has been interpreted along a wide spectrum ranging from children's story to satire of human nature. The greatest debate is in the realm of satire, and the fourth part of Gulliver's Travels, "A Journey to the Land of the Houyhnhnms," is just one area where critics argue for a variety of satirical meanings. Critics traditionally hold the “hard” interpretation, which posits the strictly rational nature of the Houyhnhnms as a positive ideal to strive for, and the passionate nature of the Yahoos as inherently creepy and to be avoided. I argue, however, that Swift uses the Houyhnhnms and Yahoos to represent the virtues of rationality and passion taken to the extreme as ultimately paralyzing. Although Houyhnhnms and Yahoos are innately good and embody admirable characteristics, their inability to incorporate the opposing motivations of passion or reason causes them to exhibit undesirable characteristics. Pedro de Mendez is presented to portray the ideal man as one who balances passion and rationality, while Gulliver represents the dysfunctional state of a man who denies the complexities of his own human nature. Houyhnhnms, while largely seen as virtuous, display a variety of characteristics that are much despised by modern human society. E.E. Sullivan, author of "Houyhnhnms and Yahoos: From Technique to Meaning", emphasizes this concept when he writes: The Houyhnhnms' particular... middle of paper... 26.2 (1965): 273-79. JSTOR. Network. May 15, 2011.Nichols, Mary P. “Rationality and Community: Swift's Critique of the Houyhnhnms.” The newspaper of politics 43.4 (1981): 1153-169. JSTOR. Network. May 15, 2011. Radner, John B. “The Struldbruggs, the Houyhnhnms, and the Good Life.” Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 17.3 (1977): 419-28. JSTOR. Network. May 15, 2011. Sullivan, E.E. "Houyhnhnms and Yahoo: From Technique to Meaning." Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 24.3 (1984): 497-511. JSTOR. Network. May 15, 2011.Swift, Jonathon. Part 4. A trip to the country of the Houyhnhnms. 1735. Ed. Kevin Dettmar. The Longman anthology of British literature. Ed. David Damrosch. vol. 1C. Pearson Education, 2010. 2381-426. Print.Williams, Kathleen M. "Gulliver's Voyage to the Houyhnhnms." The Johns Hopkins University Press 18.4 (1951): 275-86. JSTOR. Network. May 15 2011.