[him]…howling and making odious Faces,” Gulliver decides that this a truly irrational and repulsive species. When he first encounters the two Houyhnhnms, however, he is impressed by their seeming language ability and their behavior (their striking of hooves like the shaking of hands) and concludes that they must be “orderly and rational.” Thus Gulliver separates himself from the language-less barbarian Yahoos and resolves to learn the language of the Houyhnhnms. It is interesting to note that he learns to understand their “graceful and significant” language in ten weeks, and in three months can speak enough to answer his “Master’s” questions, whereas it took much less time to learn the languages of the other islands. This indicates that he exalts the language of the Houyhnhnms more than any of the other foreign languages he has learned in his voyages. Finally, the most memorable part of the passage seems to be that in which the Yahoos strike at Gulliver’s vulnerability: his disgust for bodily functions, particularly excrement. As the stricken Yahoo signals the other Yahoos, they crowd around him, jumping into the tree, “from whence they discharge their Excrements on [his] head.” The Yahoos do not just relieve themselves on Gulliver but they do so on his head, the source of Gulliver’s Enlightened brain, the source of his rationality. Thus, not only are they are a threat to his rationality mentally because they have no coherent language but they a threat to his rationality physically as well because they literally dump their dung on it. Furthermore, this gesture of the Yahoos causes great shame because it is as if they seem to mistake Gulliver for one of their own, in effect, initiating him into their species. Dropping excrement is not an uncommon thing to do among Yahoos as the they perform this ritual on the “Favourite” of the “Rul...
