Character sketch of Brobdingnagians.
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The Brobdingnagians are giants: they average around 60 feet tall, and their lands and animals are correspondingly huge. Gulliver is incredibly vulnerable in this country, which is why it makes sense that the satire turns increasingly towards the fragility (and grotesqueness) of the human body. Gulliver stumbles into cow pats and is nearly drowned by a frog. All of these tales are truly dire to him, but to the Brobdingnagian court, they are a laugh riot.
In fact, Gulliver's own ego becomes a subject of satire in this section of the novel. The Brobdingnagian King asks Gulliver if he is a Whig or a Tory (about which, see our "Character Analysis" of the Lilliputians), and then laughs. The difference between Whigs and Tories matters about as much to a Brobdingnagian as the distinction between Lilliputian high and low heels matters to Gulliver. Brobdingnag gives Gulliver a taste of his own medicine. On the last island, he was fed and clothed by thousands of servants. Now, he receives the services of Glumdalclitch, a 9-year-old who treats him like a doll.
In fact, Gulliver's own ego becomes a subject of satire in this section of the novel. The Brobdingnagian King asks Gulliver if he is a Whig or a Tory (about which, see our "Character Analysis" of the Lilliputians), and then laughs. The difference between Whigs and Tories matters about as much to a Brobdingnagian as the distinction between Lilliputian high and low heels matters to Gulliver. Brobdingnag gives Gulliver a taste of his own medicine. On the last island, he was fed and clothed by thousands of servants. Now, he receives the services of Glumdalclitch, a 9-year-old who treats him like a doll.
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