Jonathan Swift and Voltaire mock the behaviors of Humans by citing two different Utopias. In Gulliver’s Travels the yahoos are not even human but they behave the same way towards colored stones that Humans do. In contrast, the people of El Dorado do not care at all about the gold and jewels that align their streets. The authors are hoping that perhaps the reader will see similarities between both places and the reader’s personality to show the fixation with material goods.
In Swift’s story “Gulliver’s Travel” Gulliver is constantly comparing the society to his own. Gulliver is in shock of the Houyhnhnm’s brilliance and soon begins to criticize the intelligence of humans and even the way of living. The Houyhnhnm don’t have any culture, they have no freedom, they have no choice, yet their life is more simplistic than the life Gulliver is used to. Whereas in Gulliver’s life he would constantly speak of war, lawyers, and doctors. Gulliver admires the Houyhnhnm’s way of living, he believed that their way is the right way and we, humans live our life without reasoning. We have no control of our future and will end up like Yahoos. Yahoos are free to live in various parts of the land as wild beast. Their law system is completely different because they are free to live corrupt.
In addition to the yahoos’ obsessive behavior towards the colored stones, is their desire for food, not because they are hungry but because they are greedy. Even though there is plenty food provided for each yahoo to eat, each will still try to get all the food for him or herself: “For if you throw among five yahoos as much food as would be sufficient for fifty, they will, instead of eating peaceably, fall together by the ears, each single one impatient to have all to itself” (Gulliver’s Travels; Western Literature).
On the other hand, in Candide the people of El Dorado treat the stones with lack of interest. When Candide and his companion Cacambo arrive in El Dorado they see the...