As surprising as it may seem, I didn’t realize coming into college, the extent I’d need to be able to communicate with people different from myself. Growing up, I’ve travelled the world, moved around, and been exposed to all sorts of people and cultures. This made me think  I’d be more prepared than most kids who’d go to university. In reality, I’ve come to realize that interacting with people who are different from us, is a never-ending journey. The more we expose ourselves, the more we can adapt. The beauty of humanity is that there are just so many people, unique and different; no matter how much you think you know, there is always something more to learn from one another.

In communication studies, we learn about this process. The interactions and communications made between any two different cultures fall under the umbrella term: intercultural communication. Within this study, we have several communication styles and theories to explain how humans learn to adapt and live within our differences. A specific concept that explains how many of us do this, is border dwellers: people who live between cultures and experience contradictory cultural patterns (Alberts). In this paper, we will be exploring the concept of border dwellers through the use of literature, in specific Johnathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels: Part IV. A Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms. Through the application of border dwellers in literature, we can further understand the importance and prevalence of intercultural communication.

Border dwellers come in all shapes, colors, and sizes. Communication studies divide them into three broad categories: travel, socialization, and relationships (Alberts). Jonathan Swift portrays his protagonist, Gulliver, as all three types of border dwellers. 

When readers are first introduced to his character, Gulliver is travelling on the sea. His crew overthrows him and banishes him to “the first place”  they discover “on land” (Swift). Gulliver washes ashore to the “country of the Houyhnhnms,” a place unfamiliar to his home, with a new culture, making him a travel border dweller (Swift). 

In communication studies, we define travel border dwellers as people who live between cultures because of where they go (Alberts). Voluntarily, many people choose to travel or move countries for different experiences and opportunities (Alberts). Others travel involuntarily, like Gulliver, due to uncontrollable circumstances such as famine, poverty, war, diseases, or natural disasters (Alberts). When the environment of one is changed and is no longer familiar, a sense of discomfort and difficulty can be felt when learning to adapt to the social norms of the new culture (Alberts). Gulliver not only takes time to learn the new language of the land of the Houyhnhnms but experiences culture shock in doing so as well.  An example of this is when Gulliver learns that the Houyhnhnms prefer to be naked than clothed, as they do not understand why one would “conceal what nature had given” (Swift). To come from the human world, where the norm is to cover oneself, to a land where that is frowned upon, it can be confusing and very unfamiliar for the border dweller. 

Additionally, not only can we experience culture shock when we interact with new and different cultures, but when we return to our original home, we can also experience a reverse culture shock (Alberts). By the end of Part IV of Swift’s book, Gulliver is sent back to the human world involuntarily. Gulliver recalls how  “during the first year,” after he returned home, he “could not endure”  his “wife or children” (Swift). The “very smell of them was intolerable” (Swift). He would “suffer” to have to “eat in the same room” as his own family (Swift). He feels “revived,” by the “smell he contracts in the stable,” where he converses with “horses” for “at least four hours every day” (Swift). In the human world, socially, it is not acceptable to “converse” with horses. Moreover, Gulliver's inability to even adapt to the scent of his own home, further demonstrates how reverse culture shock can be experienced by many travel border dwellers. When we learn to live in a new place, we can become very familiar and comfortable with the set norms and expectations of that culture. Once we return home, it can be a struggle to readjust and recalibrate our behaviours to fit back into the acceptable social norms of the original culture. 

In another aspect of adapting to new cultures, border dwellers learn how to fit the expectation of not one but many cultures, and how to switch their behaviours between them. For this reason, communication studies label the second type of border dwellers as socialization (Alberts). These people grow up living between cultures (Alberts). For example, I'm considered a third culture student. People, like myself, are born in one place, grow up in a different place, and have a completely different ethnic background.  However, in Swift’s novel, Gulliver is all human. No part of his genetics is Houyhnhnm, nor did he live long enough to be considered someone who grew up there. Despite this, he falls so in awe and admiration with the new culture he experiences, that the Houyhnhnm culture becomes a part of his identity. He begins to adapt to their language, to their social norms, and their rules. 

The problem many socialization border dwellers face, like Gulliver, is that once you are part of more than one cultural community, you no longer are seen as “enough” in both (Alberts). In my personal experience, being Indian and American, when I travel to India, they see me as too American, and when I travel to America, they see me as too Indian. In Gulliver's case, he is still seen as a Yahoo by the Houyhnhnms. Although in the human world, they do not recognise Houyhnhnms, they still can outcast Gulliver for his new behaviourisms. For example, to “converse” with “horses” could be easily labelled as crazy or inhumane (Swift).

The positive to being a socialization border dweller is that we learn to follow both social norms and rules in all the cultures we live with, broadening our social network and mental capacity to see and understand the world in multiple ways (Alberts). The challenge is to balance and switch between. Gulliver very much struggles with his return to the human world, as his new insights have brought him to look down and prefer one culture over the other. Although the ethics of his decisions can be questioned, Swift uses Gulliver’s inability to communicate competently in both environments as a way to demonstrate our nature as humans. As much as we would like to believe we do not idolise certain cultures over others, we can. Literature gives a spotlight into the ways in which humans interact and communicate, through both our victories and our faults. 

Furthermore, the last category of border dwellers is relationships (Alberts). These border dwellers live on cultural borders as they choose intimate partners who are from a different culture to themselves (Alberts). Although both Gulliver and his wife are human, when he returns home, he is no longer all human. Similarly, in today’s society when we pick and choose who we want to pursue romantically, we do so based on the similarities we perceive ourselves to share, as well as the differences we are willing to live with and learn from (Alberts). 

Unfortunately, after Gulliver is exposed to the Houyhnhnm culture, he sees his wife as a Yahoo and doesn’t see himself as the same. Their differences now are a lot more than when they initially chose to spend the rest of their lives together. Through Swift’s novel, looking at this relationship, readers can learn and see how over time, with exposure to more cultures, we grow as people and can change what we desire in each other, and what differences we are still willing to live with. Although we do not know if Gulliver and his wife end up happily together, the novel’s last reference to their marriage is still Gulliver not even being able to let his wife “touch” his food nor “drink out of the same cup” (Swift).  He says he won’t even be “able to let” her take him “by the hand” (Swift). Perhaps, their new grown differences cannot be worked through. To whose fault that is can be debated, however, we see an example of some of the struggles that come with interacting with people who are culturally now different to us. 

Many of us can identify with being a border dweller at some point in our lives. Although Gulliver is a flawed character, as he still didn’t learn competency and how to respect all cultures, his story is an example of how literature demonstrates the human struggles to learn through our differences. It is very simple to live only within the borders we construct around our comfort zones, nevertheless, interaction with people who are different to us will be inevitable, and can teach us so much. Gulliver may not be perfect however, he expresses towards the end of the novel, of how he wishes the Houyhnhnms could “send a sufficient number of their inhabitants for civilizing Europe, by teaching us the first principles of honour, justice, truth, temperance, public spirit, fortitude, chastity, friendship, benevolence, and fidelity” (Swift). His exposure to a new culture is one he wishes many could experience and learn from as well.

 It was once believed that there is no life beyond on the horizon. Then when we discovered that to be untrue, it was believed that the borders between our oceans would and could keep people apart, from exposure and experience. Today, we can see these are extremely inaccurate historic notions. In our modern world, we have the ability to not only interact with different people face-to-face but even on social media. As Gulliver interacted with the Houyhnhnms, although fictionalised, his story is an example of how literature reminds us through the satire, through the characters, and through the stories, that our differences are what give fire and purpose to us. A book only with characters who are exactly the same, in every value and belief and experience, wouldn’t have the most attention-grabbing plot, nor a realistic outlook to which readers can relate. 

Similarly in our world today it is important to recognise the many instances and the many people, who are uniquely different to us. Even in the smallest way, our differences show us other ways of living. We won’t necessarily like them or have the desire to take on each others' behaviours and beliefs. We may still make a number of mistakes in the unfamiliarity and discomfort with interacting with different people to us, much like Gulliver did; however, we will most definitely learn from these interactions.

Work Cited

Alberts, Jess, Thomas Nakayama, and Judith Martin. Human Communication in Society. 5th ed. Pearson Education, 2019. Print.

Swift, Jonathan. “Gulliver's Travels.” The Project Gutenberg EBook of Gulliver's Travels, by Jonathan Swift. 2009. Web.