The first essay (three pages) is due in class on Thursday. As I suggested on the first day of class, you can think of these assignments as somewhat more focused versions of a reading response paper. The questions below are suggested topics; you’re also free to come up with your own argument. In general, a good essay will fall into one of two categories: (1) an argument or “position paper,” in which you develop a clearly defined thesis that is supported with a few pieces of textual evidence; or (2) a close reading (or explication de texte, as it’s sometimes--more pretentiously--called), in which the thesis is likely to be more suggestive or descriptive and you concentrate your main energy on unpacking a single long passage (or two or three short ones). It’s difficult to do both of these things in such a brief format, so try to decide in advance which will better serve your purpose.

1. Many readers have commented on the ethnographic elements in Gulliver’s descriptions of the Yahoos in Book IV. Focusing on several specific passages, reflect on the way that this book uses the discourse of colonialism. Does it offer a critique of contemporary colonial practices? What ideas about racial or other forms of differences does Book IV rely on or satirize?

2. “I have got Materials Towards a Treatis proving the falsity of that Definition animal rationale,” Swift writes of Gulliver’s Travels; “and to show it should be only rationis capax” (Norton, p. 585). Man isn’t a rational animal, in other words, but merely an animal capable of reason. Why does Swift insist on this distinction, and what does it clarify about the purpose of Book IV of Gulliver’s Travels? (In the excerpt from Gulliver and the Gentle Reader included in the Norton edition, Claude Rawson alludes to the same topic in a few sentences that may prove helpful here: “Man thinks he is animal rationale, and the Houyhnhnms are a demonstration (which might, as we saw, be logically unacceptable, but is imaginatively powerful), for man to compare himself with, of what an animal rationale really is. R. S. Crane has shown that in the logic textbooks which commonly purveyed the old definition of man as a rational animal, the beast traditionally and most frequently named as a specific example of the opposite, the non-rational, was the horse. . . . The choice of horses thus becomes an insulting exercise in ‘logical’ refutation” [Norton, pp. 692-93].”)

3. There are two radically different readings of Swift’s representation of the society of the Houyhnhnms: one suggests that reason or rationality represents the ultimate ideal of Gulliver’s Travels, the other that reason itself is here brutally satirized. Argue one or the other of these positions, using specific evidence from the text.

4. What are the satirical techniques used in Book IV, chs. v-vi? Do they represent a change from the mode of the earlier books? What explanation does Gulliver give for this change (see esp. the opening of ch. vii)? Does it make sense?

5. Discuss the scene in IV.viii in which Gulliver is pursued by a female Yahoo. What does it suggest about Gulliver, or about people and Yahoos, or about relations between the sexes? (You may also want to consider Gulliver’s reunion with his wife at the end of the volume.)

6. Discuss the debate on extermination in IV.ix. Where is the satire directed here, and what are we meant to think of this political argument?

7. In Book IV, Gulliver explicitly rejects the practice of lying (saying the thing which is not). Where does Gulliver’s Travels finally leave us on the subject of truth-telling? Why does Gulliver invoke the quotation from Virgil near the start of IV.xii?

8. What are the satirical techniques of the Argument Against Abolishing Christianity? Look at two or three specific passages and extrapolate an argument from your close reading.

9. Mandeville’s Modest Defence of Public Stews, like Swift’s argument against abolishing Christianity, is a provocative or counter-intuitive argument for social reform. What are the similarities and differences between these two texts? Does Mandeville’s utilitarianism make the satire work differently than Swift’s? (Alternately, compare Mandeville to the debate on extermination in Book IV of Gulliver’s Travels.)

10. What’s your gut instinct: is Mandeville’s argument misogynistic, or is it equally fair to women and to men? What does he say about women, and what do these comments have to do with the satirical energies of the piece as a whole? What are the main targets of the satire?