reader is meant to laugh at Gulliver ’s extreme attitudes. Moreover, the Houyhnhnms represent a false standard, and as Kathleen Williams(1958:86) argues, “ the Houyhnhnms are as much subject to ironic treatment ” as any other character in Gulliver ’s Travels. Readers generally find the Houyhnhnms “ remote, unsympathetic, and in the end profoundly unsatisfying ”. Opposed to this line of interpretation is the “ hard ” school of critics led by Crane, who, according to Clifford, emphasize “ the shock and difficulty ”of Gulliver ’s Travels and insist that “ the Houyhnhnms do indeed represent some kind of an ideal ”, and “ are not being satirized or attacked in the same manner as the Yahoos ”. There is nothing either utopian or hyper-rational about the Houyhnhnms ’ conviction that “ Reason alone
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