Satire’s Mirror:
Exposing Death Denial in Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels
Larissa Fitzpatrick
Making Sense of: Death and Dying
8th Global Conference
November 12-14, 2011
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As humans, we show capacity for empathy, love and forgiveness, yet we also engage in
continual instances of intolerance. Atrocities such as violence, war and genocide occur across
boundaries of time and location. We have long pondered our capacity for evil, wondering where
the source exists. Aristotle described human beings as rational animals; satirist Jonathan Swift
contradicts this idea, saying that humans are merely capable of rationality. Swift was frustrated
by “the constant spectacle of creatures capable of reason, and therefore of reasonable conduct
steadfastly refusing to live up to their capabilities” (Abrams 876). For Swift, “madness,” as he
calls it, causes the degradation of reason—madness not in the sense of clinical insanity, but a
“blindness to anything but one’s own private illusions” (Abrams 833).
More than two centuries after Swift wrote, in the 1970’s, cultural anthropologist Ernest
Becker also pondered humanity’s disregard toward its destructive actions. Becker theorizes that
repressed death anxiety drives much of human behavior, especially the capacity for evil. In The
Denial of Death and Escape from Evil Becker speculates that, overwhelmed with their inevitable
demise, humans repress their natural death anxieties and essentially attempt to deny death by
investing themselves in cultural projects that allow them to strive for symbolic immortality.
Although necessary to ease our panic of impending death, our cultural immortality symbols often
have the paradoxical effect of causing harm when a disagreement between cultures becomes a
raging fight for immortality.
Although living in different centuries and nations, Becker and Swift commonly found
frustration in humanity’s inability to acknowledge its destructiveness. Becker writes, “For
twenty-five hundred years we have hoped and believed that if mankind could reveal itself to
itself, could widely come to know its own cherished motives, then somehow it would tilt the
balance of things in its own favor” (The Denial of Death 8). I will be using Becker’s theories
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with examples from Swift’s mock travel narrative, Gulliver’s Travels, to propose that by
revealing the illusions of immortality striving and promoting self-reflection, satire has the
potential to alleviate some of death denial’s negative effects. A work of satire is designed to
attack vice or folly through wit or ridicule. Satire can expose death denial by critiquing from a
distance through humor, breaking down unreachable idealized images and using paradox to call
attention to absurdities. By bringing the fear of death, as well as other human folly, out of the
realm of dangerous avoidance, satire can move us toward wise recognition. In the preface to
“The Battle of the Books”, Swift says:
satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face
but their own; which is the chief reason for that kind of reception it meets in the
world, and that so very few are offended with it. But if it should happen
otherwise, the danger is not great…for anger and fury, though they add strength to
the sinews of the body, yet are found to relax those of the mind, and to render all
its efforts feeble and impotent (The Oxford Authors 1).
Swift encouraged self-analysis as it tends to “mortify and humble a Man into a modest and low
Opinion of himself,” making him “less severe upon other People’s Faults” (Thickstun 524). This
essay will focus only on classic literary satire, saving nonliterary satire and satiric forms from
popular culture for another project.
Becker sees human strife stemming from the unavoidable disconnection between a
temporary body and a limitless mind. We have an innate terror, as we “have emerged from
nothing, to have a name, consciousness of self, deep inner feelings, an excruciating inner
yearning for life and self-expression—and with all this yet to die” (Denial xii). Unlike other
animals that experience fear only in present danger, humans carry the burden of the knowledge
of impending death. We would be petrified with terror if we fully acknowledged our situation.
To defend ourselves against the terrifying anxiety of death, we conspire to keep it unconscious
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by filling our lives with meaning, rituals and behaviors that essentially make up culture. “Man
needs a ‘second’ world, a world of humanly created meaning, a new reality that he can live,
dramatize, nourish himself in” (Denial 189). This “second” world is primarily symbolic, yet we
define ourselves both individually and within groups through symbols. Becker describes our
situation: we are “in the flesh and doomed with it, out of the flesh in the world of symbols and
trying to continue on a heavenly flight” (Escape from Evil 96). Humans deny death by clinging
to what Becker calls immortality symbols. Whether we worship in a temple, write a book,
establish a family or even follow a sports team, our immortality symbols sustain us with a feeling
of reassurance, allowing us to be a part of something more enduring in a world where we cannot
remain. For Becker, all of culture and history can “be looked at as a succession of immortality
ideologies, or as a mixture at any time of several of these ideologies” (Escape 154). Immortality
symbols give us more meaning and permanence than our bodies permit, allowing us to gain
power over mortality and, in a way, to transcend death. Becker states that “what man really fears
is not so much extinction, but extinction with insignificance” (Escape 4).
The construction of immortality symbols has dual consequences. Symbols allow us to
create a reality different than the dark truth of our mortality, an illusion necessary for everyday
human function. Becker refers to “one’s life style [as] a vital lie,” using the term vital because
“it is a necessary and basic dishonesty about oneself and one’s whole situation” (Denial 55).
However, while he acknowledges the necessity of constructed meaning, he also sees the dangers
of believing too firmly in immortality symbols. When we believe so strongly in our private
illusions formed by the need to deny our mortality, we are likely to be at least intolerant of if not
violent toward groups with different beliefs, cultures and views of reality. Sam Keen writes that
“our heroic projects that are aimed at destroying evil have the paradoxical effect of bringing
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more evil into the world. Human conflicts are life and death struggles—my gods against your
gods, my immortality project against your immortality project” (Denial xiii). The scapegoat,
with its immortality ideology that does not match our own, threatens to expose the very fallacies
that sustain us. By viewing a victim as the embodiment of evil, a person or community projects
inner frustration onto a scapegoat, often spurring violent aggression (Piven 241). Satire acts as a
sort of crowbar, removing us far enough from our lifestyles to encourage contemplation of our
own immortality symbols.
While literature often provides a lens with which to confront any manner of
uncomfortable issues, satire especially gives us a way to examine ourselves from a safe-distance,
and even to laugh at ourselves. Satire often uses humor to lighten serious and unpleasant topics,
from petty disagreements to death and devastation. In Part I of Gulliver’s Travels, Gulliver finds
himself on the island of Lilliput, a nation engaged in religious war with the neighboring land,
Blefuscu. The religious disagreement exists over the proper way to break an egg. Swift uses
humor to satirize disputes between Catholics and Protestants: “it is computed, that eleven
thousands Persons have, at several times, suffered Death, rather than break their Eggs at the
smaller End” (Gulliver’s Travels 41). Swift comically uses an egg, as a “correct end” does not
exist; similarly, one view of reality does not trump another. With something as silly as an egg, it
becomes easy to see, and not be threatened by, the idea that people would fight over ways of life.
However, Swift does not completely conceal his reproach with the comedic scene, as the
ridiculous dispute reveals the unnecessary waste of lives in war. Swift comments: “Neither are
any Wars so furious and bloody, or so long Continuance, as those occasioned by Difference in
Opinion, especially if it be in things indifferent” (GT 207). In attempting to secure their
symbolic immortality, the Lilliputians and Blefuscans surrender their own lives while taking
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those of others. Keen writes, “No doubt, one of the reasons Becker has never found a mass
audience is because he shames us with the knowledge of how easily we will shed blood to
purchase the assurance of our own righteousness” (Denial xiv). Unlike theoretical writing,
satire’s use of humor allows us to step back from our ideologies and notice our harmful behavior.
Unlike the Lilliputians who “see with great exactness, but at no great distance,” we can hope to
learn to reflect on our own immortality symbols, especially when they are destructive (GT 47).
If humor eases the reader into contemplation, satire also uses tactics of unease to question
traditional thought, including impossible idyllic standards. Satirists can “provoke by holding up
to scrutiny our idealized images of ourselves—forcing us to admit that such images are forever
out of reach, unavailable to us, or even the last things we would really want to attain” (Griffin
60). After sailing to the kingdom of Luggnagg, Gulliver is introduced to a group of immortals
called Struldbruggs. Initially, the idea of eternal life astonishes Gulliver, making him envious:
“happiest beyond all comparison are those excellent Struldbruggs, who born exempt from that
universal Calamity of human Nature, have their Minds free and disengaged, without the weight
and depression of Spirits caused by the continual Apprehension of Death” (GT 176). However,
these immortals, not blessed with infinite youth, spend eternity slowly becoming decrepit and
miserable. After seeing the horrible existence of these immortals firsthand, Gulliver understands
this type of immortality as a curse rather than a blessing. Kallich writes: “Gulliver loses his keen
appetite for eternal life, and learns the only lesson that their endless senility can teach ordinary
mortals—which is to face death courageously” (54). Gulliver wishes he could “send a Couple of
Struldbruggs to [his] own Country, to arm [his] People against the Fear of Death” (GT 181).
Becker writes:
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we can envisage a utopia wherein people will have such long lives that the fear of
death will drop away, and with it the fiendish drivenness that has haunted man so
humiliatingly and destructively all through his history and now promises to bring
him total self-defeat. Men will then be able to live in an ‘eternal now’ of pure
pleasure and peace, become truly the godlike creatures that they have the potential
to be (Denial 266).
Becker, however, understands the mistake in this reasoning. Even if we could greatly lengthen a
life-span, a virus or accident could deprive a person of 900 years instead of 90, becoming ten
times more absurd. As Becker says, “if something is ten times more absurd it is ten times more
threatening” (Denial 267). Though we see death as an evil interruption to our existence, it also
makes life worth embracing. Life without end would be meaningless, as much of the meaning
we create is in our revolt against death. Keen notes, “Gradually, reluctantly, we are beginning to
acknowledge that the bitter medicine [Becker] prescribes—contemplation of the horror of our
inevitable death—is, paradoxically, the tincture that adds sweetness to mortality” (Denial xii).
Breaking down the long-desired human ideal of immorality reveals that the temporality of life
allows us to embrace individual moments and feel exhilarated to be alive.
Like the disruption of idyllic impossibilities, satire also disturbs convention through
paradox. Paradox discomforts as it reveals the absurdities that have been accepted as received
opinion. John Dutton writes, “A paradox serves to ‘rouze and awaken the Reason of Men asleep,
into a Thinking and Philosophical Temper” (Griffin 53). In Book IV, Gulliver enters the land of
the Houyhnhnms, whose inhabitants include rational horses and bestial creatures with an
unfortunate physical resemblance to humans. With these horses, the Houyhnhnms, Swift tests
the Aristotelian idea of a “rational animal,” pondering how such an animal would actually
behave. The Houyhnhnms function primarily on what they define as principles of reason,
leaving them without passion, empathy or fear. In Houyhnhnmland, Gulliver continually
associates himself with the Houyhnhnms, juxtaposing his reason against the brutish Yahoos; yet,
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he becomes increasingly self-conscious of his similarity to the Yahoos. Gulliver’s pride, “when
he is at last forced to recognize the likeness between mankind and the Yahoos, causes him to
identify himself, as far as he may, with the Houyhnhnms, accepting their views on himself and
his fellows and striving to be like them” (Williams 74). Gulliver ends his final adventure
neighing like a horse and utterly despising other humans, including his friends and family.
Gulliver dreams of escaping the human condition, leaving behind the demands of the
human body and its restless mind. Dustin Griffin writes, “Gulliver’s Travels derives much of its
disturbing power from [the] paradox [that] it would be better (Gulliver asks us to believe) to be a
Houyhnhnm—calm, always reasonable, all passion well contained—than a human being, even if
it meant giving up most of modern Western culture” (53). Gulliver’s desire to be a Houyhnhnm
is absurd not only because he can never be fully Yahoo, but also he can never be Houyhnhnm—
nor should he want to be. Kathleen Williams writes, “the Houyhnhnms are creatures of nature
and reason, but Swift takes some pains to impress upon us what their shape suggests, that they
are not simply more virtuous and rational, more fully in control of their passions than we; they
are not human beings at all” (62). The Houyhnhnms are reasonable, but Swift emphasizes their
coldness, their lack of human compassion and empathy. At the opposite extreme, the Yahoos
behave inhumanly because they have nothing but bodily senses and passions, while altogether
lacking in reason; in them there is nothing to control passion or to shape it into human affection.
Houyhnhnm and Yahoo represent binary parts of human nature, making it impossible for a
human to be solely one or the other. However, “the most painful satiric point is that the
Houyhnhnms serve as the face we are looking for in the mirror” (Griffin 62). The Houyhnhnms
represent our own highest conception of ourselves and yet are forever beyond our reach.
Although the Yahoos appear to be more savage than the Houyhnhnms, Becker describes that “it
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is man’s ingenuity, rather than his animal nature, that has given his fellow creatures such a bitter
earthly fate” (Escape 5). The “reasonable” Houyhnhnms are in fact much more dangerous than
the Yahoos; by using rationality without empathy, they consider Yahoo genocide as a perfectly
reasonable action. So paradoxically, we need our animal component to make us fully human—a
point Gulliver fails to see, overlooking the treasure of being human.
Becker argues that most of our self-created problems come from the fact that the human
condition itself is a paradox: “man wants to persevere as does any animal or primitive organism;
he is driven by the same craving to consume, to convert energy, and to enjoy continued
experience. But man is cursed with a burden no animal has to bear: he is conscious that his own
end is inevitable, that his stomach will die” (Escape 3). This paradox should seem absurd to us,
because although the “condition of man” has been pondered since the beginning of complex
thought, our situation will, and should always, feel unfair and bizarre. We must admit that we
have good reason to be terrified. But fortunately in a more uplifting paradox, although our
rationality creates many of our problems, it is also the solution. Our innate fear and the rational
attempts to cover our anxiety combine to create death denial. Fear, while perhaps being
lessened, will never be eliminated. Our rationality remains our only chance: “it is the disguise of
panic that makes us live in ugliness, and not the natural animal wallowing. And this means that
evil itself is amendable to critical analysis and, conceivably, to the sway of reason” (Denial xv).
The symbols with which we deny death also create culture, adding comfort and richness
to our lives; however, our social illusions can blind us and lead to destruction. We must find a
balance: “in Gulliver’s Travels, as in life itself, we must work out our solution, not denying but
wrestling with the chaos we are born to, and refusing any of the tempting simplifications which
prove, as in Gulliver’s own case, so dangerous” (Williams 80). Satire does not claim to mend the
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world; similarly, it cannot claim to eliminate death anxiety. Rather, Swift and Becker both hoped
to at least make people see the world’s incongruities. Thomas Hardy writes, “if a way to the
better there be, it lies in taking a full look at the worst” (Escape xi). However, as Griffin notes,
“the task is a formidable one, given the fatal human tendency to avert our eyes from whatever is
disagreeable to contemplate” (Griffin 63). The point of satire is not to banish folly but to
acknowledge it, and in that sense to rob it of its power over us. Similarly, contemplation of death
can allow us to familiarize ourselves with it and thereby ease the negative effects resulting from
denial.
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Works Cited
Abrams, ed. “The Restoration and the Eighteenth Century: 1660-1785.” Norton Anthology of
English Literature, 6th ed. Norton: London, 1996.
Becker, Ernest. The Denial of Death. New York: Free Paperbacks, 1997. Print.
Becker, Ernest. Escape from Evil. New York: Free, 1975. Print.
Griffin, Dustin. Satire: A Critical Reintroduction. Lexington, KY: UP of Kentucky. 1994. Print.
Kallich, Martin. The Other End of the Egg; Religious Satire in Gulliver's Travels. Bridgeport,
CT: Conference on British Studies at the University of Bridgeport, 1970. Print.
Piven, Jerry S. “Transference as Religious Solution to the Terror of Death.” Death and Denial:
Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Legacy of Ernest Becker. Ed. Daniel Liechty.
Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002. Print.
Swift, Jonathan. Gulliver's Travels. Ed. Albert J. Rivero. New York: Norton, 2002. Print.
Swift, Jonathan. The Oxford Authors: Jonathan Swift. Ed. Angus Ross and David Woolley.
Oxford [Oxfordshire: Oxford UP, 1984. Print.
Thickstun, Margaret Olofso. "The Puritan Origins of Gulliver's Conversion in
Houyhnhnmland." Studies in English Literature (Rice) 37.3 (1997): 517. Academic
Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 10 Feb. 2011.
Williams, Kathleen. "Animal Rationis Capax." Modern Critical Interpretations: Gulliver's
Travels. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House, 1986. 37-82. Print.
Works Consulted
Bloom, Edward A., and Lillian D. Bloom. Satire's Persuasive Voice. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP,
1979. Print.
Bullitt, John M. Jonathan Swift and the Anatomy of Satire: a Study of Satiric Technique.
Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1953. Print.
Elliott, Robert C. The Power of Satire: Magic, Ritual, Art. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1960.
Print.
Flight from Death: The Quest for Immortality. Dir. Patrick Shen. Perf. Gabriel Byrne and Perrin
Sprecace. Transcendental Media, 2005. DVD.
Fussell, Paul. "The Paradox of Man." Modern Critical Interpretations: Gulliver's Travels. Ed.
Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House, 1986. 91-113. Print.