Editing Gulliver's Travels (section)

===Character analysis===
'''Pedro de Mendez''' is the name of the Portuguese captain who rescues Gulliver in Book IV. When Gulliver is forced to leave the Island of the [[Houyhnhnms]], his plan is "to discover some small Island uninhabited" where he can live in solitude. Instead, he is picked up by Don Pedro's crew. Despite Gulliver's appearance—he is dressed in skins and speaks like a horse—Don Pedro treats him compassionately and returns him to Lisbon.

Though Don Pedro appears only briefly, he has become an important figure in the debate between so-called soft school and hard school readers of ''Gulliver's Travels''. Some critics contend that Gulliver is a target of Swift's satire and that Don Pedro represents an ideal of human kindness and generosity. Gulliver believes humans are similar to Yahoos in the sense that they make "no other use of reason, than to improve and multiply ... vices".<ref name="DeMaria Jr"/> Captain Pedro provides a contrast to Gulliver's reasoning, proving humans are able to reason, be kind, and most of all: civilized. Gulliver sees the bleak fallenness at the center of human nature, and Don Pedro is merely a minor character who, in Gulliver's words, is "an Animal which had some little Portion of Reason".<ref>Clifford, James (1974) "Gulliver's Fourth Voyage: 'hard' and 'soft' Schools of Interpretation". ''Quick Springs of Sense: Studies in the Eighteenth Century''. Ed. Larry Champion. Athens: U of Georgia Press. pp. 33–49. {{ISBN|9780820303130}}</ref>