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Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)
Jonathan Swift is one of the multitudes of brilliant writers that hail from the Emerald Isles. Born to English parents in Dublin in 1667, Swift became a product of Irish culture and learning. He was educated at the esteemed Kilkenny School and Trinity College in Dublin, and became an assistant to author and diplomat Sir William Temple in Moor Park in Surrey. He left this position after Temple died in 1699 to earn his priest's ordination, and picked up his first parish in Kilroot (near Belfast). During this mobile time of religious exploration and geographic cavorting, Swift began to explore his frustrations with society through his writings. He wrote about the poverty he saw amongst the people, he wrote about his friendships with two notable women (Esther Johnson and Esther Vanhomrigh), he wrote about the typical daily life of city folk, and he wrote about the problems he witnessed in the social order. It is this meticulous writing that makes Swift one of the most renowned satirists of English society and British history. He believed that women deserved to be educated, that social conventions were outdated and must be changed, and that qualities of mind (and not physical beauty) should be the foundations of love. In many ways, Swift was ahead of his time in his pull for a feminist revolution. Perhaps because of his more modern and honest philosophy, Swift fell in love with Esther Vanhomrigh, for whom he invented the name "Vanessa," which appears in much of his poetry. These writings reflect a mutual admiration, in which both man and woman learn from each other. Unfortunately, the two lovers never married, for Esther ("Vanessa") died in 1722, before the publication of Gulliver's Travels.
Swift continued to work as a clergyman in Ireland, traveling throughout the United Kingdom, writing on both secular and parochial subject matter. He also found a heavy interest in politics, taking up weight in the Tory party of England's governmental party system. From such observations in government and religion, and love and gender inequality, Swift produced an enormous body of work. His writings fall into several categories, including poetry, short stories, political essays, and novels. Some highlights include "A Tale of a Tub," "A Modest Proposal," "A Description of Morning," "A Description of a City Shower," "The Progress of Marriage," "A Satirical Elegy on the Death of a late Famous General," "A Lady's Dressing Room," and of course, Gulliver's Travels, published in 1726.
Gulliver's Travels is perhaps Swift's most prolific and well-known work, spanning a literary sixteen years in physical journey and countless more in personal exploration. In it, Swift explores gender differences, politics, class, money, race, science, education, exploration, love, physical strength, physical beauty, and more, and forces stringent satirical commentary on each. The novel falls into typical the typical Swift canon, in which he is recognized as the following: "the 'savage indignation' of the merciless satirist, the self-tormenting 'conjured spirit,' the champion of 'human liberty'" (Rawson xviii).
Because Swift wrote about so much of what he observed, his work has been studied not only for its contribution to the historical library of work, but also for its hallmark as a canon of satirical writing. Furthermore, his existence as an Irish writer and poet, places him amongst the ranks of other Irish revolutionary writers such as W.B. Yeats. According to Swift scholar Claude Rawson, "That Swift remains an Irish hero, in the eyes of the descendants of these natives or the representatives of their interest, is a splendid and honorable fact."
Swift lived a full life into his seventies, an especially long lifespan in his time. In 1742, he was declared of unsound mind, due to senility and excessive dizziness that is now known as the disease Meniere's syndrome, an illness of the inner ear, which causes dizziness. Since nothing was known of the disorder in the 18th century, everyone (including Swift himself) thought he was insane. After descending into a life of privacy and dementia, Swift died on October 19, 1745.
Rawson, Claude. The Basic Writings of Jonathan Swift. Random House, New York: 2000.
Swift, Jonathan. Gulliver's Travels. Penguin Books, London: 1968. (quoted)
Swift, Jonathan. Gulliver's Travels. Edited by Albert J. Rivero. W.W. Norton and Company, New York: 2002.
Lemuel Gulliver, an educated and trained surgeon, speaks to the reader and explains that he will retell of his experiences at sea. He recounts his youth, education, and marriage to Mrs. Mary Burton, and about his reasons for writing these tales. They are simply to relate his stories, no other reasons. His first voyage is met with horrible weather, stranding him on an island called Lilliput. When he awakens, he is tied to the ground and surrounding by thousands of miniature people called Lilliputians. After a slow integration and aid in the military victory over neighboring Blefuscu, Gulliver is commended and named an honorable man at Lilliput. However, after several years there, he is forced to flee the land because of the government's intended arrest for treason. He goes to Blefuscu, where he soon sails away back to England.
Soon after his wife and children see him, Gulliver sets sail again. This time, he is shipwrecked on the peninsula-type land of Brobdingnag, an opposite world from Lilliput. In this country, Gulliver is the Lilliputian and everyone is a giant to him. With such a microscopic view into humanity, Gulliver discovers the grotesque nature of human beings, both physically and spiritually. Although he is loved by his nursemaid, Glumdalclitch, and the King and Queen, Gulliver eventually seeks companionship of his own kind. Furthermore, he fears for his life, after a constant array of brushes with death. As he plans a method of escape, a large bird picks up his wooden home and carries it over sea where the bird drops it onto the water. Gulliver floats in it for days until he is rescued by an English ship. Nobody believes his stories, at first. However, when Gulliver presents souvenirs from the land, they believe him and commend him on his journeys.
Gulliver revisits his home, and much to his family's chagrin, decides to leave home once again to satisfy the urge of exploration that plagues his soul. On board at sea, his ship is taken captive by pirates. Gulliver manages to escape to land. However, as soon as he discovers the new land, he is pulled up to a flying floating island that hovers above ground. On the floating island of Laputa, Gulliver meets the Laputans who run their world thought mathematics and science, and allow their land to be dictated by a giant lodestone at the center of the island. Eventually, Gulliver grows weary of these people, for they cannot communicate without the help of a flapper. So, he journeys to the islands below in Balnibarbi. He visits Lagado and its Academy, he visits Glubbdubdrib, the land of the spirits, where he summons the ghosts of such historical figures as Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar. He also visits Luggnagg, where he meets the immortal race of the Struldbruggs, who he learns are not as miraculous as they seem to be. Gulliver leaves the continent of Balnibarbi (the land that houses all these towns), and returns home.
For one last time, Gulliver leaves home to explore the world. This time, his own shipmates revolt against him, leaving him powerless and weak. He eventually finds land and sees nothing but the footsteps of some humans, cows, and many horses. He meets the Houyhnhnms and Yahoos. The Houyhnhnms are the superior ruling class species of the land, and are the spitting images of horses, while the Yahoos are the inferior brutish servants to the horses, and bear the image of a human. The Houyhnhnms see Gulliver as just another horrid Yahoo, until one of them takes Gulliver under his tutelage and learns about his culture. This master horse befriends Gulliver, and Gulliver likewise learns to love everything about this blessed culture. He begins to despise his own race of human beings and worship the Houyhnhnm culture of reason and respect and truth. However the Assembly of Houyhnhnms soon votes Gulliver off the land, for he is too similar to a Yahoo to continue living as an equal. Gulliver is heartbroken, but abides by their rules and regulations.
After four years with the Houyhnhnms, Gulliver returns to England. His family assumes he is dead and is shocked to see him. Gulliver has since picked up the gait of a horse and finds all humans detestable beings, especially his family. His time at Houyhnhnm altered his perspective of society forever, leaving him unhappy in Europe. He eventually re-accustoms himself to life in England, but buys two horses to keep as companions. He speaks with them for four hours every day from then on, and writes of his experiences and explorations around the world.
Lemuel Gulliver: Gulliver is a trained surgeon and sea captain who travels throughout the world on several voyages, learning about different cultures and customs. He is married to Mary Burton with two children (who consequently grow up without him), and spends some sixteen years and seventeen months in his adventures, and ultimately returns home a changed man. His first voyage leaves him shipwrecked and alone in Lilliput, a land where he is a giant compared to everyone else. After his escape from Lilliput (and the neighboring Blefuscu), Gulliver returns to England, only to depart once again to find himself lost in the land of Brobdingnag. Brobdingnag is a land of giants, where Gulliver is the relative size of a Lilliputian. After happy times there, he fears his life and is lifted away by a bird, until he is found floating in the ocean by an English sea captain. After his second return to England, Gulliver leaves home again to discover the floating island of Laputa and its continental cities below in Balnibarbi. He visits Luggnagg and Glubbdubdrib, discovering secrets of past histories and cultures, and the horrors of immortality. On his fourth an final journey, Gulliver is sprung upon the Houyhnhnms, a ruling society of horses, where people are the lower, inferior, slave-like species. These inferiors - yahoos - are dirty, detestable creatures who bear a striking resemblance to Gulliver. Gulliver spends some three to four years with these horses and falls in love with their society and reason, never wanting to leave. When he is expelled from the island, he returns to England altered. He no longer cares to look upon his family (or his species), and spends all his time with the two horses he buys to keep in his nearby stable. These four adventures change Gulliver forever, bringing him new perspectives on the laws of humanity and stark commentary on the ways of European life.
Mrs. Mary Burton: Mrs. Mary Burton is Gulliver's wife. He only states her name at the beginning of the novel, and thereafter refers to her as his wife. She is mentioned only during his rare time in England.
Captain William Prichard: Captain Prichard is the head of the ship named Antelope. He controls Gulliver's first voyage in which a storm overtakes the ship, leaving Gulliver stranded on the strange land of Lilliput.
Lilliputians: The Lilliputians are the minuscule people from the land of Lilliput. They initial fear Gulliver, for his size is so overpowering. However, with the help of the emperor and few others, Gulliver befriends these people by helping them at war with their enemy, Blefuscu. However, after using so many of their resources and performing lewd acts in public, he is forced to flee the country for Blefuscu, and eventually home to England.
The Emperor of Lilliput: Although the emperor initially helps Gulliver by ordering clothing, food, and lodging for him, he eventually turns against Gulliver. He orders an edict with several laws pertaining to Gulliver, grants him his freedom, is thrilled when Gulliver helps Lilliput defeat Blefuscu, but is outraged when Gulliver will not use the Blefuscu-ans as slaves.
Reldresal: Reldresal is the Principal Secretary of Private Affairs and eventually becomes a close friend to Gulliver. He warns him about the Emperor's edict and speaks up for him during council meetings.
Blefuscu-ans: The Blefuscu-ans are the enemies of the Lilliputians and inhabitants of the neighboring land. They welcome Gulliver openly after he must flee Lilliput and are thankful to him for showing mercy.
Brobdingnags: The Brobdingnags are the giant people of the land of Brobdingnag. They are the size that Gulliver is in Lilliput, and view Gulliver as a toy, a doll, a exhibition. He looks like a little bug, but acts like a person. Although they are kind to him, Gulliver knows he must leave their land for fear of death.
Glumdalclitch: Glumdalclitch is the young daughter of the farmer of Brobdingnag who discovers Gulliver. She is thrilled to take Gulliver under her care as his nanny and never leaves his side for his entire stay in Brobdingnag. Like a girl to her doll, Glumdalclitch dresses, washes, feeds, houses, and teaches Gulliver. He treasures her, but at the same time, understands that she is still just a young girl who can be careless at times.
The Farmer: The farmer of Brobdingnag discovers Gulliver in his cornfields and initially takes him into his house as a pet. His daughter, Glumdalclitch, adores him and becomes his permanent nanny. However, the farmer wishes to capitalize on Gulliver's novelty by taking him throughout the land on tour and exhibition, until he sells Gulliver to the King.
The Queen of Brobdingnag: The Queen quickly befriends Gulliver and loves his company in the royal court. She spends much time with Gulliver and is very protective of his safety and well-being.
The King of Brobdingnag: The King of Brobdingnag, likewise befriends and loves Gulliver deeply. They spend much time together sharing the culture of their respective homelands, discussing the positives and negatives of each.
Captain William Robinson: Captain Robinson is the man who befriends Gulliver back in England. He convinces Gulliver to become the surgeon aboard his ship, and Gulliver agrees, starting his third journey. It is from Captain Robinson's ship, that Gulliver is tossed and thrown into the land of Laputa, the Flying Island.
The King of Laputa: The King of Laputa is a man of mathematical obsession who explains the laws of his land to Gulliver. He also decrees that the lands below Laputa should obey his laws. If they don't, they will have to face the consequences.
Laputans: The Laputans are the people in the land of Laputa, who life their lives in mathematical contemplation and cannot communicate without the help of a flapper.
Munodi: Munodi is the governor of Lagado and the man who helps Gulliver travel throughout Balnibarbi. He explains the Academy, the problems with all the people of the land, and the ways by which to travel from land to land. Munodi helps Gulliver see Luggnagg and Glubbdubdrib.
Struldbruggs: The race of people from Luggnagg born with a mark over their left eyebrow deeming them immortal. Although Gulliver initially believes this trait to be miraculous, he soon discovers that it may be a curse instead.
Yahoos: The yahoos are a detestable species that infect the Houyhnhnm countryside and metropolis. They are brutish, dirty, foul, immoral, and repulsive to not only the Houyhnhnms, but also Gulliver. However, these yahoos are the equivalent of human beings, and Gulliver is, therefore, considered a yahoo in the land. After seeing them, Gulliver is disgusted to all extremes and cannot bear the site of humans after his time in the land.
Houyhnhnms: Houyhnhnms are the equivalent of horses in the land of Houyhnhnm. They are the noble, beautiful, clean, and honest species, and look to the yahoos as inferior slaves. Gulliver is enamored of these species, these horses, and learns all about their culture and how it is ruled by reason, and reason alone. He even begins to act like them, and when he is forced to leave the land, he is brokenhearted.
Master Horse: Gulliver befriends one Houyhnhnm, who he calls his master. It is through this Houyhnhnm that Gulliver learns all about the laws of reason and the honest lifestyle that the Houyhnhnms (horses) live. His master is the one who favors Gulliver during the meetings that want him expunged from the land.
England: Gulliver lives in Redriff, a small town in England. He returns to England after each of his adventures, only to leave several months later. England represents his native land and European monarchy. However, after his four grand adventures, he finds little solace in the ways of English rule and culture.
Lilliput: Lilliput is the first of all the strange lands and adventures Gulliver encounters and experiences. It is a civilization of people a fraction of the size of human beings. Gulliver awakens in their land tied to the ground by thousands of their people, and eventually becomes their man-mountain - their aid. However, after several unfortunate incidents, Gulliver leaves Lilliput for the neighboring Blefuscu, until he must leave both lands forever. His presence as a giant in this land offers a new perspective on humanity to Gulliver, as he befriends these interesting people.
Mildendo: Mildendo is the capital metropolis of Lilliput, in which Gulliver is only privileged occasionally to visit. There must be full warning of his entrance before he visits so that the Lilliputians may take cover for their lives and not be stomped to death by the Man-Mountain - Gulliver.
Blefuscu: Blefuscu is the neighboring island of Lilliput and the vouched enemy of the Lilliputians. Due to a quarrel ears earlier about eating eggs from the big or little end, Lilliput and Blefuscu have been at war for some time. Gulliver intercedes and helps Lilliput initially. However, when he is about to be executed by the Lilliputians, he flees to Blefuscu, where he is welcomed openly.
Brobdingnag: Brobdingnag is the second land to which Gulliver travels. In the complete opposite fashion to Lilliput, Brobdingnag is a land of giants. All the inhabitants are the size of Gulliver on Lilliput, and Gulliver, likewise, is the size of a Lilliputian. He is minute, and discovered by a farmer in the cornfields. The farmer's daughter, Glumdalclitch, takes Gulliver into her care - almost like a doll - and watches over him through his entire stay on Brobdingnag. Gulliver sees much of the grotesque aspects of humanity through his microscopic view and is repulsed by much of their biology, hygiene, and activity. He becomes a part of the royal entourage; however, decides to flee for eventual fear of his life and desire to be with people his own size.
Lorbrugrud: Lorbrugrud is the capital metropolis of Brobdingnag. The farmer takes an encased Gulliver to Lorbrugrud to be put on exhibition for all to see.
Laputa: Laputa is the flying island of Gulliver's third journey. It officially translates to Lap, meaning high, and untah, meaning governor. After discovering the earflaps and communication problems of the Laputans, Gulliver desires to leave the flying island to discover the lands below. Laputa is held together by a strong lodestone located in the center of the island, and is the ruling island of all the lands below.
Lagado: Lagado is the capital metropolis of Balnibarbi, the continent of the land of Laputa. Gulliver discovers here in the city, how everything in the land is defined and run by mathematical figures.
Lindalino: Lindalino is one of the grounded islands below Laputa. Years prior to Gulliver's arrival, the people of Lindalino revolted against the emperor of Laputa to success, bringing new ideas to the government - most notably that of the Academy.
Maldonada: Maldonada is the port of the land of Balnibarbi (Laputa). Gulliver awaits a ship through Maldonada so that he may leave and explore other lands.
Luggnagg: Luggnagg is the final island in the empire of Laputa that Gulliver visits. It is marked by the Struldbruggs, the immortal beings. Although Gulliver initially reveres this race, he soon learns that it is rather a curse than a blessing.
Glubbdubdrib: Glubbdubdrib is the town Gulliver visits briefly while waiting to travel to Luggnagg. Derived from the name, the Island of the Magicians or Sorcerers, Glubbdubdrib is a small town of ghosts and spirits, in which Gulliver summons men of historical import. He questions people like Alexander the Great, Caesar, Pompey, and Aristotle, and learns that empires are generally formed from ill will and violent motives.
Houyhnhnm: Houyhnhnm is the final land to which Gulliver travels. It is marked by the ruling class of Houyhnhnms (horses) and inferior brutes of Yahoos (people). This final land is Gulliver's favorite, and he is heartbroken when he is told he must leave it. From this land, Gulliver sees a people who are ruled by reason and reason alone, do not understand lies, and have a genuine understanding and care for others. He reveres this species and wishes he could live amongst them forever. He explains his presence and his native land, their treatment of horses, and their overall political, legal, and cultural systems.
Redriff: Redriff is the town in England where Gulliver lives. When her returns from a trip, he goes home to his wife and children in Redriff. And, at the conclusion of the novel, he lives the remaining years of his life in Redriff, with his wife, and his two new horses.
Balnibarbi: Balnibarbi is the continent from the third book, over which Laputa flies. It is the land that houses Luggnagg, Maldonado, Lindalino, and Glubbdubdrib, among others not mentioned.
Quote 1: "I attempted to rise, but was not able to stir: for as I happened to lie on my back, I found my arms and legs were strongly fastened on each side to the ground; and my hair, which was long and thick, tied down I the same manner. I likewise felt several slender ligatures across my body, from my armpits to my thighs. I could only look upwards, the sun began to grow hot, and the light offended mine eyes. I heard a confused noise about me, but in the posture I lay, could see nothing except the sky." Book 1, Chapter 1, pg. 55
Quote 2: "Besides, I now considered myself as bound by the law of hospitality to a people who had treated me with so much expense and magnificence. However, in my thoughts I could not sufficiently wonder at the intrepidity of these diminutive mortals, who durst venture to mount and walk on my body, while one of my hands was at liberty, without trembling at the very sight of so prodigious a creatures as I must appear to them." Book 1, Chapter 1, pg. 59
Quote 3: "First, The Man-Mountain shall not depart from our dominions, without our license under our great seal.
2nd, He shall not presume to come into our metropolis, without our express order; at which time the inhabitants shall have two hours warning to keep within their doors.
3rd, The said Man-Mountain shall confine his walks to our principal high roads, and not offer to walk or lie down in a meadow or field of corn.
4th, As he walks the said roads, he shall take the utmost care not to trample upon the bodies of any of our loving subjects, their horses, or carriages, nor take any of our said subjects into his hands, without their own consent.
5th, If an express require extraordinary dispatch, the Man-Mountain shall be obliged to carry in his pocket the messenger and hors a six days' journey once in every moon, and return the said messenger back (if so required) safe to our Imperial Presence.
6th, He shall be our ally against our enemies in the island of Blefuscu, and do his utmost to destroy their fleet, which is now preparing to invade us.
7th, That the said Man-Mountain shall, at his times of leisure, be aiding and assisting to our workmen, in helping to raise certain great stones, towards covering the wall of the principal park, and other our royal buildings.
8th, That the said Man-Mountain shall, in two moons' time, deliver in an exact survey of the circumference of our dominions by a computation of his own paces round the coast.
Lastly, That upon his solemn oath to observe all the above articles, the said Man-Mountain shall have a daily allowance of meat and drink sufficient for the support of 1728 of our subjects, with free access to our Royal Person, and other marks of our favour." Book 1, Chapter 3, pp. 79-80
Quote 4: "I desired the Secretary to present my humble duty to the Emperor, and to let him know, that I thought it would not become me, who was a foreigner, to interfere with parties; but I was ready, with the hazard of my life, to defend his person and state against all invaders." Book 1, Chapter 4, pg. 86
Quote 5: "I came in a short time within hearing, and holding up the end of the cable by which the fleet was fastened, I cried in a loud voice, Long live the most puissant Emperor of Lilliput! This great prince received me at my landing with all possible encomiums, and created me a Nardac upon the spot, which is the highest title of honour among them." Book 1, Chapter 5, pp. 88-89
Quote 6: "And from this time began an intrigue between his Majesty and a junto of Ministers maliciously bent against me, which broke out in less than two months, an ha like to have ended in my utter destruction. Of so little weight are the greatest services to princes, when put into the balance with a refusal to gratify their passions." Book 1, Chapter 5, pg. 89
Quote 7: "They bury their dead with their heads directly downwards, because they hold an opinion that in eleven thousand moons they are all to rise again, in which period the earth (which they conceive to be flat) will turn upside down, and by this means they shall, at their resurrection, be found ready standing on their feet. The learned among them confess the absurdity of this doctrine, but the practice still continues, in compliance to the vulgar." Book 1, Chapter 6, p.94
Quote 8: "It is upon this account that the image of Justice, in their courts of judicature, is formed with six eyes, two before, as many behind, and on each side one, to signify circumspection; with a bag of gold open in her right hand, and a sword sheathed in her left, to show she is ore disposed to reward than to punish." Book 1, Chapter 6, pg. 95
Quote 9: "Their education is of little consequence to the public; but the old and diseased among them are supported by hospitals: for begging is a trade unknown in this Empire." Book 1, Chapter 6, pg. 99
Quote 10: "That blindness is an addition to courage, by concealing dangers from us; that the fear you had for your eyes, was the greatest difficulty in bringing over the enemy's fleet, and it would be sufficient for you to see by the eyes of the Ministers, since the greatest princes do no more." Book 1, Chapter 7, pg. 107
Quote 11: "I reflected what a mortification it must prove to me to appear as inconsiderable in this nation as one single Lilliputian would be among us." Book 2, Chapter 1, pg. 125
Quote 12: "This made me reflect upon the fair skins of our English ladies, who appear so beautiful to us, only because they are of our own size, and their defects not to be seen through a magnifying glass, where we find by experiment that the smoothest and whitest skins look rough and course, and ill coloured." Book 2, Chapter 1, pg. 13
Quote 13: "For the Queen (who had indeed but a weak stomach) took up at one mouthful as much as a dozen English farmers could eat at a meal, which to me was for some time a very nauseous sight. She would craunch the wing of a lark, bones and all, between her teeth, although it were nine times as large as that of a full-grown turkey; and put a bit of break in her mouth, as big as two twelve-penny loaves. She drank out of a golden cup, above a hogshead at a draught. Her knives were twice a long as a scythe set straight upon the handle. The spoons, forks, and other instruments were all in the same proportion." Book 2, Chapter 3, pg. 145
Quote 14: "There was a woman with a cancer in her breast, swelled to a monstrous size, full of holes, in two or three of which I could have easily crept, and covered my whole body. There was a fellow with a wen in his neck, larger than five woolpacks, and another with a couple of wooden legs, each about twenty foot high. But, the most hateful sight of all was the lice crawling on their clothes. I could see distinctly the limbs of these vermin with my naked eyes, much better than those of an European louse through a microscope, and their snouts with which they rooted like swine." Book 2, Chapter 4, pp. 151-152
Quote 15: "This made me reflect how vain an attempt it is for a man to endeavor doing himself honour among those who are out of all degree of equality or comparison with him. And yet I have seen the moral of my own behavior very frequent in England since my return, where a little contemptible varlet, without the least title to birth, person, wit, or common sense, shall presume to look with importance, and put himself upon a foot with the greatest persons of the kingdom." Book 2, Chapter 5, pp. 163
Quote 16: "Imagine with thyself, courteous reader, how often I then wished for the tongue of Demosthenes or Cicero, that might have enabled me to celebrate the praises of my own dear native country in a style equal to its merits and felicity." Book 2, Chapter 6, pg. 167
Quote 17: "My little friend Grildrig; you have made a most admirable panegyric upon your country. You have clearly proved that ignorance, idleness, and vice are the proper ingredients for qualifying a legislator. That laws are best explained, interpreted, and applied by those whose interest and abilities lie in perverting, confounding, and eluding them. I observe among you some lines of an institution, which in it original might have been tolerable, but these half erased, and the rest wholly blurred and blotted by corruptions." Book 2, Chapter 6, pg. 172
Quote 18: "The want of which knowledge will ever produce many prejudices, and a certain narrowness of thinking, from which we and the politer countries of Europe are wholly exempted." Book 2, Chapter 7, pg. 174
Quote 19: "That my story could contain little besides common events, without those ornamental descriptions of strange plants, trees, birds, and other animals, or the barbarous customs and idolatry of savage people, with which most writers abound." Book 2, Chapter 8, pg. 189
Quote 20: "When I came to my own house, for which I was forced to enquire, one of the servants opening the door, I bent down to go in (like a goose under a gate) for fear of striking my head. My wife ran out to embrace me, but I stooped lower than her knees, thinking she could otherwise never be able to reach my mouth. My daughter kneeled to ask me blessing, but I could not see her till she arose, having been so long used to stand with my head an eyes erect to above sixty foot; and then I went to take her up with one hand, by the waist. I looked down upon the servants and one or two friends who were in the house, as if they had been pygmies, and I a giant." Book 2, Chapter 8, pg. 191
Quote 21: "They made signs for me to come down from the rock, and go towards the shore, which I accordingly did; and the flying island being raised to a convenient height, the verge directly over me, a chain was let down from the lowest gallery, with a seat fastened to the bottom, to which I fixed myself, and was drawn up by pulleys." Book 3, Chapter 1, pg. 200
Quote 22: "Their heads were all reclined either to the right, or the left; one of their eyes turned inward, and the other directly up to the zenith. Their outward garments were adorned with the figures of suns, moons, and stars, interwoven with those of fiddles, flutes, harps, trumpets, guitars, harpsichords, and many more instruments of music, unknown to us in Europe. I observed here and there many in the habit of servants, with a blown bladder fastened like a flail to the end of a short stick, which they carried in their hands. In each bladder was a small quantity of dried pease or little pebbles (as I was afterwards informed). With these bladders they now and then flapped the mouths and ears of those who stood near them, of which practice I could not then conceive the meaning; it seems, the minds of these people are so taken up with intense speculations, that they neither an speak, nor attend to the discourses of others, without being roused by some external taction upon the organs of speech and hearing." Book 3, Chapter 2, pg. 200-201
Quote 23: "I did not discover any good effects they produced; but on the contrary, I never knew a soil so unhappily cultivated, houses so ill contrived and so ruinous, or a people whose countenances and habit expressed so much misery and want." Book 3, Chapter 4, pg. 219
Quote 24: "By all which, instead of being discouraged, they are fifty times more violently bent upon prosecuting their schemes, driven equally on by hope and despair; that as for himself, being not of an enterprising spirit, he was content to go on in the old forms, to live in the houses his ancestors had built, and act as they did in every part of life without innovation. That, some few other persons of quality and gentry had done the same, but were looked on with an eye of contempt and ill-will, as enemies to art, ignorant, and ill commonwealth's-men, preferring their own ease and sloth before the general improvement of their country." Book 3, Chapter 4, pg. 222
Quote 25: "But the world would soon be sensible of its usefulness, and he flattered himself that a more noble exalted thought never sprang in any other man's head. Every one knew how laborious the usual method is of attaining to arts and sciences; whereas by his contrivance, the most ignorant person at a reasonable charge, and with a little bodily labour, may write books in philosophy, poetry, politics, law, mathematics, and theology, without the least assistance from genius or study." Book 3, Chapter 5, pg. 227
Quote 26: "The first project was to shorten discourse by cutting poly-syllables into one, and leaving out verbs and particles, because in reality all things imaginable are but nouns." Book 3, Chapter 5, pg. 230
Quote 27: "The highest tax was upon men who are the greatest favourites of the other sex, an the assessments according to the number and natures of the favours they have received; for which they are allowed to be their own vouchers. Wit, valour, and politeness were likewise proposed to be largely taxed, and collected in the same manner, by every person's giving his own word for the quantum of what he possessed. But as to honour, justice, wisdom and learning, they should not be taxed at all, because they are qualifications of so singular a kind, that no man will either allow them in his neighbour, or value them in himself." Book 3, Chapter 6, pg. 235
Quote 28: "As every person called up made exactly the same appearance he had done in the world, it gave me melancholy reflections to observe how much the race of human kind was degenerate among us, within these hundred years past. How the pox under all its consequences and denominations had altered every lineament of an English countenance, shortened the size of bodies, unbraced the nerves, relaxed the sinews and muscles, introduced a sallow complexion, and rendered the flesh loose and rancid." Book 3, Chapter 8, pg. 247
Quote 29: "That the system of living contrived by me was unreasonable and unjust, because it supposed a perpetuity of youth, health, and vigour, which no man could be so foolish to hope, however extravagant he might be in his wishes. That the question therefore was not whether a man would choose to be always in the primes of youth, attended with prosperity and health, but how he would pass a perpetual life under all the usual disadvantages which old age brings along with it. For although few men will avow their desires of being immortal upon such hard conditions, yet in the two kingdoms before-mentioned of Balnibarbi an Japan, he observed that every man desired to put off death for some time longer, let it approach ever so late, and he rarely heard of any man who died willingly, except he were incited by the extremity of grief or torture. And he appealed to me whether in those countries I had traveled, as well as my own, I had not observed the same general disposition." Book 3, Chapter 10, pg. 256-257
Quote 30: "I fell into a beaten road, where I saw many tracks of human feet, and some of cows, but most of horses. At last I beheld several animals in a field, and one or two of these same kind sitting in trees. Their shape was very singular, and deformed, which a little discomposed me, so that I lay down behind a thicket to observe them better...Their heads and breasts were covered with a thick hair, some frizzled and others lank; they had bears like goats, and a long ridge of hair down their backs, and the foreparts of their legs and feet, but the rest of their bodies were bare, so that I might see their skins, which were of a brown buff colour. They had no tails, nor any hair at all on their buttocks, except about the anus; which, I presume, Nature had placed there to defend them as they sat on the ground; for this posture they used, as well as lying down, and often stood on their hind feet." Book 4, Chapter 1, pg. 269
Quote 31: "My master heard me with great appearances of uneasiness in his countenance, because doubting and not believing, are so little known in this country, that the inhabitants cannot tell how to behave themselves under such circumstances. And I remember in frequent discourses with my master concerning the nature of manhood, in other parts of the world, having occasion to talk of lying, and false representation, it was with much difficulty that he comprehended what I meant, although he had otherwise a most acute judgment." Book 4, Chapter 4, pg. 286
Quote 32: "Neither are any wars so furious and bloody, or of so long continuance a those occasioned by difference in opinion, especially if it be in things indifferent." Book 4, Chapter 5, pg. 292
Quote 33: "Here my master, interposing, said it was a pity, that creatures endowed with such prodigious abilities of mind as these lawyers, by the description I gave of them, must certainly be, were not rather encouraged to be instructors of others in wisdom and knowledge. In answer to which, I assured his Honour, that in all points out of their own trade they were usually the most ignorant and stupid generation among us, the most despicable in common conversation, avowed enemies to all knowledge and learning, and equally disposed to pervert the general reason of mankind in every other subject of discourse, as in that of their own profession." Book 4, Chapter 5, pg. 297
Quote 34: "A First or Chief Minister of State, whom I intended to describe, was a creature wholly exempt from joy and grief, love and hatred, pity and anger; at least made use of no other passions but a violent desire of wealth, power, and titles; that he applies his words to all uses, except to the indication of his mind; that he never tells a truth, but with an intent that you should take it for a lie; nor a lie, but with a design that you should take it for a truth; that those he speaks worst of behind their backs are in the surest way to preferment; and whenever he begins to praise you to others or to yourself, you are from that day forlorn. The worst mark you can receive is a promise, especially when it is confirmed with an oath; after which every wise man retires, and gives over all hopes." Book 4, Chapter 6, pg. 302
Quote 35: "However, I could not reflect without some amazement, and much sorrow, that the rudiments of lewdness, coquetry, censure, and scandal, should have place by instinct in womankind." Book 4, Chapter 7, pg. 312
Quote 36: "They are strong and hardy, but of a cowardly spirit, and by consequence insolent, abject, and cruel. It is observed, that the red-haired of both sexes are more libidinous and mischievous than the rest, whom yet they much exceed in strength and activity." Book 4, Chapter 8, pg. 314
Quote 37: "I wanted no fence against fraud or oppression; here was neither physician to destroy my body, nor lawyer to ruin my fortune; no informer to watch my words and actions, or forge accusations against me for hire: here were no gibers, censurers, backbiters, pickpockets, highwaymen, housebreakers, attorneys, bawds, buffoons, gamesters, politicians, wits, splenetic, tedious talkers, controvertists, ravishers, murders, robbers, virtuosos; no leaders or followers of party and faction; no encouragers to vice, by seducement or examples: no dungeon , axes, gibbets, whipping posts, or pillories; no cheating shopkeepers or mechanics: no pride, vanity, or affectation: no fops, bullies, drunkards, strolling whores, or poxes: no ranting, lewd, expensive wives: no stupid proud pendants: no importunate, overbearing, quarrelsome, noisy, roaring, empty, conceited, swearing companions: no scoundrels, raised from the dust upon the merit of their vices, or nobility thrown into it on account of their virtues: no Lords, fiddlers, Judges or dancing-masters." Book 4, Chapter 9, pg. 325
Quote 38: "My horses understand me tolerably well; I converser with them a t least four hours every day. They are strangers to bridle or saddle, they live in great amity with me, an friendship to each other." Book 4, Chapter 11, pg. 339
Quote 39: "I am not a little pleased that this work of mine can possibly meet with no censurers: for what objection can be made against a writers who relates only plan facts that happened in such distant countries, where we have not the least interest with respect either to trade or negotiations? ...I write without any view towards profit or praise. I never suffered a word to pass that may look like reflection, or possibly give the lease offence even to those who are most ready to take it. So that I hope I may with justice pronounce myself an author perfectly blameless, against whom the tribe of answers, considerers, observers, reflectors, detecters, remarkers, will never be able to find matter for exercising their talents." Book 4, Chapter 12, pg. 342
Quote 40: "But the Houyhnhnms, who live under the government of Reason, are no more proud of the good qualities they posses, than I should be for not wanting a leg or an arm, which no man in this wits would boast of, although he must be miserable without them. I dwell the longer upon this subject from the desire I have to make the society of an English Yahoo by any means not insupportable, and therefore I here entreat those who have any tincture of this absurd vice, that they will not presume to appear in my sight." Book 4, Chapter 12, pg. 346
Exploration 1: Gulliver decides to join a ship to explore the South Sea. After his education, Gulliver is curious as to the ways of other worlds and jumps at the chance to discover new lands. He leaves his wife so easily, that it would seem he has married an explorer instead of a woman.
Exploration 2: Although he is living in a previously unexplored land, Gulliver wants to see all of Lilliput. He explores the metropolis and looks into the royal palace. He explores this land from a bird's eye view, since he hovers above the land as a giant Man-Mountain.
Exploration 3: When Gulliver meets with the Blefuscu-an emperor, they both agree on a love and need for exploration of other countries and cultures. Both the Blefuscu and Lilliput empires desire their youth to be exchange students in each other's countries.
Exploration 4: After arriving in Brobdingnag, Gulliver sees the twenty foot long blades of grass and forty foot sheaves of corn, and decides to explore the land. He sees enormous agriculture and people, and eventually fears for his life, as he realizes he is the size of a Lilliputian.
Exploration 5: Gulliver explores the land of Brobdingnag in all its glory and gory. He discovers the land, the cities, the dirt, and the food. He comments on all of it in relation to his own size and his own native land in Europe.
Exploration 6: Even after his miraculous exit and recovery from Brobdingnag, Gulliver still desires to explore more of the world. He looks upon his wife and children as pygmies, and has difficulty living with them. His need to see more and explore still pulls at his soul, so he prepares for his third journey.
Exploration 7: Gulliver spots the land of multiple islands from his ship, held captive by pirates. When he is release, he jumps from island to island, exploring the different terrain and environments, until he is swept off land into the flying island of Laputa.
Exploration 8: Gulliver explores Laputa in excruciating detail, as he has with Lilliput and Brobdingnag. He details the lodestone, the people, the countryside, and the dimensions of the land in his writings.
Exploration 9: After Gulliver grows weary of his stay on the flying island, he is prepared to explore some of the lands underneath. He gathers his letter of recommendation and heads down to Balnibarbi, the continent, to explore the lands of Luggnagg and Glubbdubdrib.
Exploration 10: Gulliver explores other parts of the continent, including Glubbdubdrib, the island of magicians and sorcerers. From there, he explores his curiosity even farther by summoning the ghosts of Caesar, Pompey, Alexander the Great, and more great figures of history.
Exploration 11: Gulliver explores the island of Luggnagg, on which he meets the Struldbruggs, a people of immortality. He further explores the meaning behind immortality, learning that it is rather a curse than a blessing.
Exploration 12: Gulliver explores the footprints, hoof prints, and other marks on the ground of the new land. He sees horses, cows, and hideous people, called yahoos. He begins to explore this new culture's language when he shouts out the word "yahoo!" It seems as though Gulliver's exploration is turning inward.
Exploration 13: Gulliver leaves Houyhnhnm in good weather and explores more of the seas and lands until he arrives in Lisbon, Portugal. He fears the Inquisition will find him mad, for nobody can believe his great story. He continues to explore himself and the land until he finally arrives home in England.
Exploration 14: After four long journeys and sixteen years abroad, Gulliver turns his explorations inwards. He despises the human race - especially his family - after living with the Houyhnhnms for so long. He explores his inner thoughts, dreams, wishes and ideas with two horses that he purchases. He also explores his past experiences through writing. The entire book of journeys is a written exploration of Gulliver's ideas and experiences.
Gender Differences 1: Gulliver illustrates the carelessness of women, when he retells the story of the fire. It started, apparently, by the mindlessness of one of the Empress's maids. Furthermore, the only way to extinguish the fire is through urination, an act so lewd and grotesque that a woman could not handle it. She decrees that public urination be banned and that the contaminated building be left as it is. The method by which Gulliver describes this event, leads the reader to believe that only a woman would act so harshly to his actions.
Gender Differences 2: When the farmer initially shows Gulliver ot his wife, she screams with disgust, the way a woman would react to a bug. Later, Gulliver is repulsed most of all by the sight of a woman's breast. He looks up close at the woman's anatomy and thanks God for the women of England. Whenever Gulliver notices women in Brobdingnag, he is perpetually repulsed, for he sees all their faults and blemishes in expanded form.
Gender Differences 3: Glumdalclitch adopts Gulliver as her little pet/doll, and loves him dearly. Her feminine touch and attention is what Gulliver needs while living in Brobdingnag. Perhaps only a young woman (child) would have been able to care for Gulliver with such attention, affection, and detail. However, her youthful feminine cries are also a disturbance to Gulliver, for he must deal with the negatives as well as the positives.
Gender Differences 4: When Gulliver describes a grotesque vision of humanity in Brobdingnag, he generally uses women as the objects of repulsion. Initially it is the Empress who eats in a grotesque fashion, and now it is the homeless beggar. The beggar is a horrific site, as Gulliver can see into the crevices and cavities in her body, destroyed by vermin and waste and disease.
Gender Differences 5: Again, Gulliver describes a repulsive experience with a woman. Glumdalclitch brings Gulliver to visit the maids of the palace. However, they change in front of him, making him gag at the sight of their blemished skin and sickly smell. One maid even placed him on her nipple so that she could play with him closely. Gulliver does not describe men purely by their physical and flippant attributes - only women.
Gender Differences 6: Women are repeatedly described separately from men, as is the case in the flying island of Laputa. The women are described by geometric shape and mathematical figures. The entire population is described in the same way, however, Gulliver makes a point to tell the reader that the women are separate. Furthermore, the women are not allowed to explore or travel off the island without specific doctrine from the King.
Gender Differences 7: Women are taxed differently than men are in Balnibarbi. They are taxed on the basis of what their most important virtues are - beauty and fashion.
Gender Differences 8: Gulliver relates a story of the yahoo women and how they are different from the men. One day he was bathing and a female yahoo jumped after him, leaping and attacking. Gulliver was so shocked, he didn't know what to do. Furthermore, he learns that the female yahoo can leave her family after she gives birth. There is no allegiance to anyone.
Politics 1: When Gulliver first meets the emperor of Lilliput, he is honored. He wants to impress this man who runs the country so well. Gulliver discovers the mathematics involved with the country and how intelligent these people are. Furthermore, he politically plays his cards right, as he demonstrates kindness and clemency with the Lilliputians. By putting them down, instead of eating them, Gulliver politically showed the population his generosity and kindness.
Politics 2: Gulliver requests his freedom from the Emperor of Lilliput, however, is turned down. The Emperor, however, uses Gulliver for his own political gain. Gulliver allows the Lilliputian army to march through his legs. Furthermore, the Emperor orders an edict about Gulliver that would eventually grant him his freedom. It is a long and complicated list of orders and mandates.
Politics 3: When Gulliver learns about the opposing political forces in Lilliput, he sees the futility in their arguments. The parties are in opposition because of a feud on how to break an egg; either by its big end or small end. Because of such a feud, the Big-Endians must flee and find refuge in the neighboring enemy island of Blefuscu.
Politics 4: Gulliver helps the Lilliputian army by pulling out the anchor of a Blefuscu ship and carrying it to victory for Lilliput. Upon such a victory, the Emperor makes Gulliver a Nardac, a position of superior honor, and praises him for his political edge. However, Gulliver soon commits political suicide by expressing his values and virtues. He refuses to enslave the Blefuscu island. He helped Lilliput win, but he will not harm Blefuscu. This statement causes further political problems for Gulliver during his stay on Lilliput.
Politics 5: Gulliver learns of the different political system of Lilliput. The good is rewarded, as opposed to not simply the bad being punished. Children are raised outside of the family in nurseries, there is no Divine Providence, and ingratitude is a capital crime. Gulliver takes note of such staunch differences in the political culture of Lilliput from England.
Politics 6: Reldresal informs Gulliver of the threat on his life. The Emperor and assemblymen have voted to have Gulliver killed because of his actions as a traitor, of public urination, of refusing to obey the Emperor's command, and so on and so forth. Because of such political problems, Gulliver is forced to flee Lilliput to Blefuscu.
Politics 7: Gulliver describes the political system of England to the King of Brobdingnag. After a while, the King jokes with Gulliver about the differences between Whigs and Tories.
Politics 8: Gulliver explains more of the political system of the United Kingdom to the King of Brobdingnag. This time, the discussion continues for days and in front of several more people. The king wants Gulliver to have an audience, so he brings in some of his royal friends to listen. They do not understand Gulliver's system of politics, and offer rebuttals to each law cited.
Politics 9: Gulliver learns of the problems with the continent lands and of the method of controlling them. There are three ways by which Laputan politics and governance control the land, in order of gravity. First, they throw stones and rocks on the land, forcing people to flee into caves. Second, they cover the continent with Laputa, preventing lightness and rain from entering the land. And finally, they smash Laputa on top of the land, causing complete disaster. The latter is never used.
Politics 10: Munodi explains the political problems that he has with the people of Balnibarbi. After the revolt in Lindalino, they people established an Academy, full of impractical and ridiculous experiments. The people of the land are frustrated with Munodi for not helping the problems with agriculture and food. Therefore, Munodi must not show his face at the Academy.
Politics 11: Gulliver learns of the laws pertaining to the Struldbruggs of Luggnagg. They do not favor these people and mandate certain actions be taken against them when they reach a certain age. When Gulliver decides to bring back some of these Struldbruggs to England, the laws of transport do not allow it.
Politics 12: Gulliver explains a bit of English politics to his master when he explains the differences between horses and humans. Humans (or yahoos) control the horses (or Houyhnhnms), chaining them, raising them, using them, and even castrating them. This differential nature shocks and confuses Gulliver's master horse.
Politics 13: Gulliver begins to explore the differences in politics between England and Houyhnhnm, beginning with the rule by reason. Everything is done differently in this land, and much to Gulliver's pleasing. The master doesn't understand lawyers or laws or politics or parliament or any of the core values by which England (and thenceforth Europe) is run.
Politics 14: Gulliver is forced to leave Houyhnhnm after the Assembly voted him to leave. They had been discussing the political expulsion and extermination of all yahoos from the land. After his master speaks in his favor, the Assembly of Houyhnhnms still votes that Gulliver must leave the land because of his close association and likeliness of the yahoos.
With all of the chapters in the book, there is a brief summary of the events of the chapter given in italics before the chapter begins. The tale begins, as Lemuel Gulliver discusses his youth and upbringing. The author (Gulliver) recites that he is the third of five sons growing up in a small estate in Nottinghamshire, England. He is sent to Emanuel College in Cambridge at fourteen to study diligently, and is soon taken under the wing of Dr. James Bates to become a surgeon's apprentice. Gulliver studies navigation, mathematics, and physics, developing a keen sense of traveling. After working as a surgeon on several ships (including the Swallow), and also because of his borrowed finances Gulliver marries the wealthy Mrs. Mary Burton. However, soon after the marriage, his good friend, Bates dies, as does most of the British economy, giving Gulliver the idea of returning to work on a ship. He joins the renowned Captain William Prichard on the Antelope and goes to the South Sea on May 4th, 1699.
The initial voyage is a typical one, with Gulliver reading many books and observing the cultures that surround him. However, the ship encounters a violent storm that kills several of the ship's sailors and renders the rest of them ill and invalid. Gulliver is tossed into the water and the ship is wrecked. As soon as he finds himself on the nearby land, he falls quickly asleep after drinking half a pint of Brandy. Hours later, Gulliver awakens tied to the ground on his back, unable to move his hands, legs, or neck.
"I attempted to rise, but was not able to stir: for as I happened to lie on my back, I found my arms and legs were strongly fastened on each side to the ground; and my hair, which was long and thick, tied down I the same manner. I likewise felt several slender ligatures across my body, from my armpits to my thighs. I could only look upwards, the sun began to grow hot, and the light offended mine eyes. I heard a confused noise about me, but in the posture I lay, could see nothing except the sky." Book 1, Chapter 1, pg. 55
The little people, Lilliputians, climb on top of Gulliver, exploring his look, his crevices, and his strength. They continually try to defend themselves against the constrained Gulliver by shooting arrows and cannons into him. They feel like minute needle pricks to Gulliver. After a while, the people bring a small stage around him and begin to speak. They cut some of the strings on Gulliver's face, so that he may turn to the side and observe what is occurring. They continue to chant the same thing over and over in their high pitched voices, and one man even orates a long speech, no doubt about Gulliver, the giant in their presence. Gulliver motions to the others that he is hungry, and they pile upon him, pouring mountains of meat into his mouth. As he insinuates that he is still hungry and even thirstier, the people run around chanting and celebrating in his presence. Although he appears to have eaten a large portion of their food supply - full limbs and groins of unrecognizable animals - Gulliver is not yet satisfied. He says nothing, for he wants to express his gratitude towards their hospitality. "Besides, I now considered myself as bound by the law of hospitality to a people who had treated me with so much expense and magnificence. However, in my thoughts I could not sufficiently wonder at the intrepidity of these diminutive mortals, who durst venture to mount and walk on my body, while one of my hands was at liberty, without trembling at the very sight of so prodigious a creatures as I must appear to them" Book 1, Chapter 1, pg. 59.
A person of high rank in the imperial court visits Gulliver, still tied down to the ground. After a short exchange in signs, they people loosen Gulliver's strings and rub an astringent on his face that allows the arrows to be released and fall off. Gulliver soon drifts off to sleep from the sleeping potion in the wine they gave him. When he awakens, Gulliver witnesses the extreme intelligence of the little people, for they are excellent mathematicians. They have devised intricate wagons and machinery designed to transport Gulliver from the seashore to the interior of the palace, where he lay looking inside and waiting to meet with the emperor. Still in chains, Gulliver observes this small society of Lilliputians surrounding him. It looks like a small theater backdrop and the trees appear to be no taller than seven feet. In his private chamber, his chain only extends so far. Having waited several days to relieve himself, Gulliver stretches the chain as far as possible in order to expunge his excrement, which two servant eventually carry away in wheel barrels. Gulliver makes an overt attempt to illustrate his desire and necessity for cleanliness, despite his status.
Gulliver meets the emperor, who he describes in great detail as a 28 year old man, slightly past his prime, who has been ruling the land for nearly seven years. He speaks to him in a foreign tongue; while Gulliver attempts to communicate in several of the Western European languages he speaks. They still have no luck. After court is adjourned, a guard is placed on watch, while several of the people outside continue to shoot arrows at Gulliver, angering the guard. He commands that these people be forced into Gulliver's hands. He places them in his pocket and jokingly threatens to eat one of the men. However, he soon lets them out one by one, and they run away thankful for their lives. Everyone in the land is slowly coming to respect Gulliver's clemency and kindness.
The emperor orders that a bed be made for Gulliver. By mathematical calculations, 600 beds are used, in addition to the relative amount of sheets and pillows of the same calculations. The emperor further orders that 300 tailors make him a new suit, and that teachers instruct Gulliver in learning the language. Additionally, guards are placed outside his 'home,' making his presence felt strongly throughout the kingdom. During one of the emperor's many visits, Gulliver requests his freedom. The emperor denies such a request, replying that his freedom can only come to him with time. Gulliver waits as many of the people hop onto his body, look in his pockets, and take an inventory of all that he is wearing and carrying with him. They describe each item in great detail (which Gulliver translates into English for the reader) and view his possessions, such as a compass and shaving blade, as foreign objects. Although many are later returned to him, Gulliver holds onto his eyeglasses, for they were undetected by the small investigators.
With Gulliver becoming a permanent fixture in Lilliput, he observes several of the games that the Lilliputians play. They involve jumping and guessing and possible injury. The Lilliputians come to the emperor to tell them of something large belonging to the Man-Mountain (for that is what they call Gulliver) found on the beach. It is his hat and he anxiously awaits its return. However, when they bring it to him, they bore holes in it and had dragged it across the countryside by string tied to it through the holes.
The emperor begins to use Gulliver for the kingdom. Gulliver stands erect, with his feet apart, as the army and horses march through his legs. After many such games and practices, again, Gulliver requests his freedom. The emperor decrees the following mandate that allow Gulliver to walk freely in the land.
"First, The Man-Mountain shall not depart from our dominions, without our license under our great seal.
2nd, He shall not presume to come into our metropolis, without our express order; at which time the inhabitants shall have two hours warning to keep within their doors.
3rd, The said Man-Mountain shall confine his walks to our principal high roads, and not offer to walk or lie down in a meadow or field of corn.
4th, As he walks the said roads, he shall take the utmost care not to trample upon the bodies of any of our loving subjects, their horses, or carriages, nor take any of our said subjects into his hands, without their own consent.
5th, If an express require extraordinary dispatch, the Man-Mountain shall be obliged to carry in his pocket the messenger and hors a six days' journey once in every moon, and return the said messenger back (if so required) safe to our Imperial Presence.
6th, He shall be our ally against our enemies in the island of Blefuscu, and do his utmost to destroy their fleet, which is now preparing to invade us.
7th, That the said Man-Mountain shall, at his times of leisure, be aiding and assisting to our workmen, in helping to raise certain great stones, towards covering the wall of the principal park, and other our royal buildings.
8th, That the said Man-Mountain shall, in two moons' time, deliver in an exact survey of the circumference of our dominions by a computation of his own paces round the coast.
Lastly, That upon his solemn oath to observe all the above articles, the said Man-Mountain shall have a daily allowance of meat and drink sufficient for the support of 1728 of our subjects, with free access to our Royal Person, and other marks of our favour." Book 1, Chapter 3, pp. 79-80
Gulliver realizes that the Lilliputians strong intellect calculated the specific amount of people - 1728 - that it would take to feed him.
Gulliver's first point of action with his newly granted freedom is to visit the metropolis of Lilliput, Mildendo. The inhabitants, with due notice, all entered their houses, as to not be trampled by Gulliver's large legs. He sees the city from above, as a perfect square that houses some 500,000 populates. The emperor's palace sits in the center of the city. Gulliver steps over buildings so that he may see the palace better, and after several days of carving a stool from a nearby true trunk, he lifts up the roof and looks inside. The interior is splendid, with the wealthy princes waving to him and the empress extended her hand for a kiss. As Gulliver begins to describe the wonders of the royal palace, he stops himself quickly to inform the reader that he is working on another, longer work that describes the Lilliputian palace and government in full detail.
Approximately two weeks into his freedom, Gulliver makes the acquaintance of Reldresal, the Principal Secretary of Private Affairs. Reldresal openly visits Gulliver in his house, and instead of asking Gulliver to lay down so that he may speak into his ear, he requests to be held in Gulliver's hands, so that they may speak eye to eye. Reldresal recounts the political history of Lilliput to Gulliver, explaining the two opposing governing parties of Tramecksan and Slamecksan, and furthermore, about the source of feud between neighboring empire Blefuscu and Lilliput. The war between the two empires has gone on for six and thirty moons because of an edict starting by the king's grandfather on how to break an egg. According to Lilliputian law, people must break an egg by its small end. However, those who believe or desire to break an egg at its big end (the Big-Endians), continue to try, finding death or exile. Although Reldresal believes that it should be the prerogative of each individual Lilliputian on how to break an egg, he confesses that some 11,000 Lilliputians have lost their lives trying to change the law. The exiled Big-Endians find refuge in Blefuscu, yielding the war that continually ensues on the land. Lilliputians continue to lose ships and men because of the mandate, and Reldresal requests Gulliver's aid in the perpetual battle. Gulliver complies: "I desired the Secretary to present my humble duty to the Emperor, and to let him know, that I thought it would not become me, who was a foreigner, to interfere with parties; but I was ready, with the hazard of my life, to defend his person and state against all invaders" Book 1, Chapter 4, pg. 86.
Gulliver describes the neighboring island of Blefuscu and his plan of attack. He waded in the water, which is approximately six feet in European measures, and some 70 "glumgluffs" deep in Lilliputian. He recalls his victory over the Blefuscu naval forces, pulling at the ships by their anchors and scaring them with his monstrous presence. He uses his glasses to protect his eyes, as the Blefuscu soldiers repeatedly shoot arrows into his arms and face. Gulliver uses the ointment previously described to heal his meager wounds, and eventually pulls the ships out of their safe anchor. "I came in a short time within hearing, and holding up the end of the cable by which the fleet was fastened, I cried in a loud voice, Long live the most puissant Emperor of Lilliput! This great prince received me at my landing with all possible encomiums, and created me a Nardac upon the spot, which is the highest title of honour among them" Book 1, Chapter 5, pp. 88-89. Soon after the victory, the emperor desires to establish Blefuscu into a province ruled by Lilliput, in which nobody shall break eggs by their big ends. Gulliver protests such an action, for he refuses to be a part of something that creates slaves out of free men. Embittered and angry, the Emperor and several of his ministers divide forces of allegiance. Some become intent on destroying Gulliver for making such a bold statement, while others support him vehemently. "And from this time began an intrigue between his Majesty and a junto of Ministers maliciously bent against me, which broke out in less than two months, an ha like to have ended in my utter destruction. Of so little weight are the greatest services to princes, when put into the balance with a refusal to gratify their passions" Book 1, Chapter 5, pg. 89.
Gulliver meets the Emperor of Blefuscu and offers his friendship. As the two opposing monarchies are of distinct culture, they also speak different languages. A translator is required at Gulliver's meeting with the Emperor. Both empires desire their youth to explore and see the world, by exchanging their students in each country.
A fire breaks out suddenly in the house of the Empress, due to negligence of one of her maids. The Lilliputians seek Gulliver hastily, as he may be able to extinguish the flames. In his rush, he forgets his overcoat, which could easily put out the fire. He sees the thimble-like size of the water buckets and recalls that he has yet to use the bathroom for the day after a night of heavy drinking. Thereupon in the midst of the fire and smoke, Gulliver urinates over the Empress's house, meticulously in the locations of the flames, and extinguishes the fire, saving her life in an unorthodox fashion. Although he has helped, he fears the Emperor because of his method. Gulliver is ultimately pardoned, but the Empress mandates that the contaminated buildings be left as they are.
Topic Tracking: Gender Differences 1
Gulliver takes Chapter Six of his writings to explain the Lilliputian culture, government, and social credo. He tells the reader that he does not plan to go into grave detail, for he is leaving that description for a specific treatise on the novel government he has encountered. However, he states that the Lilliputians are on average less than six inches in height, with the rest of their livestock relative to their stature. The tallest tree is seven feet high. They have excellent sight close-up, but have difficulty with distance. Their method of writing and learning is indescribable, as it is not from right to left, or left to right, or top to bottom, or any such logical method. The method of burying their dead is of particular interest to Gulliver:
"They bury their dead with their heads directly downwards, because they hold an opinion that in eleven thousand moons they are all to rise again, in which period the earth (which they conceive to be flat) will turn upside down, and by this means they shall, at their resurrection, be found ready standing on their feet. The learned among them confess the absurdity of this doctrine, but the practice still continues, in compliance to the vulgar." Book 1, Chapter 6, pg. 94
He discusses some of their peculiar laws that lay in direct contrast to those, which he knows so well in England. The legal system favors the guilty, it seems, while fraud is a greater crime than theft. Furthermore, credit is vital to the economy, so the knave has a better standing than the honest man. Law-abiding citizens are rewarded for their good behavior. The Lilliputians are shocked to learn of Gulliver's government that only enacts its policies by punishment, instead of by reward. "It is upon this account that the image of Justice, in their courts of judicature, is formed with six eyes, two before, as many behind, and on each side one, to signify circumspection; with a bag of gold open in her right hand, and a sword sheathed in her left, to show she is ore disposed to reward than to punish" Book 1, Chapter 6, pg. 95. The Lilliputians do not believe in a Divine Providence, ingratitude is a capital crime, and children are under no obligation to their parents for merely bringing them into the world. All children are sent at birth to a public nursery, where they are educated and prepared to take over their parents' stations in life at the age of 20 moons. The nurseries are divided by both gender and class, with each nursery taking care of the children in dress and education. Parents are rarely allowed to see their children and are expected to pay a pension for their child's entertainment and education. Finally, the lowest class, the cottagers and laborers keep their children with them at home, without sending them to a nursery. "Their education is of little consequence to the public; but the old and diseased among them are supported by hospitals: for begging is a trade unknown in this Empire" Book 1, Chapter 6, pg. 99.
Ultimately, Gulliver describes his own home and circumstance in detail. In precise detail, he recounts how the hundreds of seamstresses create his new attire and how hundreds of cooks and waiters feed him on a daily basis for the nine months he has lived in Lilliput. The lady of Flimnap, the High Treasurer of the land was rumored to have developed feelings for Gulliver, causing not only her deep problems, but also for Gulliver. Although Gulliver explains the truth to Reldresal and everyone else, his high position as Nardac, seems to be in jeopardy and his good reputation waning.
As Gulliver prepares to flee to Blefuscu, a Lord from the high courts makes a private visit to him. He informs Gulliver of Flimnap and the other leaders' pending impeachment for him. The Lord interrupts an anxious Gulliver to thank him for all his gratitude and help over the time he has been in Lilliput, and felt obligated to tell Gulliver in advance of the Courts' proceedings. He offers his service privately to Gulliver and informs him of the four articles in the proclamation of Impeachment against the Man-Mountain, who they have named Quinbus Flestrin. They consist of making water in a public place, as Gulliver did on the palace in order to extinguish the flames of the burning building, refusing to obey the Emperor's every command of enslaving the Big-Endians after his capture of the army at sea, acting as a traitor by diverting the Blefuscuan ambassadors from capture by the Lilliputian army, and finally of making plans to visit and aid the empire of Blefuscu against the empire of Lilliput.
The Lord stops reciting the articles, stating that these four are the most grave to everyone. He explains of the meeting in which they discussed plans to kill Gulliver in a vicious and painful method, by setting fire to house with 20,000 men, shooting poisonous arrow into his face and hands, and more. However, Reldresal interjected, illustrating Gulliver's good nature and of their strong and benevolent friendship. He offered the suggestion of simply taking both of Gulliver's eyes, so that he may still live and serve Lilliput, but simply without his eyesight. "That blindness is an addition to courage, by concealing dangers from us; that the fear you had for your eyes, was the greatest difficulty in bringing over the enemy's fleet, and it would be sufficient for you to see by the eyes of the Ministers, since the greatest princes do no more" Book 1, Chapter 7, pg. 107. However, the Lord continues recalling the meeting. Nobody believed Redresal's comments and still wanted Gulliver killed, for taking out his eyes would only enrage him more, making him an even greater Big-Endian.
After discussion, the Lord explains to Gulliver that they agreed on taking out his eyes as punishment, and that they will come to his house in days to do so with twenty surgeons armed with arrows. The Lord gives Gulliver his news and leaves quietly, as not to be seen. Gulliver realizes that he could very easily destroy the metropolis with stones; yet stops himself from doing so because of all the kinds deeds done for him by the Emperor. He decides to flee to Blefuscu in search of safe territory, where the Emperor and kingdom await him there. He makes his own raft and arrives in a new land, one who is thrilled to see him, greets him openly and friendly, but has no provisions for him. Gulliver falls asleep that first night alone, on the ground, with no bed, blankets, or home.
Three days after he arrives in Blefuscu, Gulliver spots an actual ship overturned in the sea. He requests ten vessels and three thousand men to bring it to shore, where all the inhabitants of Blefuscu watch in awe at such a majestic vessel of such grandeur and size. He requests the continual help and resources of the people so that he may fix the ship and return to his native land. After several days of deliberation and simultaneous worry about the Lilliputians, the Emperor decides to have his men help Gulliver set sail in a ship of his own, for Gulliver had been kind and instrumental in the country's attempts at peace. In one month's time, Gulliver is prepared to leave the lands he discovered. There are grand ceremonies bidding him farewell and good luck. His ship is stocked with hundreds of ox carcasses, corn, barrels of hay, and other such food and wine that should feed him over several weeks until he reaches his next destination.
He leaves Lilliput and Blefuscu on the 24th of September, 1701, having spent nearly two years there. After some two and a half days, he sees a British ship and climbs aboard, with some livestock in his pockets and money and portraits in his gloves. He describes his journeys to the captain, Mr. John Biddel of Deptford, who believes him to be mad. When Gulliver shows proof of the tiny cow and money, they believe him. At home in London, Gulliver spends a short two months with his family. His son Johnny is studying in grammar school, while his elder daughter, Betty, is married herself with children. Despite this comfort, Gulliver is ready to embark upon more adventures and joins the merchant ship, Adventure, under Captain John Nicholas of Liverpool. The stories of his next journey, he claims, must be told in the second part of his book of Travels.
Gulliver begins Book 2 by introducing his captain on the Adventure and initial voyage to Surat. The ship sails around the Cape of Good Hope and past the Straits of Madagascar. However, after several months of ailment and traveling, the ship sails into a terrible monsoon, again, standing strong. It is waved westward-southward-westward by the heavy winds, bringing the sailors into unknown territory in the water. On June 16, 1703, a shipmate spots land, a protrusion from a continent, which looks either like an island or a peninsula. The sailors turn around and see, what looks like, a monster in the water coming after them, so they rush to land. Gulliver, afraid for his life, runs up a steep hill and away from everyone else. When he looks around, he notices that things are slightly different than usual. The blades of grass are over twenty feet high, while the sheaves of corn reach an approximate forty feet. Gulliver continues to explore this foreign land and comes across seven seeming monsters such as the one he feared in the water. They are simply men, perhaps servants, who are of such a grand size that makes Gulliver seem like a Lilliputian to them. At that point, Gulliver falls into a deep sadness, prepared to die and sorry for his family. He knows he has no chance of survival in such a world, and recalls his journey in Lilliput. "I reflected what a mortification it must prove to me to appear as inconsiderable in this nation as one single Lilliputian would be among us" Book 2, Chapter 1, pg. 125. He is convinced that, with human rage and savagery, he is sure to be the next morsel in the diet of one of these monster people. Gulliver soon believes in the philosophy that claims that nothing is great or little otherwise than by comparison, for he wonders how such people would receive him, and how he would receive such a people.
In the cornfields, he sees a large one again, and screams loudly so to be heard. The man looks around as if he hears something until he looks down below and sees Gulliver. Picking him up between his forefinger and thumb, he lifts Gulliver to his eyes, as a human would to a bug or mysterious creature. He calls over his master, the farmer, to inquire if hey had ever seen such a creature before in the fields. They both see Gulliver as the first creature of its type and wonder what to do. Gulliver, afraid for his life, humbly offers them gold coins from his purse. The large men cannot decipher the money; so naturally, they do not attend to it. They eventually take him home and show him to the farmer's wife, who initially squeals at the sight of such a creature, as any English woman would at the sight of a bug. After Gulliver shows her such regard and deep respect, she warms up to him. At dinner, they serve him a small man's portion of meat, still 24 feet in diameter, and a substantial portion of liquor. Gulliver now calls the farmer his master and walks across the table to see him. He stumbles over the crust of his bread, as the ten-year-old boy picks him up by his legs, dangling him over the table. The master snaps at his son, ordering him to release Gulliver. As the evening progresses, Gulliver sees more of the family. The mistress's cat comes to play, terrifying Gulliver, as does the family's young baby who desperately wants Gulliver as a play toy. The baby takes Gulliver in its teeth and plays until Gulliver screams so loudly, that he is forced to release him. In a deafening sound, the baby cries to eat and suck on its mother's nipple. This sight is the most gruesome of all for Gulliver, for he sees a six-foot breast, full with pimples and spots and freckles. It makes him appreciate his own women from England, and furthermore contemplate the perfect complexions of the small Lilliputians, who appeared so just because of their minute size. "This made me reflect upon the fair skins of our English ladies, who appear so beautiful to us, only because they are of our own size, and their defects not to be seen through a magnifying glass, where we find by experiment that the smoothest and whitest skins look rough and course, and ill coloured" Book 2, Chapter 1, pg. 13.
Topic Tracking: Gender Differences 2
After the family leaves the room, Gulliver is left alone to take inventory of his surroundings, when a rat (approximately two yards long), comes to attack him. Gulliver grabs a hanger and slits the rat's throat, leaving it bloody and near-dead on the bed. Gulliver is also drenched in blood, and when the mistress enters and sees her poor toy seeming hurt, she has the maid dispose of the dead body and picks up Gulliver for comfort. Gulliver thanks her for her help and desires to be alone. He addresses the readers, apologizing for going into such great detail, but wanting to inform them of his observations of this new land.
Gulliver describes his nurse in admiration, who is also the family's nine-year-old daughter, Glumdalclitch. She takes care of him during his entire stay with them, washing him, feeding him, clothing him, teaching him the language, and keeping him safe in a cradle suspending on a hanging shelf to keep rats away. She gives him his name in the land of Brobdingnag, Grildrig, and cannot go without mention in Gulliver's tales. In due time, news of Gulliver's presence spread throughout the town and the rest of the land of Brobdingnag. The farmer speaks of a creature the size of a "splacknuck" (or small bug), but with all the characteristics of a person, with his own language, who stands upright, who acts in a proper and mannerly fashion, and so on and so forth. Glumdalclitch becomes upset and saddened when she sees other people point and snicker at her little baby, Gulliver, and doesn't want him to be hurt by stupid people wanting to squash him or break his limbs. It seems that she wants to keep him as her own toy, since her parents had previously promised her a lamb as a pet baby, and not given it to her.
Topic Tracking: Gender Differences 3
In due time, the farmer takes Gulliver to town to exhibit him to others. He stands and entertains for eight hours daily, exhausted at keeping up such high energy throughout the day. And in even more time, the family packs Gulliver up and goes on a journey to the metropolis called Lorbrugrud, where he is scheduled to be on exhibition for town after town.
In the metropolis, Gulliver is worked to exhaustion, loses a devastating amount of weight, and seems to be in his last month of life. When the farmer brings him to Court, he makes the acquaintance of Her Majesty, the royal empress of Brobdingnag. After enough entertainment and disbelief by those around her, she offers to buy Gulliver. The farmer sells him instantaneously for one thousand pieces of gold, as he believes Gulliver to be on his deathbed anyway. Gulliver requests only that Glumdalclitch stay with him, as his nursemaid and teacher. She complies, thrilling both farmer and daughter to extremes. When the farmer leaves, Gulliver expresses his distaste for the man who starved him and treated him as he did. He claims that the farmer should not be rewarded for simply not squashing Gulliver. Glumdalclitch, on the other hand, treated him with respect and cared for his every move and statement.
Gulliver soon meets more men of the Court, who view him as a perfect piece of clockwork or machinery, and eventually His Majesty, who becomes instantly fascinated with his stature. With his learned men, they try to discover Gulliver's species. Gulliver attempts to explain his native land to them, where everything is proportionate and people are able to defend themselves from land and nature and enemies. After the men have difficulty with Gulliver's description, they eventually make conclusions through their philosophy of what Gulliver is exactly. His Majesty sends the men away so that he may have some private time with Gulliver and simultaneously requests the presence of the farmer for further questioning.
Following the meeting, the queen appoints her cabinetmaker to design a meticulous home for Gulliver, equipped with padded walls and a key to keep away the rats. Glumdalclitch is also cared for by tutors and maids. The queen takes a quick liking to Gulliver, requesting his presence at all her meals. She loves to see him eat in his miniature fashion, while Gulliver struggles with watching her eat, a genuine grotesque sight in his eyes.
"For the Queen (who had indeed but a weak stomach) took up at one mouthful as much as a dozen English farmers could eat at a meal, which to me was for some time a very nauseous sight. She would craunch the wing of a lark, bones and all, between her teeth, although it were nine times as large as that of a full-grown turkey; and put a bit of break in her mouth, as big as two twelve-penny loaves. She drank out of a golden cup, above a hogshead at a draught. Her knives were twice a long as a scythe set straight upon the handle. The spoons, forks, and other instruments were all in the same proportion." Book 2, Chapter 3, pg. 145
On Wednesdays, Gulliver eats with both the King and Queen, for it is their holy Sabbath. Gulliver informs him of the English system of government, their political parties, and wars, yielding confusion and laughter from the King. He wonders if Gulliver is a Whig or a Tory. He soon meets the Queen's dwarf, a person of infinite cruelty and existence on the lowest end of social status. Upon seeing Gulliver, he immediately discovers his superiority and taunts Gulliver. He even throws him into a large bowl of cream, from which Glumdalclitch rescues him. The dwarf is punished and banished from the royal Court, pleasing Gulliver, for he has no idea how far the dwarf would have carried his cruelty and resentment.
Gulliver has difficulty dealing with the flying insects in the air. The Queen finds him a coward, for he constantly fears these bugs, which appear minuscule to the Brobdingnag population. Eventually, Gulliver learns to slice them to pieces in the air, garnering acclaim and attention from the Queen and those around him. He tells the reader that he brings their remains back to Europe to show to local colleges.
Gulliver takes a chapter in his tales to describe the land of Brogdingnag. As he travels the metropolis, he learns that it is 2000 miles in circumference, and furthermore, that the King's dominion reaches out 6000 miles more of land. He claims that the English cartographers must readjust their maps to account for such a large mass of land in between Japan and California. The kingdom is a peninsula, with its surrounding waters the same as those near England. Fish is the relative size to fish for Gulliver, so the people do not use them as food. Occasionally, they bring in a beached whale to eat as a delicacy; however, they are not generally received well. The country has fifty-one cities, a hundred walled towns, and countless villages. The palace and temple are grand, but not impressive, for Gulliver measures the perspective and relativity of the steeples, and they fall short of the relative height of those chapels in London.
When the Queen, Glumdalclitch, and Gulliver stop on the street to look at some stores, they see beggars and homeless men and women. This sight is ghastly.
"There was a woman with a cancer in her breast, swelled to a monstrous size, full of holes, in two or three of which I could have easily crept, and covered my whole body. There was a fellow with a wen in his neck, larger than five woolpacks, and another with a couple of wooden legs, each about twenty foot high. But, the most hateful sight of all was the lice crawling on their clothes. I could see distinctly the limbs of these vermin with my naked eyes, much better than those of an European louse through a microscope, and their snouts with which they rooted like swine." Book 2, Chapter 4, pp. 151-152
Topic Tracking: Gender Differences 4
Gulliver continues to view such landmarks as the Palace and the King's kitchen. He informs the reader that he is translating his writings into Brobdingnag, and does not want to go into any more detail, for fear of what they people may think of his writings. He does not want them to think he is negative towards their culture, so he discontinues his meticulous observations.
Gulliver recounts several of his problematic encounters, while living comfortably in the Court under the care of Glumdalclitch. He believes that if it were not for so many ridiculous and dangerous encounters, he could have lived quite happily in Brobdingnag. Such encounters consisted of a hailstorm that beat him black and blue for ten days, being swept up in the mouth of a dog in the courtyard while Glumdalclitch was walking with her governess, and living as the object of enmity by the dwarf, who shook an apple tree on top of Gulliver, forcing the fruit to fall on him. Worried about her doll, Glumdalclitch does not want to leave Gulliver for a single moment. Because of this, Gulliver does not inform her of all his trials, such as being carried away by a kite and dueling with the birds.
Several of the local Maids of Honour request Glumdalclitch's company, with the true desire to see Gulliver. She brings him along to her meetings with them, as they play with him and lay them on top of their bosoms. Gulliver has difficulty breathing because of their strong and repugnant scent. Although he understands that they are no more offensive to their men that English women are to English men, because of his size, he smells all details of body odor, and prefers their natural scent to that of perfume. He also recalls during his time at Lilliput, that a friend informed him of his strong odor after much physical labor. During one of the visits with the Maids of Honour, they women unclothed themselves in front of Gulliver. He is disgusted by their sight of discolored skin and hair and moles, and even more repulsed by one maiden who places Gulliver on her nipple to play. Gulliver skillfully devises a plan so that Glumdalclitch never sees that particular woman again.
Topic Tracking: Gender Differences 5
Gulliver attends a local execution of a criminal. The man is to be beheaded, and although Gulliver is approximately one mile (English distance) from the spectacle, the gory details and spurting blood are so large, that he jumps with fear at the drop of the head.
The Queen, fascinated by Gulliver's background, constantly desires to hear his stories of life at sea, as both a surgeon and a sailor. She tries to bring him out to the water, to give him exercise, and more entertainment; however, such attempts invariably end in disaster and near-death experiences for Gulliver. Outside on a boat one day, he was almost dropped forty feet, until his fall was miraculously stopped by corking-pin, and eventually Glumdalclitch. Thereafter, he also encountered a large frog, who he desperately wanted to fight off alone, and most devastatingly a monkey. The monkey debacle nearly cost him his life, as it picked him up and stuffed him with victuals, squeezing him, and dragging him all over the courtyard. Everyone tried to rescue Gulliver, and after much trauma, several of the men caught the monkey after climbing up a ladder. Gulliver vomited profusely and was bedridden for a fortnight. The monkey is put to death and the Queen repeatedly visits Gulliver during his recovery. After his recovery, Gulliver visits the King, who is curious as to the feeling of being held in a monkey's hand and stuffed with monkey vermin. Although Gulliver tries to explain his experiences and feelings, the only sentiments that come out seem to be laughter, which the King cannot understand in any fashion other than comical.
"This made me reflect how vain an attempt it is for a man to endeavor doing himself honour among those who are out of all degree of equality or comparison with him. And yet I have seen the moral of my own behavior very frequent in England since my return, where a little contemptible varlet, without the least title to birth, person, wit, or common sense, shall presume to look with importance, and put himself upon a foot with the greatest persons of the kingdom." Book 2, Chapter 5, pp. 163
This lifestyle continues, consisting of Gulliver encountering some ridiculous experience with Glumdalclitch, who then tells it to all of the Court. Although he knows that she loves him dearly, she derives great pleasure in informing everyone of Gulliver's misfortunes. One day they leave the Court for a short trip thirty miles outside of town. When they stop the carriage, Gulliver exits to relieve himself. However, he stumbles into some horse manure in the street. Although he is immediately picked up and cleaned, he is the new laughing stock of the kingdom for several days.
Gulliver spends much time with the King, being privy to his morning exercises, which include shaving and walking, and also listening to music and governmental discussions. After telling the King of England's political system, he is revered and requested at all meetings. Gulliver worries of portraying the system of government poorly. "Imagine with thyself, courteous reader, how often I then wished for the tongue of Demosthenes or Cicero, that might have enabled me to celebrate the praises of my own dear native country in a style equal to its merits and felicity" Book 2, Chapter 6, pg. 167. Gulliver recites the history of the United Kingdom, from its geography to its politics, religious belief to royalty, laws, customs, judiciary system, and so on and so forth. The King listens attentively, taking notes and bringing six audiences to listen to him. After hearing a detailed description of England's governmental system, he offers a rebuttal to almost all of the aspects of the country. Gulliver has difficulty defending his land, but listens to the King's warning and fears.
"My little friend Grildrig; you have made a most admirable panegyric upon your country. You have clearly proved that ignorance, idleness, and vice are the proper ingredients for qualifying a legislator. That laws are best explained, interpreted, and applied by those whose interest and abilities lie in perverting, confounding, and eluding them. I observe among you some lines of an institution, which in it original might have been tolerable, but these half erased, and the rest wholly blurred and blotted by corruptions." Book 2, Chapter 6, pg. 172
The King continues to insult Gulliver's race and culture, calling it base and pernicious. With all of Gulliver's traveling, he also believes Gulliver to have escaped much of the horror that his country provides and creates.
Gulliver explains his sorrow to the reader at having illustrated the King's negative impressions and opinions of his beloved England. He apologizes to the reader and attempts to only place Europe in the highest and most esteemed places in his mind. He notes that he fails in this attempt, but also contests that the King has a narrow vision of Europe, for he is sheltered in his country. "The want of which knowledge will ever produce many prejudices, and a certain narrowness of thinking, from which we and the politer countries of Europe are wholly exempted" Book 2, Chapter 7, pg. 174. Gulliver and the King debate over and over again on their respective systems of government, until Gulliver presents an unfortunate image of the King as immobile and two-dimensional. The library system of Brobdingnag consists of less than a thousand volumes, despite their printing system (equivalent to that of the Chinese), and their writing does not flow, despite its clear and masculine style. The contents of philosophy are similar to that of Western European writings, as they contemplate mankind, life, afterlife, and the life that preceded them. They claim that the life before them could have been much larger than it is now, as Gulliver notes the universality of the topics in their writings. The army consists of one hundred seventy-six thousand foot men with thirty-two thousand horses, farmers and militiamen in each town, with the local gentry commanding them. And although Gulliver notices the similarities in philosophy and distinctions in class and political structure, he is content to recognize that they, too, have been plagued by the problems of most nations - civil war.
Although Gulliver becomes the delight of the King and Queen and court of the nation, he grows lonely for his own breed, so that he may carry on a conversation with equals. The King, desperate to keep his friend around, wants to find him a woman of his own size. In lieu of being caged up like a lab rat, Gulliver realizes that he is ready to leave Brobdingnag. At this time, he and Glumdalclitch have fallen ill with colds. A servant asks to take Gulliver out for a walk by the sea during one of their trips outside the city. Saddened and tearful, Glumdalclitch relinquishes her presence over Gulliver after two years as his nanny and consents to letting this man take care of her toy for a short while. The servant sets Gulliver's box (in which he lays) on the ground, while he climbs the rocks looking for birds. Suddenly a large eagle picks up Gulliver's box by the ring at its top and carries it in the air, terrifying him. The eagle drops the box over the sea and Gulliver miraculously survives this disastrous fall, only to fall prey to the water in the sea and days of hunger. Eventually, Gulliver turns the box on its side and climbs to the top to make a hole through which he can see. When he finally succeeds, he hears an English voice asking if there is anyone around who needs help. Gulliver seeks their attention and is rescued by the ship of Mr. Thomas Wilcocks. In disbelief, the seamen think him raving and mad, but appease him by listening to some of his stories, while he initially believes them to be pygmies. They strip his box of its riches and sink the rest of it. Gulliver remarks that if he had seen their massacre of his old home, he would have been saddened because he grew fond of Glumdalclitch, the Queen and King, and other Brobdingnags.
When Gulliver awakens from his rest, recovered, the captain feeds and speaks with Gulliver. He tells him that he initially saw the monstrous chest in the water and told his men to discover what it was and to rescue anyone inside. He also believes Gulliver to be a criminal who has made up a story and was set to sea in a chest. After a detailed recount of his story from England to Brobdingnag and now to the ship, Gulliver shows his captain several souvenirs from the land, which include a comb made from the King's beard and the Queen's thumb-nail, wasp stings used as nails, and a corn cut from a Maid of Honor's toe. The captain tells Gulliver that he should write down all of his experiences, for they are miraculous. Gulliver does not want to do so, for he fears that there is already too much travel writing in publication. Because of this belief, he claims that his writings are different. "That my story could contain little besides common events, without those ornamental descriptions of strange plants, trees, birds, and other animals, or the barbarous customs and idolatry of savage people, with which most writers abound" Book 2, Chapter 8, pg. 189.
Gulliver borrows five shillings from the captain so that he may return home. Their voyage back to England proves to be long and eventful, but is not discussed by Gulliver. He parts ways with his new friend, the captain, and looks around at all the houses and food, as being tiny. He recalls his time in Lilliput, as he enters his own home.
"When I came to my own house, for which I was forced to enquire, one of the servants opening the door, I bent down to go in (like a goose under a gate) for fear of striking my head. My wife ran out to embrace me, but I stooped lower than her knees, thinking she could otherwise never be able to reach my mouth. My daughter kneeled to ask me blessing, but I could not see her till she arose, having been so long used to stand with my head an eyes erect to above sixty foot; and then I went to take her up with one hand, by the waist. I looked down upon the servants and one or two friends who were in the house, as if they had been pygmies, and I a giant." Book 2, Chapter 8, pg. 191
Although he feels lucky to have returned home to see his wife and children, nothing can cure him of his insatiable sea appetite. His wife begs him not to return to the life of a seaman, but he resists her pleas. The second tale ends as Gulliver looks to travel, once again.
Gulliver opens this third book by introducing Captain William Robinson, the man with whom he begins his second leg of travels. After much persuasion and flattery, the captain manages to secure the surgeon Gulliver as a mate on his ship, which sets sale on August 5th, 1706 for Fort St. George. They arrive at the fort on August 11th and stay for three weeks to rest and recuperate. They soon sail again to Tonquin, where Captain Robinson shops extensively. Three days into their journey again at sea, they encounter an enormous storm, like the two previous adventures. Amidst the strong winds, they are chased by two pirate ships and taken captive. One pirate captain is a Dutchman, who recognizes Gulliver and his shipmates as Englishmen, while the other is Japanese, speaking in a language that the Englishmen cannot decipher. Before Gulliver encounters the pirates, however, he spots several islands through his telescope. He takes his sale and arrives on the first one, traveling from island to island, until arriving at the final one on his fifth day of exploration. This land seemed different than the rest, but Gulliver does not understand why. He sees fishermen from afar wave to him, and he responds their greeting, joining them from the rocks. Suddenly, he is in another new world.
"They made signs for me to come down from the rock, and go towards the shore, which I accordingly did; and the flying island being raised to a convenient height, the verge directly over me, a chain was let down from the lowest gallery, with a seat fastened to the bottom, to which I fixed myself, and was drawn up by pulleys." Book 3, Chapter 1, pg. 200
Gulliver notices that the Laputans, the people of the island of Laputa, are distinct in their appearance, looking unpleasant from afar.
"Their heads were all reclined either to the right, or the left; one of their eyes turned inward, and the other directly up to the zenith. Their outward garments were adorned with the figures of suns, moons, and stars, interwoven with those of fiddles, flutes, harps, trumpets, guitars, harpsichords, and many more instruments of music, unknown to us in Europe. I observed here and there many in the habit of servants, with a blown bladder fastened like a flail to the end of a short stick, which they carried in their hands. In each bladder was a small quantity of dried pease or little pebbles (as I was afterwards informed). With these bladders they now and then flapped the mouths and ears of those who stood near them, of which practice I could not then conceive the meaning; it seems, the minds of these people are so taken up with intense speculations, that they neither an speak, nor attend to the discourses of others, without being roused by some external taction upon the organs of speech and hearing." Book 3, Chapter 2, pg. 200-201
Furthermore, these people are always deep in thought and can only be brought out of it through a tactile interference, either a flap on the eyelid or ear. Families always keep a flapper around to keep people in motion. The flapper is designated to bring people out of their state of cognition and respond to another. When Gulliver enters the King's palace, the King does not notice him, for he is deep in mathematic thought. Gulliver notices all of the mathematical tools surrounding him until a flapper comes to him to flap his ears to say something. Gulliver motions that he does not need a flapper. When they sit down for dinner, all the food is cut into specific geometric shapes and mathematical figures. Although Gulliver initially believed them to speak Italian, he does not understand their language when they speak to him. At dinner, he attempts to learn specific words, through the help of the flappers, and the derivation of the name of the flying island: Lap, meaning high, and untah, meaning governor.
The King orders clothing to be made for Gulliver. The tailor takes his measurements with a compass and a quadrant, creating sorely ill fitted attire. Gulliver expresses his indifference and gratitude and continues to learn about this culture. He discovers, on their trip to the capital city of Lagado, that the entire culture is defined by these mathematical figures. Women's beauty is described in such terms, as is the rest of the populace. The houses and buildings are poorly built, and Gulliver claims that they are the most ill equipped people he has ever seen. Although they seem dexterous and diligent on paper, they carry out their ideas and actions in a clumsy, awkward fashion. They hold a strong belief in astrology, and are therefore in constant disquiet. Their apprehensions about the celestial system above impede their every motion, every whim, and every hour, leaving them perpetual insomniacs. The women of the island are vivacious and wondrous of the world around them. Like Europe, they may marry into wealth and be doted upon. However, they cannot travel without strict permission and license from the King.
Topic Tracking: Gender Differences 6
After a month or so, Gulliver begins to speak their language fairly well and speaks often with the King on various subjects. However, the conversations generally return to math, for it seems to be the only subject that excites him. After some time, Gulliver requests leave to explore the island, which he discovers is approximately four miles in diameter and three hundred yards thick. The land is covered by minerals from above and below, forcing all the rains to fall at the center and into a basin. The King can even control the latitude of the island, so that it may rise above the clouds and avoid condensation. The center of the island holds Astronomer's Cave, from which the travelers and astronomers descend into. The dome (or cave) houses mountains of mathematical equipment and devices, most notably a large magnet, which keeps the island at steady motion and latitude. It is by this lodestone that the altitude can be changed. Gulliver goes into extreme detail on the maneuvering of the magnet for the island's mobility. It can only be changed by the King's decree. From this lodestone, the country's astronomers can see far clearer pictures than anyone in Europe, and have thenceforth discovered some ninety-three different comets and images of stars up close.
Although they are a dominant people, due to their presence above land, they cannot enslave any subservient population on the islands and continent below. The Monarchy of the land has always enacted three rules to the governing of their people below. If they are disobedient or fall into battle, the King will order that Laputa be placed above their land, blocking all sunlight from entering, causing crisis. If that does not work, they will pelt the land below with stones, forcing the men to hide in caves and houses. And the last resort (never used because of its extremity), is to lower the flying island completely on top of the one below, causing complete and utter destruction of the town below. This final option has grave consequences also for Laputa and the lodestone, so they never enact it.
Gulliver learns of a major event in the country's history that impacted its governance for the future. Some three years prior to his arrival, the island of Lindalino, the second largest city in the empire, planned to revolt against the harsh laws of Laputa. They began constructing towers so high that they almost touched the bottom of the flying island, and on the top of the towers, they placed lodestones. They were committed to gaining rights and demonstrating their pride. The King called forth for the first two orders of covering the land with Laputa, depriving the citizens of sunlight and rainfall, and even pelting them with stones. Neither worked, and the towers on land below threatened to destroy Laputa's lodestone, breaking the island. Eventually, the King gave into some of the Lindalinoans' requests. However, despite his acquiescence, they still planned to assassinate him and destroy the government of Laputa. Since then, neither the King nor the Princes are allowed to leave the land. The Queen may only do so after she is past the age of childbearing.
After a short while on the floating island, Gulliver grows impatient and frustrated, ready to leave. It is not that the people are disinteresting, it is only that they care about two subjects - math and science - and pay little heed to Gulliver, since he is not as well versed in them as they are. Furthermore, the only people with whom he can carry on a conversation are the bothersome flappers. Gulliver befriends a great Lord at Court, who has two flapper attendants, but does not need them. This Lord is interested in hearing about Gulliver's country, travels through Europe, and more, and is the man who helps Gulliver leave the island. On February 16, he leaves the island onto the top of a mountain, just as he entered, with a letter of recommendation from the King to a friend in Lagado, the metropolis. The entire continent is called Balnibarbi, with Lagado as its capital, and does not appease Gulliver to all extent. The Lord had prearranged accommodations for Gulliver in one of his acquaintance's apartments.
Lord Munodi, the owner of the apartment, takes Gulliver on a tour of Lagado the following day. It is approximately half the size of London, but with a people of extraordinary haste and wildness. Everyone is constantly working, but seeming to no avail. "I did not discover any good effects they produced; but on the contrary, I never knew a soil so unhappily cultivated, houses so ill contrived and so ruinous, or a people whose countenances and habit expressed so much misery and want" Book 3, Chapter 4, pg. 219.
Munodi asks Gulliver his opinions of the metropolis, people, and architecture. Gulliver has no response, for he has not yet made an official opinion of the people. The following morning, Munodi takes Gulliver on a journey through the country (in which farmers cultivate not one blade of grass nor a single ear of corn), and to his grand country home, an architectural relic for the land of Balnibarbi, of which Gulliver expresses his awe and admiration. Munodi informs Gulliver that the farmers hate him, because he could do little in the past to improve the situations in the grounds and meadows. Years earlier, several citizens of Lagado had traveled up to Laputa to study. When they returned, they had only learned of mathematics, but had picked up some additional techniques and characteristics. They formed the Academy, in which arts and all subjects are taught in their own way, despite the stringent law of the land. Munodi disagreed with everything about the revolutionaries and the Academy. Soon Academies popped up in every town and city. However, the government viewed the people who started these schools as different, for none of the projects within the programs are ever implemented or carried out.
"By all which, instead of being discouraged, they are fifty times more violently bent upon prosecuting their schemes, driven equally on by hope and despair; that as for himself, being not of an enterprising spirit, he was content to go on in the old forms, to live in the houses his ancestors had built, and act as they did in every part of life without innovation. That, some few other persons of quality and gentry had done the same, but were looked on with an eye of contempt and ill-will, as enemies to art, ignorant, and ill commonwealth's-men, preferring their own ease and sloth before the general improvement of their country." Book 3, Chapter 4, pg. 222
Gulliver is intrigued to learn more about these people at the Academy and plans a visit. Munodi decides not to accompany him because of his history and bad reputation with the Academy and the people.
Gulliver visits the Academy, which adorns both sides of a street for several buildings. Waste is placed in between both sides and purchased by the Academy for use in its multiple experiments utilizing projectors. The Warden openly welcomes Gulliver to the school and shows him several of the experiments currently in action. He meets an unkempt man who has been working eight years on a project in which he is supposed to extract sunbeams out of cucumbers, he sees a chamber in which people are trying to reduce human excrement to its original food, another which calcine ice into gunpowder, another which consists of building houses from the roof down to its foundation, a blind painter who mixes colors by their texture and smell, and yet another in which an artist uses spiders and cobwebs as the manufacturer of silks. Gulliver even walks into a room in which a doctor tries to help and cure a dog of colic by placing a large bellows inside the anus of the animal and pumps an enormity of air inside, hoping to blow out any disease. The dog lets out a foul amount of excrement and soon dies. He continues to visit more rooms, but chooses to exclude them from the rest of his writings.
Gulliver travels to the other side of the Academy where the advancers of speculative learning reside, and meets a professor who explains their method of learning by practical and mechanical operations.
"But the world would soon be sensible of its usefulness, and he flattered himself that a more noble exalted thought never sprang in any other man's head. Every one knew how laborious the usual method is of attaining to arts and sciences; whereas by his contrivance, the most ignorant person at a reasonable charge, and with a little bodily labour, may write books in philosophy, poetry, politics, law, mathematics, and theology, without the least assistance from genius or study." Book 3, Chapter 5, pg. 227
The professor shows Gulliver the massive twenty-foot frame centering the room. It consists of all letters and sounds of the language, held together by wires. Students spend six hours a day moving around the frame, discerning all letters and words in the Laputan language. He claims that all vocabulary can be found on his frame. Gulliver promises to erect a massive frame such as this if he ever returns to England. Gulliver also visits the school of languages, in which he learns of several methods by which to strengthen the discourse by "cutting poly-syllables into one, and leaving out verbs and particles, because in reality all things imaginable are but nouns" Book 3, Chapter 5, pg. 230. Another language project is to abolish all words, for they take up breath causing life to be cut shorter than necessary, and instead communicate by things. They claim that since words are simply names for things, they might as well communicate by using the things and carrying them around with them, therefore eliminating oral speech and the consequential miscommunication between different languages. Gulliver also visits the math school, in which he is confused by an experiment that consists of eating a wafer with a problem written on it. The student eats nothing but water and bread after eating the wafer, and it is supposed to travel to his brain so that he may understand the problem. Of course, it is unsuccessful. Gulliver next visits with the political projectors and philosophers, having difficulty with their thoughts and edicts.
"The highest tax was upon men who are the greatest favourites of the other sex, an the assessments according to the number and natures of the favours they have received; for which they are allowed to be their own vouchers. Wit, valour, and politeness were likewise proposed to be largely taxed, and collected in the same manner, by every person's giving his own word for the quantum of what he possessed. But as to honour, justice, wisdom and learning, they should not be taxed at all, because they are qualifications of so singular a kind, that no man will either allow them in his neighbour, or value them in himself." Book 3, Chapter 6, pg. 235
Likewise, the women are taxed according to their beauty and fashion, upon their own decision, leaving chastity, good nature, and the like to be untaxed. Senators raffle for their employment, as opposed to being appointed or voted into office, and suspected people are judged by the color of their excrement (on whether they plan to conspire against the government). Frustrated by such rules and regulations, Gulliver offers some advice from all the countries he has seen during his travels, and longs to return home.
Topic Tracking: Gender Differences 7
Because the continent is so massive, it contains several large towns. Gulliver plans to take a ship from the port of Maldonada to the nearby island of Luggnagg. However, since no ship is available for approximately one month, Gulliver visits the nearby island of Glubbdubdrib with a friend he meets at the port. Glubbdubdrib is the Island of Sorcerers or Magicians, and consequently is a land of ghosts and spirits. Initially, Gulliver is terrified of the ghosts roaming the countryside and air at night. However, when he visits the Governor, he is able to call upon any dead person in history, so that he may ask a question. He summons Alexander the Great, discovering that he was not poisoned, but rather died from excessive drinking. Gulliver is thrilled at discovering the world of yesteryear and spends all night summoning great figures in history, from Caesar, to Pompey, Hannibal to Socrates, and more. He ends this tale before he claims to bore the reader with specifics of his experience. However, Gulliver sets aside an entire day to discuss politics with the greats of history. He sees the apparent distinction between Homer and Aristotle, the intellect of DeCartes, and spends five days discussing political history with the first Roman Emperors. Gulliver becomes irate and disappointed with them after learning of their motives behind the gore and violence they used during their rule. He is disgusted with modern history, of his time, when he discovers how revolutions and changes come about, realizing that everything political and every change in the world seems to have done so through deceit and possible malice.
Topic Tracking: Exploration 10
"As every person called up made exactly the same appearance he had done in the world, it gave me melancholy reflections to observe how much the race of human kind was degenerate among us, within these hundred years past. How the pox under all its consequences and denominations had altered every lineament of an English countenance, shortened the size of bodies, unbraced the nerves, relaxed the sinews and muscles, introduced a sallow complexion, and rendered the flesh loose and rancid." Book 3, Chapter 8, pg. 247
After a fortnight of waiting, the ship to Luggnagg is finally ready to set sail on April 21, 1709. Gulliver comes aboard with several men, and decides to speak Dutch, so that he may enter Japan, for Hollanders are the only Europeans permitted to enter the Eastern island. After the confusing voyage at sea, Gulliver arrives at Luggnagg, and speaks Balnibarbi, with a translator. The King welcomes Gulliver with generosity and lodging, and Gulliver therefore stays for three months.
On the eastern island of Luggnagg, Gulliver discovers the beautiful culture of the people - the Struldbrugg. Occasionally, a child is born with a mark over his/her left eyebrow, illustrating immortality. Gulliver is so dumbfounded by such a miracle, that he shouts with joy for this culture. He speaks in Balnibarbi to some of them and thoroughly enjoys his time there, thinking of all he would do if he were to achieve immortality. He would discover h is own happiness by discovering the differences between life and death, he would take some two hundred years to procure immense wealth and become the richest man in the kingdom, then he would devote all his time to the study of the arts and sciences so that he could become more well versed and knowledgeable than anyone else, and finally carefully observe the mannerisms of the public, the motives of the monarchy, and so on and so forth. He will not marry past threescore, and would furthermore see all the pleasures of witnessing the rise and fall of kings, queens, revolutions, monarchies, and various empires. He will find the new inventions continue to re-invent themselves, he will eventually learn the best way to run a country. He will see the advancements in astronomy and other worldly sciences. After he concludes his oral adventure into future perfection of immortality, the others erupt in laughter, for they understand the impossibility of Gulliver's ideas.
Topic Tracking: Exploration 11
"That the system of living contrived by me was unreasonable and unjust, because it supposed a perpetuity of youth, health, and vigour, which no man could be so foolish to hope, however extravagant he might be in his wishes. That the question therefore was not whether a man would choose to be always in the primes of youth, attended with prosperity and health, but how he would pass a perpetual life under all the usual disadvantages which old age brings along with it. For although few men will avow their desires of being immortal upon such hard conditions, yet in the two kingdoms before-mentioned of Balnibarbi an Japan, he observed that every man desired to put off death for some time longer, let it approach ever so late, and he rarely heard of any man who died willingly, except he were incited by the extremity of grief or torture. And he appealed to me whether in those countries I had traveled, as well as my own, I had not observed the same general disposition." Book 3, Chapter 10, pg. 256-257
However, they inform Gulliver that the Struldbruggs are rather unfortunate people, hated by most people, and forced to live an endless life without strength and vitality. If a Struldbrugg marries another Struldbrugg, the law can dissolve the marriage when the youngest one reaches fourscore, for it doesn't seem fair to burden the man with a wife after so long a time. At eighty, they law sees them as dead, and at ninety, they lose their teeth, hair, memory, and most senses. Gulliver meets a few Struldbruggs, aghast at their horrendous appearance. Soon after meeting them, Gulliver rescinds his entire tirade of the miracle of immortality, but also realizes that these Struldbruggs may eventually rule the nation because of their lasting presence. The king suggests that Gulliver bring some Struldbruggs back to England to truncate the fear of death; however, the transport goes against both laws of England and of Luggnagg.
Gulliver leaves Luggnagg for Japan, with a kind letter of recommendation to the Japanese Emperor from the King of Luggnagg. He travels, as a Dutchman, to Amsterdam, and then returns to England, after an absence of five years and six months. He arrives on April 20, 1710, to find his wife and children happily in good health and standing.
After five months at home, Gulliver sets out to sea again, leaving his wife pregnant and alone. This time, he boards a ship called Adventure, which sets sail in September 1710. The ship encounters another ship under the auspices of Captain Pocock of Bristol, which it then loses. Gulliver's own sailors declare a mutiny on his power and tie him up, conspiring against him, making him their prisoner. After they spy land, the conspirators let Gulliver loose onto it, and he discovers a peculiar species.
"I fell into a beaten road, where I saw many tracks of human feet, and some of cows, but most of horses. At last I beheld several animals in a field, and one or two of these same kind sitting in trees. Their shape was very singular, and deformed, which a little discomposed me, so that I lay down behind a thicket to observe them better...Their heads and breasts were covered with a thick hair, some frizzled and others lank; they had bears like goats, and a long ridge of hair down their backs, and the foreparts of their legs and feet, but the rest of their bodies were bare, so that I might see their skins, which were of a brown buff colour. They had no tails, nor any hair at all on their buttocks, except about the anus; which, I presume, Nature had placed there to defend them as they sat on the ground; for this posture they used, as well as lying down, and often stood on their hind feet." Book 4, Chapter 1, pg. 269
These Yahoos, these hideous animals climb high trees with extended claws. They have miraculous agility, climbing and moving at a speedy rate. Gulliver believes them to be the most ugly and unappealing animals he has ever seen. Several horses come up to him, frightening Gulliver into battle of self-defense. However, they seem like people, and stand upright, eloquently speaking to him. One offers its right hoof as a handshake of sorts to Gulliver. Gulliver realizes that these miraculous animals speak a language and he introduces himself to them, requesting shelter and help in exchange for his own bracelet and knife. Gulliver learns the word, "Yahoo" and squeals it like a neigh from a horse. The two horses take their leave.
Topic Tracking: Exploration 12
The gray horse leads Gulliver to its home, where they are introduced to the master horse. Gulliver is aghast at first at the hay and barn-like lodgings, but graciously thanks his hosts continually throughout the days. Furthermore, at dinner, Gulliver is disgusted by the slab of ass meat thrown at him, and he expresses his deep hunger to his master. He looks around for milk and wheat, and finds a cow that he wants to milk. The master horse shows Gulliver a room with bottled and prepared milk and food, so that Gulliver will not need to do anything on his own. He addresses the readers, who probably wonder (in his mind) how he manages to stay nourished for three yeas in such a land of people-animals.
A powerful Houyhnhnm takes Gulliver under his wings to teach him the language and culture of the land. Gulliver has difficulty learning it, for he had nobody correcting his accent, vocabulary, and rationale. This master, inquires about Gulliver's position in life, and wonders how he can learn the language so easily with such a resemblance to a Yahoo. The Yahoos, he believes, are the most unteachable brutes in the land. He also wonders how Gulliver came to the land, for he cannot fathom another land across the sea. Gulliver learns that Houyhnhnm comes from the word, horse, which means the Perfection of Nature. He promises to work and study hard to learn the language and culture of the people, and within five months time, is speaking like a native. Word spreads quickly throughout the land that a creature resembling a brute Yahoo is capable of reason and intelligence, and many desire to make his acquaintance.
One night while Gulliver is sleeping, a Houyhnhnm spies him with his clothes half off, looking quite different than the presentable, clothed Englishman that he is. They question him and wonder why he changed his appearance so. Gulliver explains the reasoning behind clothing and further expresses his concern that his clothing will soon wear out. The master declares Gulliver a superior and special Yahoo, separate from the rest of the brutes, and desires to learn more about him. Gulliver relates his story of arrival in the land on a large vessel with fifty other of his species. He also conveys the fear and worry that nobody in Europe would believe this story, for how is it possible for a land to be ruled by the superior race of the Houyhnhnms (horses) and obeyed by the brutes, Yahoos (people).
Although Gulliver and his master discuss the different philosophies behind the societies from which they come, Gulliver cannot explain the idea behind a lie, for there is no such word or concept in Houyhnhnm.
"My master heard me with great appearances of uneasiness in his countenance, because doubting and not believing, are so little known in this country, that the inhabitants cannot tell how to behave themselves under such circumstances. And I remember in frequent discourses with my master concerning the nature of manhood, in other parts of the world, having occasion to talk of lying, and false representation, it was with much difficulty that he comprehended what I meant, although he had otherwise a most acute judgment." Book 4, Chapter 4, pg. 286
Gulliver explains the difference in horses and people to his master, illustrating the rules of society in England. Horses are bred in captivity to transport people and things, and can be whipped, ridden, and even castrated. Appalled by such information, the master erupts in a tirade of negativity and insults to Gulliver's race, the Yahoos. He initially does not understand why the horses are subjected to such treatment, for they can easily squash the people or throw them off onto the ground. Eventually, his master understands the idea of rational behavior in England and laws, government, politics, and such, and longs to hear more about Europe and Gulliver's origins. He finally understands human nature - with its lying and false representation - and listens as Gulliver speaks.
Gulliver continues to explain English society to his master, and opens the cannons of war into discussion. Gulliver tells the reader that he places this portion of the many conversations in the text, because it is rather enjoyable and content, as opposed to insulting and furious. When his master inquires as to the motives of war, Gulliver responds in superfluity. There are reasons to defend a poor people, to revolt against an evil government, seize dominions, disagreements, holding land, invasion, self-defense, and so on and so forth. "Neither are any wars so furious and bloody, or of so long continuance a those occasioned by difference in opinion, especially if it be in things indifferent" Book 4, Chapter 5, pg. 292. When, his master inquires as to reason behind all of these actions, Gulliver explains the letters of English law - the constitution, in detail and definition. His master listens and comments often, observing and understanding as best he can. He does, however, offer his opinion about lawyers:
"Here my master, interposing, said it was a pity, that creatures endowed with such prodigious abilities of mind as these lawyers, by the description I gave of them, must certainly be, were not rather encouraged to be instructors of others in wisdom and knowledge. In answer to which, I assured his Honour, that in all points out of their own trade they were usually the most ignorant and stupid generation among us, the most despicable in common conversation, avowed enemies to all knowledge and learning, and equally disposed to pervert the general reason of mankind in every other subject of discourse, as in that of their own profession." Book 4, Chapter 5, pg. 297
When his master inquires as to why such a person would live in such a way as a lawyer, he is shocked to learn that it is all for money. Money controls the lifestyles of the English people, in so much as they live their lives for the rich, it would seem. His master cannot comprehend such a world. Furthermore, he cannot comprehend a world in which the land cannot furnish all necessities, such as food and water. Gulliver explains import/exports, and how people buy certain commodities from other countries, especially wine. Wine is another paradox of confusion for Gulliver's master, for he cannot understand why people drink this poison of sorts, which makes their lives shorter and fills them with disease.
When Gulliver begins to explain to his master that there is even another set of people who make their money by tending to sick people, he realizes that his master would still not understand. His master could probably not comprehend a civilization that cultivates illness and disease within its species. However, Gulliver remarks on many different disease, some carried by female yahoo prostitutes, and others a monthly plague for the female. He explains that he has some skills with tending to sick people and that there are ways of excavating the illness from the body - by the mouth cavity through vomit or the anus cavity through excretion. He continues to describe the 18th century primeval form of medicine to his master horse, until he changes his discourse back to government, as he describes the position of the Chief Minister of State.
"A First or Chief Minister of State, whom I intended to describe, was a creature wholly exempt from joy and grief, love and hatred, pity and anger; at least made use of no other passions but a violent desire of wealth, power, and titles; that he applies his words to all uses, except to the indication of his mind; that he never tells a truth, but with an intent that you should take it for a lie; nor a lie, but with a design that you should take it for a truth; that those he speaks worst of behind their backs are in the surest way to preferment; and whenever he begins to praise you to others or to yourself, you are from that day forlorn. The worst mark you can receive is a promise, especially when it is confirmed with an oath; after which every wise man retires, and gives over all hopes." Book 4, Chapter 6, pg. 302
These politicians are born of noble blood, which dictates a different type of life entirely than that of a common man. Gulliver delves into the life of a nobleman, with luxury, wealth, and power, and the course of his life. Since he was born of meager parents, he is at risk of falling into a cesspool of vermin and disease, even though he is successful and educated. Nothing is altered without the governing body of the noble men. Gulliver's master listens attentively.
Gulliver addresses the reader again, yearning for the truth after living amongst the Houyhnhnms for so long. He justifies the discourse of his retelling of English society to his master, for it would seem wrong to compare them to the horrific Yahoos. He observes this species intricately and speaks of their violent outbursts, battles (that would become the English equivalent of a civil war), their multiple uses of women, their affinity for dirt, their horrendous stench, and so on. Gulliver realizes how different he is from them, but also how different the Houyhnhnms are from horses. They have infinitely less diseases than even European horses and maintain a beautiful, meticulous appearance. However, the women are consistently the lower, more inferior species. "However, I could not reflect without some amazement, and much sorrow, that the rudiments of lewdness, coquetry, censure, and scandal, should have place by instinct in womankind" Book 4, Chapter 7, pg. 312. Despite all this, Gulliver still thinks fondly of his home isle in Europe.
Gulliver learns more about the Yahoos, and despises them each day a little more. He never realized that he might bear some resemblance or suffer from their brutishness. "They are strong and hardy, but of a cowardly spirit, and by consequence insolent, abject, and cruel. It is observed, that the red-haired of both sexes are more libidinous and mischievous than the rest, whom yet they much exceed in strength and activity" Book 4, Chapter 8, pg. 314. The Houyhnhnms keeps the yahoos nearby as servants in the huts and other such tasks. The Houyhnhnms have no meaning of deceit or dishonesty or fraud in their culture, and further, are ruled by the two virtues of friendship and benevolence. The yahoos, on the contrary, life their lives in opposition to the Houyhnhnms virtues. One day Gulliver de-clothes to go for a wash in the lake, and a female yahoo sprinted after him, leaping in the water with him. The Houyhnhnms live by reason and nature, and preserve decency and civility in their culture. They do not, however, follow formal ceremony, therefore treating a neighbor as his own family.
Furthermore, the female Houyhnhnm produces one of each sex, and then can leave her mate, propagating the species in the perfect amount. They choose specific colors of their mates in order to breed a strong offspring. Strength and comeliness are the reasons for mating, not love. There is no such thing as love, courtship, romance, and settlements in the land, and couples join because of parents and families, not because of their own love and desire. They practice speed and strength and races (horse racing), and hold a vernal equinox every fourth year to manage the society. For example, they mate specific Houyhnhnms with others at this time, and inquire as to the state of the lower species of cows and yahoos, and look at the weather and agriculture, to make sure everything is functioning satisfactory.
Topic Tracking: Gender Differences 8
There is a grand debate at the Assembly of the Houyhnhnms, in which the subject at hand is to exterminate all the yahoos. Some believe that they must rid the country of the inferior race, which is immoral and dirty. However, others, such as Gulliver's master, think more highly of them. Since his master is privy to Gulliver's opinions and history, he brings it up at the Assembly, telling everyone about a civilized yahoo, who wears clothing, has lighter skin, shorter claws, and lives in a place in which they castrate and lock up Houyhnhnms. Gulliver continues to learn from the Houyhnhnms, loving every moment he spends with them, breathing in their honest air, sharing their virtues, and learning from them. He realizes that they only die of old age, avoid casualties, are buried in obscure locations, yet carry no regrets. Furthermore, the friends and families of the deceased do not express joy, grief, or any type of emotion during such a time of tragedy. He looks on fondly at such a distinct society.
"I wanted no fence against fraud or oppression; here was neither physician to destroy my body, nor lawyer to ruin my fortune; no informer to watch my words and actions, or forge accusations against me for hire: here were no gibers, censurers, backbiters, pickpockets, highwaymen, housebreakers, attorneys, bawds, buffoons, gamesters, politicians, wits, splenetic, tedious talkers, controvertists, ravishers, murders, robbers, virtuosos; no leaders or followers of party and faction; no encouragers to vice, by seducement or examples: no dungeon , axes, gibbets, whipping posts, or pillories; no cheating shopkeepers or mechanics: no pride, vanity, or affectation: no fops, bullies, drunkards, strolling whores, or poxes: no ranting, lewd, expensive wives: no stupid proud pendants: no importunate, overbearing, quarrelsome, noisy, roaring, empty, conceited, swearing companions: no scoundrels, raised from the dust upon the merit of their vices, or nobility thrown into it on account of their virtues: no Lords, fiddlers, Judges or dancing-masters." Book 4, Chapter 9, pg. 325
Gulliver falls into a lifestyle with the Houyhnhnms that he adores, learning all about their culture, their people, and society. He befriends several of them, and eventually learns to detest his own image even more than that of a yahoo. He even tells the reader that he begins to act like the Houyhnhnms, trotting like a horse, which he accepts as a complement. However, the Assembly soon decrees that Gulliver's master must exhort the yahoo living in his house. Gulliver must leave the land. He is devastated by such news, but understands that he must obey the orders, for reason is a virtue in the land and he would never disobey it. After six weeks time, he builds a boat, and bids farewell to his beloved land. As he lowers himself to kiss the hoof of his master, his master raises it to him, as to show mutual respect. Gulliver leaves Houyhnhnm in his canoe-like boat, alone, seeking other lands.
He leaves Houyhnhnm on February 15, 1715 at 9 a.m. to good sea weather. He recalls his time held captive by his own seamen earlier and spies land. He sustains himself by eating raw shellfish and oysters. By December, Gulliver arrives at home in England after a middle stay in Lisbon. He fears the Inquisition will find him mad, after he explains of his stay with the Houyhnhnms and yahoos to everyone. They warn him that he will be unhappy living in Europe after his five-year exodus.
Topic Tracking: Exploration 13
When Gulliver finally returns home, his family is shocked, for they presumed him dead. He faints when his wife kisses him, for he has not touched such a hideous animal, in his eyes, for so long. For the first year back, he cannot endure the sight, smell, or company of his wife and children, and they do not touch any of his food or belongings. And, with the first bit of money he saves, Gulliver buys two horses, which he keeps in a clean stable nearby. "My horses understand me tolerably well; I conversed with them at least four hours every day. They are strangers to bridle or saddle, they live in great amity with me, an friendship to each other" Book 4, Chapter 11, pg. 339.
Gulliver completes his tales by addressing the reader with his intentions. He advises others to continue to travel, but be wary and honest and open to all other cultures. He recalls the Lilliputians, Brobdingnags, the Flying Island, and of course the beloved Houyhnhnms. He also acknowledges his reasons behind writing:
"I am not a little pleased that this work of mine can possibly meet with no censurers: for what objection can be made against a writers who relates only plan facts that happened in such distant countries, where we have not the least interest with respect either to trade or negotiations? ...I write without any view towards profit or praise. I never suffered a word to pass that may look like reflection, or possibly give the lease offence even to those who are most ready to take it. So that I hope I may with justice pronounce myself an author perfectly blameless, against whom the tribe of answers, considerers, observers, reflectors, detecters, remarkers, will never be able to find matter for exercising their talents." Book 4, Chapter 12, pg. 342
He continues to update the reader on his actions since his return. After some sixteen years traveling, he now resides back in Redriff, his home, and has finally allowed his wife to eat with him at the table. However, his entire devotion continues to the horses - the Houyhnhnms. Gulliver looks around at English society and cannot help but to compare.
"But the Houyhnhnms, who live under the government of Reason, are no more proud of the good qualities they posses, than I should be for not wanting a leg or an arm, which no man in this wits would boast of, although he must be miserable without them. I dwell the longer upon this subject from the desire I have to make the society of an English Yahoo by any means not insupportable, and therefore I here entreat those who have any tincture of this absurd vice, that they will not presume to appear in my sight." Book 4, Chapter 12, pg. 346