What is the pronunciation of Houyhnhnms?
According to Webster’s New World College Dictionary, 4th Edition, Houyhnhnms is pronounced either “hoo-IN-um” or “HWIN-um.” A Houyhnhnm, of course, is one member of a fictional race of intelligent and ethical horses that appears in Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels.
What is the meaning of the word Houyhnhnm?
Definition of Houyhnhnm : a member of a race of horses endowed with reason in Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels.
What causes Gulliver to leave Houyhnhnm?
Gulliver happens to be the important matter at the current assembly. The Houyhnhnms all decide that, as a superior Yahoo, Gulliver might some day go off and convince all the other Yahoos to organize and rise up against the Houyhnhnms. They decide he’s too dangerous to have around, so they boot him out of the country.
How does Gulliver describe the Houyhnhnms?
They live clean, peaceful lives, and exist in harmony and contentment. They live by their own golden rule: Cultivate Reason, and be totally governed by it. Their society is so perfect, that indeed they have no concept of a lie, and thus no word to express the action. Their only word for evil is “Yahoo.”
Why do the Houyhnhnms have so few words in their language?
Why do the Houyhnhnms have so few words in their language? Their wants and passions are fewer than human wants and passions, and so they need fewer words. After Gulliver explains the government of England to the King of Brobdingnag, the King raises some objections about the country’s political system.
What did Gulliver learn from the Houyhnhnms?
Gulliver develops such a love for the Houyhnhnms that he no longer desires to return to humankind. His master tells him that he has considered all of Gulliver’s claims about his home country and has come to the conclusion that Gulliver’s people are not so different from the Yahoos as they may at first have seemed.
What is the main belief of the Houyhnhnms?
The Houyhnhnm society is based upon reason, and only upon reason, and therefore the horses practice eugenics based on their analyses of benefit and cost. They have no religion and their sole morality is the defence of reason, and so they are not particularly moved by pity or a belief in the intrinsic value of life.
Why do the Houyhnhnms hate the Yahoos?
The arguments for exterminating the Yahoos are compelling: The Yahoos are “the most filthy, noisome, and deformed animals which nature ever produced . . . ” and they are “restive and indocible, mischievous and malicious.” In terms of their evolution, the words used to describe the Yahoos are “degenerating by degrees.” …