7. Based on what you have read, do you think the Lilliputians were an intelligent
race? Support your answer with examples from the story.
8. What strategy came to Gulliver's mind to get the Lilliputians to set him free?
Answers
Answer:
Gulliver’s Travels, original title Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, four-part satirical work by Anglo-Irish author Jonathan Swift, published anonymously in 1726 as Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. A keystone of English literature, it was one of the books that gave birth to the novel form, though it did not yet have the rules of the genre as an organizing tool. A parody of the then popular travel narrative, Gulliver’s Travels combines adventure with savage satire, mocking English customs and the politics of the day.
Gulliver's Travels
Gulliver's Travels
Lemuel Gulliver in Lilliput, illustration from an edition of Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels.
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Gulliver in Lilliput. Lemuel Gulliver, set ashore after a mutiny, regains consciousness and finds himself a prisoner of the Lilliputians. From Gulliver's Travels, Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts by Jonathan Swift.
BRITANNICA QUIZ
Jonathan Swift Quiz
What was Jonathan Swift’s pseudonym? Which political parties was he making fun of in Gulliver’s Travels? Test your knowledge of the master of satire with this quiz.
Summary
The book is written in the first person from the point of view of Lemuel Gulliver, a surgeon and sea captain who visits remote regions of the world, and it describes four adventures. In the first one, Gulliver is the only survivor of a shipwreck, and he swims to Lilliput, where he is tied up by people who are less than 6 inches (15 cm) tall. He is then taken to the capital city and eventually released. The Lilliputians indulge in ridiculous customs and petty debates. Political affiliations, for example, are divided between men who wear high-heeled shoes (symbolic of the English Tories) and those who wear low ones (representing the English Whigs), and court positions are filled by those who are best at rope dancing. Gulliver is asked to help defend Lilliput against the empire of Blefuscu, with which Lilliput is at war over which end of an egg should be broken, this being a matter of religious doctrine. Gulliver captures Blefuscu’s naval fleet, thus preventing an invasion, but declines to assist the emperor of Lilliput in conquering Blefuscu. Later Gulliver extinguishes a fire in the royal palace by urinating on it. Eventually he falls out of favour and is sentenced to be blinded and starved. He flees to Blefuscu, where he finds a normal-size boat and is thus able to return to England.
Gulliver’s second voyage takes him to Brobdingnag, inhabited by a race of giants. A farm worker finds Gulliver and delivers him to the farm owner. The farmer begins exhibiting Gulliver for money, and the farmer’s young daughter, Glumdalclitch, takes care of him. One day the queen orders the farmer to bring Gulliver to her, and she purchases Gulliver. He becomes a favourite at court, though the king reacts with contempt when Gulliver recounts the splendid achievements of his own civilization. The king responds to Gulliver’s description of the government and history of England by concluding that the English must be a race of “odious vermin.” Gulliver offers to make gunpowder and cannon for the king, but the king is horrified by the thought of such weaponry. Eventually Gulliver is picked up by an eagle and then rescued at sea by people of his own size.
Gulliver in Brobdingnag
Gulliver in Brobdingnag
Gulliver in Brobdingnag, the land of giants.
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On Gulliver’s third voyage he is set adrift by pirates and eventually ends up on the flying island of Laputa. The people of Laputa all have one eye pointing inward and the other upward, and they are so lost in thought that they must be reminded to pay attention to the world around them. Though they are greatly concerned with mathematics and with music, they have no practical applications for their learning. Laputa is the home of the king of Balnibarbri, the continent below it. Gulliver is permitted to leave the island and visit Lagado, the capital city of Balnibarbri. He finds the farm fields in ruin and the people living in apparent squalor. Gulliver’s host explains that the inhabitants follow the prescriptions of a learned academy in the city, where the scientists undertake such wholly impractical projects as extracting sunbeams from cucumbers. Later Gulliver visits Glubbdubdrib, the island of sorcerers, and there he speaks with great men of the past and learns from them the lies of history. In the kingdom of Luggnagg he meets the struldbrugs, who are immortal but age as though they were mortal and are thus miserable. From Luggnagg he is able to sail to Japan and thence back to England.