Black & Green Atlantic

One thing I noticed while reading Gulliver’s Travels is the focus on the body, specifically the focus on using the body for labor. In both Lilliput and the country of the Houyhnhnms, Gulliver is made an other by the natives and forced to live in a separate space. In Lilliput specifically, Gulliver is exploited for his human capital as he is made an instrument of war. In the country of the Houyhnhnms his body is not used for labor, but he is compared to a Yahoo on multiple occasions and is eventually banished from the Island due to the Houyhnhnms’ fear that he will lead a Yahoo uprising. When looking at the treatment of Gulliver in both of these lands, one cannot help but think of slavery in the United States. The Lilliputians’ disgust of Gulliver’s body, especially his defecation, reflects the attitude of disgust slave owners had for their own human capital. The Lilliputians use Gulliver’s body as a weapon and promote him to a Nardac, yet he is still banned from participating in the courts due to the “meanness of his condition.” The Articles created to punish Gulliver are a result of the fear that he would attempt to have sex with the Lilliputian Queen, thus invading the space of the priviliged. The fear of Gulliver’s invasion of the privileged space and his physical strength is a parallel to the fear slave owners expressed towards their slaves, who were typically stronger than the slave owner and designated to their own separate space. 

This fear of brute strength and the invasion of the privileged space is expressed by the Houyhnhnms as well, but to a lesser extent. They are only able to tolerate Gulliver, a Yahoo in their minds, when he is wearing clothes. Otherwise, they are disgusted by the image of his brutish body. They allow him in their homes, but also deny him the right of participating in the local councils due to his similarity in appearance to the Yahoos. The reason for his banishment is the fear that he will start a Yahoo rebellion, similar to how white landowners feared that slaves would start rebellions on their plantations. I am aware that this novel is mainly an Irish text, but the similarities between the relationships Gulliver has with the natives of the lands he travels to and the relationships slaves had with their owners are evident throughout the book, especially during the passages that focus on Gulliver’s body.

In my initial reaction to part 1 of Gulliver’s Travel, I wasn’t shocked to see the exaggerated depiction of Gulliver and his encounter with the Lilliputian people. Right away we see how
Guliver is presented as a well-educated, distinguished, and adventurous individual. In class we entertained the idea of Gulliver being representative of English culture during that time, and I think that approach is fairly accurate through the obvious symbolism in part 1. Gulliver is illustrated as a giant in comparison to the Lilliputians. He is also considered to be far more intelligent and superior than them. I would imagine that during this time period, England viewed themselves as one of the leading powers in the world that couldn’t be touched, and had this “giant” mentality. 

In addition, I mentioned in class how the fact that gullivers accounts are very generous in reference to himself but far fetched when concerning the Lilliputians. This is a great representation of how a country like England would view themselves compared to the rest of the world. A country that, even with its flaws, is more sophisticated, modernized, and appealing than anyone else. I think there is a clear sense of power and dominance through the beginning of Gulliver’s journey, however, there is also a side of compassion and humanity which allows the reader to relate. 

With that being said, if this approach is accurate, and this is a clear depiction of English culture from a position of power, I am curious to see what a current story of Gulliver’s Travel would look like. When I think about how countries employ propaganda and insert themselves at the center of the world, I think this story could be told from the perspective of any one of today’s world powers and the story wouldn’t be too far off from the original. Who today would take the place of Gulliver, and who would be the Lilliputian people?

After reading Lloyd’s piece, the similarities between the treatment of the Irish and Africans and African Americans by the English during the period of colonialism become much more clear. The arguments for Irish colonization used in many of the citations in Lloyd’s writing reflect staple claims of the British civilizing mission, the argument for colonization based on the “improvement” of “less evolved” societies through English teaching. The attitudes of the British writers cited by Lloyd are almost exactly the same to those promoting the African civilizing mission, which shows that the English viewed the black world and the Irish world as two very similar entities. 

The language used to describe the Irish by the English is similarly racist to the language used to describe blacks and makes very similar arguments to those describing the colonization of the African continent. Lloyd’s citation of Thomas Carlyle reads, “The time has come when the Irish population must either be improved a little, or else exterminated… In a state of perennial ultra-savage famine, in the midst of civilization, they cannot continue,” (9). This statement is a disturbing, yet accurate depiction of what the civilizing mission philosophy entails; one either conforms to the English way of life or must be eliminated by that way of life. Civilizations that are not in line with English ideas of modernity are all viewed as inferior under this philosophy, and the African and Irish civilizations are viewed as similar under this philosophy due to their similar apparent lack of modernity. Another quote from Carlyle says, “Crowds of miserable Irish darken all our towns… In his rags and laughing savagery, he is there to undertake all the work that can be done by mere strength of hand and back,” (9). Carlyle describes the Irish as savages in a manner similar to the racist descriptions of black individuals. But he also says the Irish will physically “darken” the towns of the British, implying that the Irish are viewed as “black” individuals. Carlyle goes on further to describe the Irish as “white negroes” and claims that the emancipation of the West Indies would turn the nation into a “Black Ireland, ‘free’ indeed, but an Ireland, and Black!” (10). This racist dialogue implies that the English believed there was an inherent similarity between blacks and the Irish due to the two groups’ lack of modernity, and it is this very lack of modernity that caused the English to see these two peoples as a plague to cultured society.

Gilroy’s theory that there is no individual race due to the great levels of cultural mixing that occurred during the period of Circum-Atlantic trade emphasizes the necessity to look at individuals as beings of multiple influences, but fails to look at those influences as singular entities in and of themselves. I think Gilroy highlights this idea well when he describes Delany’s tour of Africa, saying that the tour “confirmed the dissimilarities between African-American ideologues and the Africans with whom they treated,” (24). The idea that race is an objectively improper descriptor of a human being is justified by this emotional distance from one’s “homeland” and the lack of emotional response that occurs upon “homecoming” after exile. But I believe Gilroy’s argument that all human beings in the Circum-Atlantic area maintain some form of cultural unity with one another is flawed due to the strength of an origin point’s influence over an individual. 

Gilroy describes a difficulty with thinking in black and white terms as “the overintegrated conceptions of pure and homogeneous culture which mean that black political struggles are construed as somehow automatically expressive of the national or ethnic differences with which they are associated,” (31). Essentially, he is saying that black political concerns will always be construed with racial implications if homogeneous thinking continues in society. But, I do not believe that the racial implications of political arguments regarding any race of people can be ignored. I agree that the rationality to think in terms of race is utterly flawed when describing human beings, but I do not believe we realistically have the ability to live in a post-racial world. As much as one can argue that the characters of people are a result of a heterogeneous cultural mixing, it cannot be ignored that there are origin points that led to the mixing in the first place. Origin points are the beginnings of the cultural mixing that Gilroy describes, so this mixing could not exist without them. I think his plea to focus on the heterogeneous rather than homogeneous is a noble one, but to dispel with the notion of origins would completely eliminate the presence of a heterogeneous culture. Without origins, people would be left without cultural definers.