Gulliver's Travels

Gulliver’s adventures in Lilliput) satirize the Whigs’ and Tories’ struggles BACKGROUND INFO against each other. EXTRA CREDIT AUTHOR BIO By Gulliver, About Gulliver. Although contemporary editions of Gulliver’s Full Name: Jonathan Swift Travels have Jonathan Swift’s name printed as author on the cover, Swift Pen Name: Lemuel Gulliver published the first edition under the pseudonym Lemuel Gulliver. Date of Birth: November 30, 1667 Instant Classic. Gulliver’s Travels was an immediate success upon its first publication in 1726. Since then, it has never been out of print. Place of Birth: Dublin, Ireland Date of Death: October 19, 1745 PLOT SUMMARY Brief Life Story: Jonathan Swift was born to a lawyer in Dublin in 1667 and attended Trinity College. He went on to be a politician’s secretary, a country Lemuel Gulliver is a married English surgeon who wants to see the world. He parson, and a chaplain, all of which provided material for his satires about the takes a job on a ship and ends up shipwrecked in the land of Lilliput where he is political and religious corruption of his society. During his brief time in captured by the miniscule Lilliputians and brought to the Lilliputian king. The England, Swift, Alexander Pope, and others formed the Scriblerus Club Lilliputians are astonished by Gulliver’s size but treat him gently, providing him resolving to write books satirizing modern knowledge. Gulliver’s Travels, Swift’s with lots of food and clothes. Gulliver is at first chained to a big abandoned most famous work, arose from that resolution. Swift was also an outspoken temple then, after surrendering his weapons and signing articles of allegiance advocate in favor of Irish liberty from England and Swift’s second most famous to Lilliput, he is granted his liberty. He befriends the king and puts out a fire in work, A Modest Proposal, satirizes tensions between the Irish and the English. the palace by urinating on it. He successfully assists Lilliput by stealing the In his later years, Swift is said to have become misanthropic and bitter. He died neighboring Blefuscans’ war ships and receives a high honor, but the of a stroke in 1745. Lilliputian king begins to cool towards Gulliver when Gulliver refuses to help KEY FACTS enslave the Blefuscans. Gulliver makes friends with the Blefuscans’ when they come to make peace and, soon after, an unnamed man of the court informs Full Title: Gulliver’s Travels, or, Travels Into Several Remote Nations of the World. Gulliver that the Lilliputian court plans to accuse him of treason and put out In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several his eyes. Gulliver escapes to Blefuscu and then returns to England. Ships Gulliver soon sets out on his next voyage and is stranded in the land of Genre: Satire Brobdingnag where the Brobdingnagians are immense giants and Gulliver Setting: England and the imaginary nations of Lilliput, Blefuscu, Brobdingnag, feels like a Lilliputian. After being forced to perform exhausting freak shows by Laputa, and the land of the Houyhnhnms the Brobdingnagian farmer, Gulliver is sold to the Brobdingnagian queen, the farmer’s daughter and his loving caretaker Glumdalclitch in tow. In the court, Climax: Gulliver’s decision to reject humankind and try his best to become a Gulliver is well cared for but everyone laughs frequently at his physical Houyhnhnm mishaps. Gulliver tries to maintain his dignity with little success. He offers to Protagonist: Lemuel Gulliver help the Brobdingnagian king strengthen his power by using gunpowder and Point of View: First person is puzzled the king’s disgust, concluding that, though the Brobdingnagians are a good-hearted people, they are just not as sophisticated as humans. One day, HISTORICAL AND LITERARY CONTEXT the box Gulliver is carried around in for outings gets snatched up by a bird on the beach and, dumped in the sea, he is picked up by a human ship and carried When Written: 1720-1725 back to England. Back among humans, Gulliver is astonished by their littleness. Where Written: Dublin, Ireland Gulliver sets out yet again to sea and is again stranded, this time getting taken When Published: 1726 up by the Laputians to their floating island. He meets the Laputian king and Literary Period: Augustan observes life in Laputa where everyone is so obsessed with abstract mathematical, musical, and astronomical theory that they are utterly Related Literary Works: Gulliver’s Travels satirizes the form of the travel incompetent about practical matters and can barely hold a conversation. narrative, a popular literary genre that started with Richard Hakluyt’s Voyages Gulliver is disgusted when he visits the city of Lagado below and sees the in 1589 and experienced immense popularity in eighteenth-century England destructive influence the Laputians’ theories have had, turning a once through best-selling diaries and first-person accounts yb explorers such as functioning people into a broken society. He tours the academy where the Captain James Cook. At the time, people were eager to hear about cultures projectors contrive useless scientific projects. Afterwards, Gulliver visits and people in the faraway lands where explorers were claiming colonies for Glubbdubdrib and meets ghosts of history, visits Luggnagg and meets the England. Many accounts were largely truthful, but even those that were power-crazed Luggnaggian king and the grim immortal Struldburgs, and generally honest were not immune to elaboration. In Gulliver’s Travels, Swift finally returns to England. satirizes embellishing travel writers as well as gullible English readers eager for outrageous tales about other countries. Gulliver sets out on his fourth voyage only to be mutinied and stranded in a land where the noble and reasonable horses, the Houyhnhmns, do their best Related Historical Events: In the early eighteenth century, Britain’s political to control the foul degenerate human Yahoos. Gulliver tries to distance atmosphere underwent a dramatic shift. While Queen Anne sat on the throne himself as much as possible from the Yahoos and, indeed, the Houyhnhmns, from 1665 to 1714, the Tory party was in favor and dominated politics with especially Gulliver’s mentor, the master horse, see Gulliver is different their conservative agenda of minimized parliamentary power and increased because he has a rational mind and wears clothing. The more Gulliver learns royal authority. Yet when King George I took power in 1714, the dynamics from the Houyhnhmns, the more he admires their uprightness, egalitarianism, shifted and the liberal Whig party, the conservative Tory party’s opponents, and reason, and he eventually turns against humankind, wanting to live gained traction in English politics, pushing Tories out of prominence. One of forever among the Houyhnhmns. As he learns about the Houyhnhmns from these Tories was Jonathan Swift and parts of Gulliver’s Travels (especially the master horse, the master horse also learns about humanity from Gulliver,

Background info www.LitCharts.com | @litcharts ©2013-2014 | Page 1 Gulliver's Travels and concludes that the Yahoos Gulliver has come from are really not very The Brobdingnagian Queen – The Brobdingnagian Queen purchases different from the filthy Yahoos among the Houyhnhmns. Much to Gulliver’s Gulliver from the Brobdingnagian Farmer and grows very fond of Gulliver, chagrin, the Houyhnhmns ultimately insist that Gulliver return to his own proving herself a kind and generous caregiver. Nevertheless, she is highly country. Though he tries to avoid returning to human society, Don Pedro’s amused by Gulliver’s mishaps. ship picks Gulliver up and forces him to return to Europe. Back home, Gulliver Glumdalclitch – Gulliver’s primary caretaker in Brobdingnag, Glumdalclitch is remains disgusted by all the Yahoos around him, including his family members, a compassionate guardian, though she is not above laughing at Gulliver’s and spends all his time with horses, reminiscing longingly about the mishaps. Houyhnhmns. He concludes by assuring the reader that everything he’s described is true and that he’s written his travels solely for the public good so The Brobdingnagian Queen’s Dwarf – Gulliver’s primary tormenter in that the wretched Yahoos around him might learn from the virtuous beings of Brobdingnag, The Brobdingnagian Queen’s Dwarf is cruel and devious and other lands. always looking for a way to humiliate Gulliver. The Brobdingnagian Farmer – The Brobdingnagian Farmer is Glumdalclitch’s father and Gulliver’s first care-taker in Brobdingnag. He makes money touring Gulliver through the country as a freak show. The Brobdingnagian Farmer’s Wife – The wife of the Brobdingnagian CHARACTERS Farmer. The Laputians – The inhabitants of the floating island, the Laputians are Lemuel Gulliver – A married English surgeon, Gulliver wants nothing to do totally consumed by complex mathematic, astronomical, and musical theory with domestic life and leaves England repeatedly to have adventures in far-off and so disdain common sense that they lack all practical knowledge and can lands. He is resourceful, open-minded, adamant about his own truthfulness, barely function as bodies in the world. and a remarkably fast learner of new languages. Though Gulliver is glad to return to England after his first three adventures in Lilliput, Brobdingnag and The Laputian King – Lacking all common sense and utterly pre-occupied by Laputia, his time among the Houyhnhmns permanently darkens Gulliver’s abstractions, the Laputian King rules the land of Lagado from a floating island perspective on humankind and he ends the novel disgusted by the society that never touches ground. He is by law not allowed to descend to the Earth around him and longing for the company of Houyhnhmns. and thus spends his life with his body hovering in space and his mind hovering amidst elaborate theories. Richard Sympson – Richard Sympson is Gulliver’s cousin and the editor of his travels. Gulliver strongly resents Sympson’s edits. Munodi – A shunned inhabitant of Lagado, Munodi believes in common sense and practical knowledge and lives on a property that resembles a well-built Mary Burton – Mary Burton is Gulliver’s neglected wife, left at home for English estate and serves as an oasis for Gulliver amidst the widespread chaos years while he travels and then spurned and detested as a filthy Yahoo upon and dysfunctionality of Lagado. his return from the Houyhnhmns. The Projectors – The members of the grand academy in Lagado, the Betty – Gulliver’s neglected daughter. projectors work cheerfully away on utterly useless projects and pursue vain Johnny – Gulliver’s neglected son. applications of theory. The Lilliputians – The inhabitants of Lilliput, the Lilliputians are just a few The Glubbdubdribbian Governor – A sorcerer, the Glubbdubdribbian inches tall. They are engaged in extended battles with their neighbors, the Governor has the power to summon the ghosts of the dead and enables Blefuscans. Gulliver to meet the dead of history. The Lilliputian King – King of Lilliput, the Lilliputian King is initially The King of Luggnagg – A tyrannical ruler, the King of Luggnagg makes his welcoming, generous, and friendly with Gulliver but he grows petulant, cold, subjects approach him by crawling on their bellies licking the floor. and vengeful after Gulliver won’t help him enslave the Blefuscians. The Luggnaggians – The inhabitants of Luggnagg. The Lilliputian Queen – Queen of Lilliput, the Lilliputian Queen never The Luggnaggian Interpreter – A young boy Gulliver hires to interpret for forgives Gulliver for urinating on the palace, despite the fact that his action him. saved the palace from destruction. The Struldbrugs – The Struldbrug’s are Luggnaggian immortals identifiable at Flimnap – The sour-tempered treasurer of Lilliput who dislikes Gulliver and birth by a red ring on their forehead. While they never die, they do age, and suspects Gulliver of having an affair with his wife they are social outcasts due to their jealousy, pettiness, and generally Skyresh Bolgolam – The admiral of Lilliput who also dislikes Gulliver. obnoxious character. Redresal – The principal secretary of Lilliput who suggests putting out The Japanese Emperor – The Japanese Emperor gives Gulliver permission to Gulliver’s eyes as a “gentler” alternative to death. sail back to Europe on the Dutch ship. A man of the court – The Lilliputian who warns Gulliver about the court’s plan The Houyhnhnms – Rational, peaceful, generous, and civilized horses, the to put out his eyes. Houyhnhnms are ideal beings (at least from Gulliver’s perspective). They are The Blefuscans – The neighbors to the Lilliputians with whom they have been so honest and virtuous that they don’t even have words for things like “evil” engaged in extended battles. Gulliver steals their battle ships and prompts and “falsehood.” They live content in their egalitarian and placid society them to make peace with Lilliput, but eventually befriends the Blefuscans and troubled only by the question of how to constrain the Yahoos that live among refuses to enslave them against the Lilliputian King’s wishes. them. The Blefuscan King – The king of the Blefuscans who takes Gulliver in after The Master Horse – The member of the Houyhnhmns who first takes he escapes from the Lilliputians and helps him prepare his voyage back to Gulliver in, teaches him Houyhnhmn ways, and discusses human society with England. him. Gulliver holds the master horse in the highest esteem and kisses his hoof upon parting from him. The Brobdingnagians – The inhabitants of Brobdingnag, the Brobdingnagians are giants tens of feet tall. They are as big compared to humans as humans are The Yahoos – Filthy, greedy, gluttonous, selfish, and dumb, the Yahoos are the to Lilliputians. embodiment of everything gross and crude in human nature. Properly speaking, they are degenerate humans who live among the Houyhnhmns. Yet, The Brobdingnagian King – Though he at first can’t believe that Gulliver isn’t by novel’s end, Gulliver is referring to every other human being as a Yahoo. just a piece of clockwork, the Brobdingnagian King comes around to Gulliver and happily discusses matters of state with him. He comes away from these Don Pedro de Mendez – A kind and gentle Portuguese sea captain who finds discussions rather disgusted by humans, though. Gulliver on an island after he leaves the Houyhnhmns and takes him against his will back into human society.

As the novel considers the dangers of physical power in society, it also THEMES considers the physical character of the individual and reflects on how best to handle one’s body. The Laputians’ and Lagadans’ obsession with reason and PERSPECTIVE knowledge has rendered them utterly out of touch with their bodies. Their inability to function in the practical, physical world has in turn destroyed their Above all, Gulliver’s Travels is a novel about perspective. While the story is society, and their example indicates that ignoring physical reality inevitably abundant with potential morals, the strongest and most consistent message is leads to suffering. Among the Yahoos and the Houyhnhnms, Gulliver learns a lesson in relativism: one’s point of view is contingent upon one’s own physical that the possession of a human body does not automatically elevate a person and social circumstances and looking at people’s circumstances explains a lot over the animals. The Yahoos, it turns out, are much more bestial than the about their respective viewpoints. Gulliver explicitly lectures the reader on animal Houyhnhnms. This directly contradicts the common European relativism, explaining how England’s ideas of beauty, goodness, and fairness assertion of the time that human bodies were automatically superior to animal are radically different from notions of those qualities possessed by the beings bodies because the human form necessarily contained moral and rational he visits in other lands. Until novel’s end, Gulliver is able to see merit in his power. Indeed, the Houyhnhnms possess a stronger moral compass and sense own country’s perspective as well as in the perspectives of other nations, a of reason than the Yahoos and the Europeans alike. At each instance, the novel fair-mindedness which he acquires from immersing himself in different thus shows that true superiority and worthy power come from a moral, cultures and adopting their opposite points of view. Indeed, his travels possess rational mind in harmony with the body it inhabits. a perfect symmetry: he goes from being a giant among the Lilliputians to being a tiny person among the Brobdingnagians; he exploits the world of tiny SOCIETY AND THE STATE people for his own profit (by showing off Lilliputian animals for profit in As Gulliver travels from society to society, he observes each one’s England) and is in turn exploited in the world of the giants (by the organization in detail and compares and contrasts it with the English state. Brobdingnagian Farmer who charges people to gawk at Gulliver); he goes Though all of the societies visited are flawed, several possess some admirable from Laputa, where the Laputians ignore their bodies to concentrate on qualities and almost all of them play out the consequences of a particular abstract knowledge and science, to the land of the Yahoos, who are exclusively utopian ideal. Their admirable qualities include the peaceful Brobdingnagian absorbed by their bodies and the pursuit of crude physical pleasures. Though king’s disgust at the thought of gunpowder and rule by violent force; the Gulliver continually marvels at the otherness and strangeness of the foreign Lilliputian king’s initial generosity and warmth towards the foreign Gulliver; people he’s landed among, he is also constantly comparing them to people the Houyhnhnms’ reason-driven peace and order. But the societies also back home in England, finding analogues or points of comparison for ve en the demonstrate the unfortunate outcome of certain utopian ideals. Lilliput least familiar customs. separates its children from their birth parents (as Plato himself advised in), but The novel ultimately suggests that one’s perspective on reality is even more the practice does not end up yielding very mature or reasonable adults. The powerful than reality itself. When Gulliver returns to England from Lilliputian king and his court are petty grudge-holders, no better than the Brobdingnag, he encounters “normal” human-sized life but sees everyone and monarchs of Europe. Laputa dedicates itself to reason and scientific progress everything as miniature. He thus misgauges size, misjudges people’s health, but its devotion produces only trivialities and useless inventions, leaving the and generally misunderstands his situation until enough time passes for his useful parts of society to decay. The Houyhnhnms practice strict family perspective to adjust. Likewise, Gulliver’s time spent among the Houyhnhmns planning, but the plans leave no room for the passionate and beautiful parts of enables him to see his own society in a new way. Though he has been eager to love and marriage. The Houyhnhnms’ also transcend humanity’s ills and evils, go home after all his prior adventures, he no longer wants to return to England but this, too, ends up stripping them of personal identity so that their society after living amongst the Houyhnhmns, for he has so internalized their lacks humanity’s rich vividness and seems to the reader a bit too robotic, even perspective that he sees all human beings as Yahoos. He is disgusted even by as Gulliver professes to love it. Gulliver himself attempts to live the ideal of his own reflection and starts affecting the manner of a horse. Though he is, uniting with nature by living among the Houyhnhnms, but this commitment from a biological standpoint, still fully human, his new perspective has only dooms him to dissatisfaction and insanity in the human life he must transformed him into a Houyhnhmn and he can no longer function in human inevitably return to. society. Swift never draws up a formula for an ideal state and society because he does MORAL VS. PHYSICAL POWER not believe that one exists. However, by showing the goods and ills of the vastly different societies Gulliver visits, Swift implicitly points out the errors of By placing Gulliver amongst people of extremely different physical human society while also cautioning against the embrace of certain “utopian” circumstances than his own, Gulliver’s adventures dramatize the distinction solutions. between moral and physical power. In Lilliput, Gulliver’s huge size advantage over the Lilliputians would make it easy for him to treat them like inhuman KNOWLEDGE vermin and to assert himself against them by physical force (he even imagines Gulliver’s Travels also considers the value of knowledge and its best squashing them by the handfuls during their initial encounter on the beach). applications in life. The novel surveys many different kinds of knowledge and But Gulliver’s willingness to empathize, reason with, and respect the examines the effect they have on the people possessing them. Gulliver’s Lilliputians despite their diminutive size yields a much more meaningful, worldly knowledge about other societies and lifestyles makes him tolerant and rewarding experience (at least until the prince turns against him). Conversely, open-minded person, able to see both sides of most stories while many of the in Brobdingnag, the Brobdingnagians could easily dehumanize and squash minds around him are more rigid. Still, it’s unclear if this knowledge actually Gulliver, but Gulliver is impressed by their kindness and willingness to listen serves Gulliver well—it ends up, after all, leaving him dissatisfied and lonely, and empathize with him (though they do treat Gulliver a little more like a cute estranged from his family and his society and wishing futilely that he was one clown than he would like). Through the example of the Lilliputians’ ridiculous, of the Houyhnhmms. In Brobdingnag and the land of the Houyhnhnms, the futile battles over how best to crack an egg, the novel suggests the absurdity novel considers the kind of political knowledge that both the Brobdingnagian of all warfare as a means to settle matters of the mind and faith. Through the king and the Houyhnhnms lack. Yet, while both are ignorant of gunpowder, example of the Laputian king and the Luggnaggian king, the novel presents a Machiavellian strategies, and the use of fear and violence to keep people in parody of tyrannical excess and shows the dangers of rulers who assert line, both organize successful, happy societies that seem much more themselves through physical power. In Laputa, the king is totally out of touch functional than those governed by the more “sophisticated” political with his people and maintains his hold over the people simply by making knowledge of Europe. The novel also compares practical scientific knowledge, himself “taller” than they are by floating above them on his island. In Luggnagg, as practiced to valuable effect by the Lilliputians and the Houyhnhnms, to the king demands grotesque demonstrations of physical supplication, making abstract scientific knowledge, as practiced to useless effect by the the subjects crawl on their stomachs licking the dirty floor before him. Laputians. The Laputians’ knowledge, Swift shows, may as well be ignorance, for they don’t put their theories to any useful purpose and only waste their lives on fruitless experimentation. Finally, the novel considers self-knowledge

Themes www.LitCharts.com | @litcharts ©2014 | Page 3 Gulliver's Travels as it is gradually acquired by Gulliver over the course of the novel, most so in transform human feces back into food. The recurring appearance of Book 4. One could see Gulliver’s end as an awakening to his true self (and the excrement anchors the novel in the body’s demands, limits, and inelegances, true self of all human beings), which leaves him disgusted with human nature. refusing to let its characters float off into the heady realm of purely elegant However, one could also see Gulliver’s end as a tragic exaggeration of self abstractions. knowledge such that he amplifies human vile beyond its actual proportions and thereby bars himself from integrating productively into the human society CLOTHING he should be a part of. Clothing in Gulliver’s Travels symbolizes perspective and thus each population In most of these instances, knowledge becomes harmful when it approaches that Gulliver visits sports different garments. The tiny clothes of the an extreme: problems arise if one only understands scientific and mathematic Lilliputians differ from the immense clothing of the Brobdingnaggians as their abstraction, as the Laputians do, or if one only pursues knowledge of foreign small size endows them with a different view of the world from that of the lands without spending time at home among one’s own people, as in the case giant Brobdingnaggians; the Laputians’ elaborate robes decorated with of Gulliver himself. Thus, the novel seems implicitly to advocate a moderate astronomical and mathematical symbols are the opposite of the Houyhnhmns’ balance between practical and abstract knowledge, between knowledge of the nakedness, as their preoccupations with theory and abstraction are utterly outside world and knowledge of one’s own position in it. distinct from the Houyhnhmns down-to-earth wisdom. Though Gulliver comes to each country wearing his own clothes, those clothes gradually fall TRUTH AND DECEPTION apart and he is outfitted in native garments. Likewise, Gulliver enters each country carrying his own ideas and opinions but, as he immerses himself in the Much of the novel’s plot action is driven by deceptions, and Gulliver takes new society, his mindset is shaped by the people around him until his note of the inhabitants’ feelings about truth and lying in every country he perspective starts to match theirs. visits. Deceptions that drive plot action include the Lilliputians’ secret plot to starve Gulliver to death and Gulliver’s subsequent deceits to escape Lilliput. Then, in Brobdingnag, Gulliver deliberately conceals as many of his mishaps he QUOTES can from Glumdalclitch in order to try to maintain his dignity and freedom. Later, Gulliver lies to the Japanese emperor about being Dutch in order to be PREFACE granted passage to England. Finally, in the land of the Houyhnhnms, Gulliver deliberately avoids correcting the Houyhnhnms misimpression that his This volume would have been at least twice as large if I had not made bold to clothes are a part of his body, which helps distinguish him enough from the strike out innumerable passages relating to the winds and tide, as well as to Yahoos to convince the Houyhnhnms he isn’t really one of them. the variations and bearings in the several voyages…likewise the account of From society to society, Gulliver also tracks the inhabitants’ different attitudes longitudes and latitudes…I was resolved to fit the work as much as possible to towards truth and falsehood. The Lilliputians’ treat fraud as the highest crime the general capacity of readers. and profess a rigorous devotion to honesty (which is, of course, somewhat —Richard Sympson undercut by the court’s deceptive plot against Gulliver). In Glubbdubdrib, Gulliver explores his own culture’s attitude towards truth by summoning ghosts of the past and having later thinkers show ancient thinkers like Aristotle the falsehood in their theories while also exposing rampant BOOK1, CHAPTER 1 deception among the English royalty. In the land of the Houyhnhnms, Gulliver encounters a purely honest society, so committed to truth that its members I confess, I was often tempted, while they were passing backwards and don’t even have a word for ‘lying’ and only refer to a falsehood as “the thing forwards on my body, to seize forty or fifty of the first that came iny m reach, which is not.” and dash them against the ground. But the remembrance of what I had felt, which probably might not be the worst they could do, and the promise of Yet even as the novel raises earnest questions about the value of honesty, it honor I made them—for so I interpreted my submissive behavior—soon drove also toys with the reader, suggesting that truth may be more subjective than out those imaginations. Besides, I now considered myself as bound, by the absolute. As certain as the novel’s human readers are that the societies laws of hospitality, to a people who had treated me with so much expense and described are pure fantasy, so too do the characters that inhabit those magnificence. societies refuse to believe Gulliver’s descriptions of human society and insist —Gulliver that Europe is make-believe. Further, Swift makes a concerted effort at verisimilitude by including the preface from Richard Sympson, which repeatedly alludes to geographical facts omitted, supposedly to prevent boredom. (Earlier editions of the novel took this verisimilitude even further by keeping Swift’s name off the book and publishing it under the pseudonym BOOK1, CHAPTER 2 Lemuel Gulliver.) Swift also has Gulliver attest again and again to his own …taking them one by one out of my pocket…I observed both the soldiers and honesty and to the true nature of his account. Beyond insisting that it is the people were highly delighted at this mark of my clemency, which was factual count it emphatically isn’t, Gulliver’s Travels also criticizes the novelistic represented very much to my advantage at court. form it is when Gulliver encounters the erosive influence of novels on readers’ —Gulliver brains. As with knowledge, then, Swift presents a mixed message on truth: while his work advocates for honesty among individuals and human governments, it also suggests that life will always contain some degree of unknowability and confusion. In the right coat-pocket of the great man-mountain…after the strictest search, we found only one great piece of coarse cloth, large enough to be a foot-cloth SYMBOLS for your majesty’s chief room of state. —Lilliputians EXCREMENT In Gulliver’s Travels, excrement symbolizes the crude reality of human flesh, a fact Gulliver faces most prominently in the filthy, feces-flinging bodies of the BOOK1, CHAPTER 4 Yahoos. Yet excrement occurs in every other one of his other adventures too: in Lilliput, Gulliver defecates on the floor of his Lilliputian home and urinates It is computed, that eleven thousand persons have, at several times, suffered on the Lilliputians’ burning palace; in Brobdingnag, flies defecate on Gulliver’s death, rather than submit to break their eggs at the smaller end. Many food and maids urinate in front of him; in Laputia, the projectors attempt to hundred large volumes have been published upon this controversy…

Symbols www.LitCharts.com | @litcharts ©2014 | Page 4 Gulliver's Travels —Reldresal BOOK 2, CHAPTER 6 …you have made a most admirable panegyric upon your country; you have clearly proved that ignorance, idleness, and vice are the proper ingredients for BOOK1, CHAPTER 5 qualifying a legislator; that laws are best explained, interpreted, and applied by those whose interest and abilities lie in perverting, confounding, and eluding And so immeasurable is the ambition of princes, that he seemed to think of them. I observe among you some lines of an institution, which in its original nothing less than reducing the whole empire of Blefuscu into a province, and might have been tolerable, but these half erased, and the rest wholly blurred governing it as a viceroy…by which he would remain the sole monarch of the and blotted by corruptions. whole world…And I plainly protested that I would never be an instrument of —The Brobdingnagan King bringing a free and brave people into slavery. —Reldresal

BOOK 2, CHAPTER 7 BOOK1, CHAPTER 6 He was amazed, how so impotent and groveling an insect as I…could entertain such inhuman ideas, and in so familiar a manner, as to appear wholly unmoved They look upon fraud as a greater crime than theft, and therefore seldom fail at all the scenes of blood and desolation, which I had painted, as the common to punish it with death. effects of those destructive machines, whereof, he said, some evil genius, —Gulliver enemy to mankind, must have been the first contriver. —Gulliver

BOOK1, CHAPTER 7 It was a custom, introduced by this prince and his ministry…that after the BOOK 3, CHAPTER 2 court had decreed any cruel execution either to gratify the monarch’s Their houses are very ill built, the walls bevel, without one right angle in any resentment or the malice of a favorite, the emperor always made a speech to apartment; and this defect arises from the contempt they bear to practical his whole council, expressing his great lenity and tenderness, as qualities geometry, which they despise as vulgar and mechanic; those instructions they known and confessed by all the world…nor did anything terrify the people so give being too refined fro the intellects of their workers, which occasions much as those encomiums on his majesty’s mercy; because it was observed perpetual mistakes. that, the more these praises were enlarged and insisted on, the more inhuman —Gulliver was the punishment, and the sufferer more innocent. —Gulliver

BOOK 3, CHAPTER 4 BOOK 2, CHAPTER 1 They were indeed excellent in two sciences for which I have great esteem, and wherein I am not unversed; but, at the same time, so abstracted and involved I reflected what a mortification it must prove to me to appear as in speculation, that I never met with such disagreeable companions. inconsiderable in this nation as one single Lilliputian would be among us. —Gulliver —Gulliver

BOOK 3, CHAPTER 8 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... I was chiefly disgusted with modern history. For having strictly examined all —Gulliver the persons of greatest name in the courts of princes, for a hundred years past, I found how the world had been misled by prostitute writers, to ascribe the greatest exploits in war, to cowards; the wisest counsel, to fools; sincerity, to flatterers; Roman virtue, to betrayers of their country… BOOK 2, CHAPTER 3 —Gulliver …he observed how contemptible a thing was human grandeur, which could be mimicked by such diminutive insects as I. —Gulliver BOOK 3, CHAPTER 9 I was commanded to crawl upon my belly, and lick the floor as I advanced… —Gulliver BOOK 2, CHAPTER 5 However, my speech produced nothing else besides a loud laughter, which all the respect due to his majesty from those about him could not make them BOOK 3, CHAPTER 10 contain. This made me reflect how vain an attempt it is for a man to endeavor to do himself honor among those who are out of all degree of equality or …he observed long life to be the universal desire and wish of mankind. That comparison with him. whoever had one foot in the grave was sure to hold back the other as strongly —Gulliver as he could. That the oldest had still hopes of living one day longer, and looked on death as the greatest evil, form which nature always prompted him to retreat. Only in this island of Luggnagg the appetite for living was not so eager, from the continual example of the struldbrugs before their eyes.

—Gulliver —Gulliver

BOOK 4, CHAPTER 2 SUMMARY & ANALYSIS The beast and I were brought close together, and by our countenances diligently compared both by master and servant, who thereupon repeated several times the word Yahoo. My horror and astonishment are not to be PREFACE 1: “THE PUBLISHER TO THE READER” described, when I observed in this abominable animal, a perfect human figure. Richard Sympson introduces the Sympson’s prefatory letter is one of —Gulliver book as papers left with him by his Swift’s many tactics to make the book friend Lemuel Gulliver, whom seem like a “true” travel account rather Sympson thinks was originally from than a piece of fiction. The letter not only Oxfordshire and had later lived in refers to Gulliver as a real person, it also BOOK 4, CHAPTER 3 Redriff, though he’s currently retired vouches for his honesty (and, by in Nottinghamshire to escape the extension, for the truthfulness of the He replied, “that I must needs be mistaken, or that I said the thing which was crowds of visitors he’d gotten at subsequent account). The letter also not;” for they have no word in their language to express lying or falsehood. “He Redriff. Sympson vouches for “an air defends the book’s vagueness about knew it was impossible that there could be a country beyond the sea, or that a of truth” about the text and attests to geographical facts. The reader would parcel of brutes could move a wooden vessel whither they pleased upon Gulliver’s honesty, noting that his most likely assume there aren’t any facts water. He was sure no Houyhnhmn alive could make such a vessel, nor would fellow townsmen would often because the travels are just fantasies. Yet trust Yahoos to manage it.” emphasize something’s truth by this letter claims the facts do exist and —Gulliver , The Master Horse saying “it was as true as if Mr. Gulliver were only omitted to save the reader the had spoken it.” Sympson explains he is boredom of reading them. publishing an edited version for people’s entertainment. His edits have BOOK 4, CHAPTER 4 consisted of cutting out passages about sea travel and geographical Power, government, war, law, punishment, and a thousand other things, had no information, which he thinks would go terms wherein that language could express them… above the head of the common reader, —Gulliver as they go above his. PREFACE 2: “A LETTER FROM CAPTAIN GULLIVER TO HIS COUSIN SYMPSON” BOOK 4, CHAPTER 5 This letter is dated 1727, written from This letter introduces the theme of But when a creature pretending to reason could be capable of such Gulliver to Sympson. Gulliver is perspective. Though Sympson has just enormities, he dreaded lest the corruption of that faculty might be worse than furious with Sympson’s edits of his expressed his edition of the text, Gulliver brutality itself. He seemed therefore confident, that, instead of reason we book, protesting Sympson’s is furious with his edits. By accusing were only possessed of some quality fitted to increase our natural vices; as the adjustments to his story, especially Sympson of falsification and libel, this reflection from a troubled stream returns the image of an ill shapen body, not the addition of a passage praising the letter not only calls the truth of only larger but more distorted. English Queen (though Gulliver says Sympson’s letter into question, it also —Gulliver , The master Horse he respects the Queen, he insists he implies that the text to come (as edited never would have praised her to the by Sympson) is itself somehow untrue, Houyhnhnms). He complains, too, while also therefore implying that at that Sympson has muddled the details least some part of the narrative is BOOK 4, CHAPTER 8 of his sea travel. He calls the book true—because why would Gulliver be libelous. He has received a great deal angry about Sympson's "falsifications" if For now I could no longer deny that I was a real Yahoo in every limb and of abuse for the book and everyone Gulliver's own story wasn't true? feature, since the females had a natural propensity to me, as one of their own doubts the veracity of the account. species —Gulliver Throughout the letter, Gulliver refers At the same time, Gulliver’s crazy names to human beings as Yahoos and for things and his insistent distancing of laments the perverse world in which himself from human beings (“your BOOK 4, CHAPTER 12 degenerate Houyhnhnms are species”) suggest that he may not be fully enslaved by Yahoos. Though Gulliver sane as he writes the letter. Is his claim to I could, perhaps, like others, have astonished thee with strange improbable acknowledges that he, too, is a Yahoo, truth undercut by a potentially insane tales; but I rather chose to relate plain matter of fact, in the simplest manner he notes that he was elevated by his perspective? and style… education among the Houyhnhnms, —Gulliver though some of that refinement has begun to erode during his time spent back among “your species…particularly those of my own I here take a final leave of all my courteous readers…to apply those excellent family.” lessons of virtue which I learned among the Houyhnhmns; to instruct the Yahoos of my own family, is far as I shall find them docible animals; to behold my figure often in a glass, and thus, if possible, habituate yselfm by time to tolerate the sight of a human creatures…

Summary & Analysis www.LitCharts.com | @litcharts ©2014 | Page 6 Gulliver's Travels BOOK 1, CHAPTER 1 Gulliver is fed and visited by the These interactions confirm Gulliver’s Lilliputian emperor, who is a human- choice to exert moral rather than Gulliver recounts his birth into Gulliver’s description of his past nail’s-width taller than his subjects physical power. He converses peacefully modest circumstances and his distances himself from the corrupt, and very handsome. The two of them with the Lilliputian emperor (even background as a surgeon and then a deceitful society of England and gives converse without understanding each though they can’t understand one ship’s surgeon. However, he never him the moral high ground. He may not other, each in their own language. another) and lets the arrow-shooters free made a lot of money because he didn’t have been a financially successful Onlookers who shoot an arrow at without any bodily punishment. feel comfortable cheating people, as member of society, but he was far richer Gulliver are seized and handed over other surgeons did. One of the ships in virtue than his lying peers. to Gulliver who picks them up, scares he was working on was wrecked and them with a mean face and a glimpse he was the only survivor, swimming to of his penknife, and then releases safety on a beach where he passed them. The Lilliputians are delighted out with exhaustion. by Gulliver’s gentleness. When Gulliver awakens, he finds This scene introduces the theme of moral Gulliver is well provided for with Though the Lilliputian state exerts its himself tied down to the ground and vs. physical power. The Lilliputians have custom-made furniture and food. He physical power to hold Gulliver prisoner, surrounded by a crowd of six-inch- exerted physical power against Gulliver begins to learn the Lilliputians’ it otherwise treats him very humanely. high people (the Lilliputians) speaking by tying him to the ground and shooting language and frequently visits with Through persistent rational discussion a language he doesn’t understand. At at him. However, when Gulliver resists the emperor, whom he begs for his and a willingness to give up his own first he struggles and the people shoot the urge to fight back with physical liberty. The emperor agrees after his weapons of physical power, Gulliver is arrows at him. Then when Gulliver power and instead chooses to negotiate men search Gulliver and Gulliver able to convince Lilliput to consider stops struggling, the people loosen reasonably, the Lilliputians respond in surrenders his weapons. These men relaxing its own physical power over him. some of his bindings and feed him kind. They begin to heal the physical submit a report to the Lilliputian The Lilliputians’ account of Gulliver’s well. Though tempted to grab and wounds they themselves inflicted. emperor inventorying Gulliver’s possessions highlights their difference in crush handfuls of them, Gulliver possessions, all of which are foreign to perspective: to Lilliputians’ a human is restrains himself reminding himself them and which they describe in great mountain-sized, a human handkerchief is that he has made them “a promise of detail without calling anything by its carpet-sized, etc. honor” by his “submissive behavior.” name in human society. They refer to The little people dress the wounds Gulliver as the “man-mountain.” They Gulliver suffered from their arrows. call his handkerchief a “great piece of While Gulliver’s sleeping, the The Lilliputians are obviously talented coarse-cloth, large enough to be a Lilliputians convey him onto a large and practical engineers as Gulliver says foot-cloth” in the palace; they call his carriage, which they had built specially since they have been able to invent and pipe a pillar “the length of a man” with in the few hours since Gulliver construct an enormous carriage in just a a “piece of timber” at the end; they call appeared (Gulliver praises their few hours. The image of Gulliver his pocket watch “a wonderful kind of ingenious mathematics and standing upright emphasizes the engine” at the end of “a great silver engineering), and begin a journey to difference between his perspective and chain.” the Lilliputian emperor. Upon arrival, the Lilliputians’ perspective. For him, he he is chained to an out of use temple is normal and they are tiny. For them, BOOK 1, CHAPTER 3 (the biggest structure in the kingdom) they are normal and he is a giant. The court performs its rope-dancing Curiously, the Lilliputian state uses tests where he will lodge. The emperor and (tightrope-walking) and secret thread- of physical power and agility (rather than thousands of people view people view jumping/thread-limboing for Gulliver, tests of moral power and reason) to him. His strings are cut so that he may who explains that these games are determine who will hold its stand and move while still being very dangerous and are used to governmental offices. constrained by his chains. Everyone is determine which members of court dumbfounded by his size. should fill vacant offices. Those skilled at the games are conferred great BOOK 1, CHAPTER 2 status and respect. Gulliver is desperate to relieve This anecdote introduces the symbol of Later Gulliver builds a platform with The fact that his handkerchief can be himself so the first thing he does in his excrement and is the first of many his handkerchief and has the used as a stage emphasizes Gulliver’s new house is defecate on the floor. He examples of Gulliver’s dedication to Lilliputians joust on it to everyone’s very different size (and perspective). He assures the reader that he only did honesty: he doesn’t edit out details, even delight, though he stops when is a gentle, moral friend, stopping the this that one time out of desperation for the sake of politeness or propriety. someone falls through the cloth. game to protect physical safety. and, in the future, he defecated at the far length of his chain in the open air and it was cleaned up by Lilliputian servants. Gulliver realizes that the “great black The Lilliputian perspective doesn’t substance” Lilliputians report having recognize a human hat as a hat and found on the beach is his hat. He’s still therefore doesn’t know how to treat it as chained and not allowed to get it a human would. himself. The Lilliputians retrieve and return it to him, though, by dragging it the whole way, they’ve damaged it.

For amusement, the Lilliputian A juxtaposition of perspective: the king The second is the danger of an This second struggle is just as absurd as emperor has Gulliver stand upright protects Gulliver’s physical safety and impending invasion from Belfuscu, the first and further supports the subtext and has his whole army march announces his physical power over “the other great empire of the pointing out the ridiculousness of through Gulliver’s legs, ordering the soldier’s bodies (he can kill them). universe” (Reldresal notes to Gulliver warfare. Though the Lilliputians have soldiers to treat Gulliver decently However, Gulliver is so much larger than that nobody can really believe been careful to restrict Gulliver’s physical “upon pain of death.” everyone that he faces little risk and Gulliver’s accounts of other lands power over them, they are eager to could easily stamp everyone to death, beyond Lilliput and Belfuscu.) The harness his power against their enemies. which is perhaps why he can afford to animosity with Belfuscu is rooted in a resort to moral power rather than disagreement over whether to break physical power—because he is in fact so eggs on the bigger or smaller end. physically powerful that he is essentially “Big-Endians” have left Lilliput (which invulnerable. is on the side of smaller end) and have joined forces with the Blefuscians. There have been many bloody battles over the years and Reldresal has been Gulliver has all along been begging The treaty functions to restrain Gulliver’s sent to acquaint Gulliver with the the Lilliputian emperor for liberty and physical power (by restricting his situation so he can help defend Lilliput the emperor and his council (all except movements, making him promise to put against another impending attack. for Skyresh Bolgolam, a sour minister his large size to Lilliput’s use, and denying who dislikes Gulliver) agree on the him sustenance if he should choose to BOOK 1, CHAPTER 5 condition that Gulliver sign an disobey these conditions). Only after Gulliver conceives of and carries out a From Gulliver’s perspective, the agreement. The articles of the Gulliver has submitted to these plan to swim across the channel Lilliputians’ deep channel is just a little agreement state that: Gulliver will not restraints on his own physical power will separating Lilliput from Blefuscu, sew stream and an intimidating battle is just leave the kingdom or enter the the Lilliputian state agree to withdraw its together the Blefuscians’ military a matter of pulling a few toy boats across metropolis without permission, that own physical hold on him (the chain fleet with a cable, and drag the lot of the water. Still, the Lilliputians are he will not trample the fields or the imprisoning him in the temple). them back to the Lilliputians. To the overjoyed by Gulliver’s performance. The Lilliputians, that he will carry Blefuscians’ astonishment and the nardac award honors Gulliver as societal Lilliputian messengers on urgent Lilliputians’ delight, he manages this, hero and affirms his physical power is an errands, that he will be an ally against though not without being pelted by asset to the Lilliputian state. the Blefuscians in warfare, that he will Blefusican arrows. As soon as Gulliver help maintain the kingdom and will returns to the Lilliputian shore, the survey its circumference, and that he Lilliputian emperor declares him a will for his compliance be provided nardac, “the highest title of honour.” with a specific amount of food and drink. Gulliver notes that the specific The Lilliputian emperor now wants Gulliver privileges moral power amount was ingeniously calculated Gulliver to help enslave the (humaneness) over physical power according to his body measurements. Blefuscans, but Gulliver refuses on (Lilliputian dominance). Yet the He signs and is freed. the grounds that this would be emperor’s reaction to Gulliver shows he inhumane. He notes that, from that does not share Gulliver’s perspective. BOOK 1, CHAPTER 4 point on, the emperor treated him much more coldly. Now free, Gulliver wants to see This image emphasizes the immense size Mildendo, the metropolis, and, by (and perspective) difference between building a two-stool contraption, Gulliver and the Lilliputians. Three weeks later, the Blefuscans From the Blefuscans’ perspective, manages to wedge himself into the send a group of peace-offering Gulliver is not an enemy—he was simply inner court to get a view into the ambassadors to Lilliput, all of whom carrying out the will of the Lilliputian grand rooms of the Lilliputian are very warm towards Gulliver and emperor. Gulliver likewise sees the emperor’s palace. invite him to visit Blefuscu, permission Blefuscans as potential new friends. Yet for which the Lilliputian emperor the Lilliputian state sees these two Gulliver gets a visit from Reldresal, This first struggle of the Lilliputian state reluctantly gives. Gulliver attributes perspectives as a problem. It might be a the principal secretary of private seems utterly absurd since it is based on this reluctance to a rumor he’s heard sign, their rumor suggests, that Gulliver’s affairs, who explains that Lilliput purely superficial, physical differences that the court ministers Flimnap and allegiance to Lilliput is not “true.” struggles with “two mighty evils.” The (rather than on any substantial moral Bolgolam are spreading word that first is the animosity between the conundrum). Indeed, Swift will use the Gulliver’s friendliness with the Tramecksan (high-heeled shoe- absurdity of Lilliput’s wars to comment Blefuscan ambassadors was a sign of wearers) and Slamecksan (low-heeled on the absurdity of warfare in general. his disloyalty to Lilliput. Gulliver notes shoe-wears) and, while the Lilliputian that, from this point on, he began to emperor will allow only low heels in develop a darker view of “courts and court, the Tramecksan threateningly ministers.” outnumber the Slamecksan.

Though his title of nardac has relieved The symbol of excrement recurs, and Gulliver goes on to describe the This passage introduces the symbol of Gulliver of many of the kingdom- again challenges propriety. Gulliver’s prodigious efforts made by hundreds clothing, which represents perspective. maintenance chores he’d signed up to action is either heroic or treacherous, of the Lilliputian servants to clothe Gulliver’s clothes will change in each do in exchange for liberty, he recounts depending on the perspective from which and feed him. He notes that once he society as his perspective also changes. one “most signal service” he was able it’s viewed. On the one hand, his urine had the Lilliputian emperor and the Flimnap’s secret agenda behind the to perform for the Lilliputian saved the palace from burning to the whole court over for an enjoyable dinner party and the rumor about emperor. One night, there is a fire in ground. On the other hand, his urine dinner, though he thinks that Flimnap, Gulliver’s affair with Flimnap’s wife the palace and the Lilliputians entreat befouled the palace and represented a the lord high treasurer, may have used intertwine the theme of the state with Gulliver to go help stop it. The fire was tremendous disrespect. the event as evidence to show the the theme of deception, as government due to a careless maid who fell asleep emperor how much money Gulliver officials appear to be driven by reading a novel by candlelight. was costing the kingdom. Gulliver concealed or untruthful motives. At the Gulliver, having no instrument to put describes also losing favor with the same time, Gulliver’s withholding out the fire, xtinguishese it by emperor when Flimnap accused him (neglecting to explain how he heard urinating on it. Though he has saved of having an illicit affair with Flimnap’s about the rumor) could imply his own the palace, Gulliver knows that he has wife, though Gulliver assures the deceptiveness. also broken law by urinating in the reader that he and the lady were only palace. Still, he feels better when he ever friends. Gulliver says he found receives word that the emperor is out about this accusation “by an ordering Gulliver be pardoned accident not proper to mention” but (though the empress, disgusted, has notes that the treasurer was refused ever to live in the building eventually “undeceived” and warmed again). to his wife again, though he never stopped resenting Gulliver. BOOK 1, CHAPTER 6 Gulliver describes life in Lilliput. He Because everything in Lilliput is small BOOK 1, CHAPTER 7 explains that, though the Lilliputians (from Gulliver’s perspective), nothing While planning his trip to Blefuscu, The concealed man’s honesty saves are small, their animals, surroundings, looks small to a Lilliputian. Gulliver receives a secret visit one Gulliver from the Lilliputian state’s and physical capacities (such as sight) night from a man of the court whom deceptions. The Lilliputian state has, are scaled to size. Gulliver had helped out in the past. according to the man’s account, This man explains that the Lilliputian distorted its previous perspective: where Gulliver describes aspects of the The Lilliputian state obviously takes emperor and Lilliputians in court it once accepted Gulliver’s urine as Lilliputians’ legal system. If a person is honesty extremely seriously—it punishes have been secretly preparing to necessary to save the palace, it now found innocent by trial, the accuser is both false accusation and fraud with punish Gulliver for treason and other views it as disrespectful; where it once sentenced to death and the innocent death. The state’s justice system is also crimes including: urinating on the accepted Gulliver’s friendliness to the person is paid generously for the organized to promote obedience to the palace, refusing to enslave the Blefluscans as a mere nuisance, it now inconveniences suffered. Fraud and law by rewarding good behavior as well Blefuscans as the emperor ordered, considers that friendliness a capital ingratitude are likewise capital crimes as punishing bad behavior. (Swift’s traitorously communing with the crime. The state’s deceitful plot to blind punished by death. Citizens who England, by contrast, promoted Blefuscan ambassadors, and planning and starve Gulliver proposes a follow the law throughout their lives obedience only by punishing bad a traitorous visit to Blefuscu. The man particularly gruesome abuse of physical have the title snilpall (which means behavior.) Note how, while to Gulliver informs Gulliver that, though some power. ‘legal’) added to their name and are (and us) the Lilliputian's laws seem members of court wanted Gulliver to accorded privileges. (And Lilliputians ridiculous, to them England's laws seem be executed, they all worried what are appalled to hear from Gulliver that silly. they would do with such a huge mass his society maintains order only by of rotting flesh. They have thus punishment, without rewards.) When officially agreed to put out his ye es hiring people to positions, the hirers and then subsequently slowly starve consider that person’s moral more him to death (so the resultant corpse than they do his abilities. will be less cumbersome). Gulliver goes on to describe other This description of Lilliputian child aspects of life in the Lilliputians’ rearing evokes the philosopher Plato’s society. Children are raised by notion that an ideal society would raise professors and servants in public children apart from their parents. It also nurseries away from their parents. evokes ideals of egalitarianism (by The nurseries are organized based on treating both genders equally) and gender and social class. However, girls fairness (by sparing non-parents from the are raised to be just as brave and costs of other people’s children and by smart as boys are (and any maid at the taxing people progressively). girls’ nurseries who entertains the girls by telling stories is whipped, imprisoned, or permanently exiled). Parents rich and poor all pay pensions and monthly sums to the nurseries, as the Lilliputians’ think it is unfair to place the cost of raising children on the general public. Still, the payments are scaled to the parents’ income levels.

The Lilliputians emperor and court Gulliver professes ignorance about Gulliver departs with a well-stocked Gulliver’s return to England intertwines plan to carry out their plot in three proceedings of state and thus does not boat and is eventually picked up by an the themes of perspective and truth. days, the man of the court tells strongly assert his own perspective on English merchant ship which kindly What seems “true,” the text suggests, is a Gulliver, and leaves him to decide the emperor’s cruelty. Still, by unveiling takes him aboard. Though everyone matter of perspective, not an absolute. In what to do on his own. Gulliver the emperor’s plot to blind and then initially doubts Gulliver’s tales of Lilliput, humans like Gulliver seemed reflects on the speeches the man has starve Gulliver and by including this Lilliput, they believe him once he strange and unbelievable but back in told him about the emperor making, account of the state’s extreme hypocrisy, shows them the tiny Lilliputian England, it’s Lilliput that seems like a attesting to his own leniency as a ruler Swift ensures that the reader’s animals he has with him. Back in fantasy and Gulliver is at pains to prove and generosity in sparing Gulliver’s perspective will not be as conflicted as England, Gulliver spends two months the Lilliputians exist. life by merely putting out his eyes. Gulliver’s seems to be. Indeed, the with his wife and young children, Gulliver knows that it’s a tradition in Lilliputian state is revealed to be brutal Johnny and Betty, during which he Lilliput for the emperor to publish a and abusive towards its subjects. makes “a considerable profit” yb speech about his mercy after the selling views of the Lilliputian cows, court decrees a cruel sentence and then selling the cows themselves. that, the crueler the sentence, the Gulliver sets his wife up in a house in more emphatic the emperor’s claims Redriff, leaves her some money, and about his mercy. The Lilliputians feel then, following his “insatiable desire of that “the more these praises were seeing foreign countries,” sails off on a enlarged and insisted on, the more merchant ship called the Adventure. inhuman was the punishment, and the sufferer more innocent.” Gulliver BOOK 2, CHAPTER 1 confesses that he has no expertise in The start of the Adventure’s voyage Gulliver’s perspective on this second courtly matters since he is just a goes well but a storm somewhere voyage will be extremely different. Where common man but suspects that his north of Madagascar damages the Lilliput shocked him with its tininess, he sentence is more on the “rigorous” ship and sets them off course into is now amazed by this new land’s than the “gentle” side. unknown waters. When they finally immensity. Note that Swift’s prose keeps Gulliver resolves to escape to Gulliver’s reflection functions ironically. spot an island, they disembark and pace with Gulliver’s own perspective: he Blefuscu, though he notes that, if he’d Through it, Swift darkly ridicules the separate to look for water. Gulliver is does not yet know the name of the known back then “the nature of brutality of European states by then left behind when a huge creature and so he just refers to it as a princes and ministers, which I have suggesting that the Lilliputian emperor’s “monster” scares his companions into “monster.” since observed in many other horrific plot against Gulliver was rowing back to the ship without him. courts….I should, with great “easy…punishment” in comparison to Gulliver runs deeper into the island alacrity…have submitted to so easy a other government’s tactics. and realizes he is surrounded by giant punishment.” He takes off at once, grass and corn. leaving a note saying he’s left early for In the cornfield, Gulliver is terrified Swift’s prose continues to match up with his trip to Blefuscu. He is warmly when he runs into a group of the Gulliver’s perspective. Gulliver’s welcomed at Blefuscu. “monsters” carrying giant scythes. As reflection emphasizes an absence of he tries to escape them, he compares absolute truth: everything is dependent BOOK 1, CHAPTER 8 himself to a Lilliputian in a human on comparison, that is, perspective. From Blefuscu, Gulliver spies an The Blefuscan state seems to be much world. He thinks, “undoubtedly abandoned human boat in the sea and more moral than the Lilliputian one. It philosophers are in the right, when retrieves it, planning to restore it and refuses to entertain the Lilliputians’ they tell us that nothing is great or return to England, a plan the deceitful schemes and honors Gulliver’s little otherwise than by comparison.” Blefuscan emperor endorses. life. On the other hand, the Lilliputians Meanwhile, the Lilliputian emperor are the Blefuscans’ enemies so Blefuscan When one of the reapers almost steps From the giant’s perspective, Gulliver is sends a secret convoy to Blefuscu to reluctance to obey Lilliput may have on him, Gulliver cries out to save simply a tiny animal and his riches are explain Gulliver’s treason and request more to do with asserting Blefuscu’s himself and is plucked up by a reaper worthless. The worldly knowledge his return. However, the Blefuscan independence than it does with honoring who then observes him cautiously as if Gulliver acquired from his adventures in emperor replies that, with all due moral virtues. he were a curious animal. Gulliver Lilliput enables him to recognize and respect, he can’t obey this order compares the giant’s gaze to his own empathize with the giants’ perspective. because Gulliver has been a friend of gaze examining a weasel in England. Still, Gulliver falsely assumes that the Blefuscu. He tells Gulliver about the The reaper does not crush Gulliver as giants will choose to exert their physical exchange and supplies Gulliver with Gulliver expects him to but instead power. In fact, they seem eager to lots of help to hasten his departure for responds to Gulliver’s attempts to privilege moral power and treat Gulliver England. communicate that the man’s pinch is humanely, just as the "giant" Gulliver hurting him by depositing Gulliver treated the Lilliputians. “gently” in his pocket and running off to show Gulliver to his master, the farmer. The farmer and others gather in awe around Gulliver, who tries to supplicate them with gold, which they don’t recognize as valuable and return to him. They try to converse but speak different languages.

The farmer wraps Gulliver in his A meal’s worth of food from Gulliver’s At the market the Brobdingnagan The farmer capitalizes on how strange handkerchief and brings him home. perspective is a mere crumb from the farmer sets Gulliver on a table and Gulliver appears in his countrymen’s Gulliver has lunch with the family, who giant’s viewpoint. Gulliver affirms his has him answer Glumdalclitch’s perspective. Gulliver recently privileged delights in watching him eat his tiny own desire to privilege moral power (and questions, bow to the spectators, moral power over physical power when piece of their huge meal. When the forgiveness) over physical power by toast them with a thimble of wine, and he requested the farmer’s son be spared farmer’s son grabs Gulliver, the kissing the son. At the same time, he flourish his sword, a performance the a beating, but now that he is being farmer boxes his son’s ears until supplicates himself to the farmer’s power farmer has Gulliver perform twelve physically abused himself (by being Gulliver pantomimes a request for the by referring to him as “master.” times. A boy in the audience throws a manipulated and overworked) he son’s forgiveness which the farmer hazelnut at Gulliver’s head and supports abuse for his abusers. Note how grants. Gulliver kisses the son’s hand. narrowly misses. The boy is, to Gulliver is shown off for money just as From here on, Gulliver refers to the Gulliver’s “satisfaction,” beaten. The Gulliver showed off the Lilliputian farmer as his “master.” shows prove to be such a financial animals for money in England. success for the farmer that he Gulliver is terrified yb the cat and Again, Gulliver’s worldly knowledge (of resolves to bring Gulliver back the nearly squeezed to death by the baby. the Lilliputians) helps him make sense of next market day and afterwards to He observes the disgusting his new experience. Gulliver’s perspective take the show on a country-wide tour. complexion of the farmer’s wife, then is as different from the giants’ as the At each stop, the farmer schedules ten remembers that this is because her Lilliputians’ perspective was from his in shows a day. face is so much enlarged compared to Lilliput: things that are harmless or small his own. He recalls the beautiful skin nuisances to the giants (pets, babies, BOOK 2, CHAPTER 3 of the Lilliputians and their horror at vermin) are huge dangers for Gulliver. his. After lunch, the farmer’s wife puts Gulliver thins and weakens as the The farmer continues to consider him to bed under her handkerchief. Brobdingnagan farmer grows richer Gulliver nothing but a money making While there, Gulliver is attacked by and richer off the shows. Thinking that tool. Disturbingly, he seems to see his two rats the size of “mastiffs” and Gulliver will soon die, the farmer sells own daughter the same way. The queen manages to save himself by killing one him to the Brobdingnagan queen, and does not expect Gulliver to possess with his sword (the other is scared agrees, at Gulliver’s request, to throw human reason and is thus surprised to away). Glumdalclitch into the bargain too. see he does. The king is just as Left with the queen, Gulliver recounts unprepared to perceive Gulliver’s The farmer’s wife returns and is Gulliver once again includes details his grueling treatment under his prior humanity and assumes he must be relieved to find Gulliver alive. She about his excrement. For him, this master and expresses confidence that mechanical. cleans up the mess of the dead rat. inclusion is proof of moral power, a she will treat him better. The queen is After much desperate miming, testament to the honesty and usefulness impressed by Gulliver’s intelligence Gulliver manages to convey to her of his account. The uncensored and rationality and shows him to the that he needs to go to the bathroom, truthfulness will make his adventures Brobdingnagian king, who at first which she takes him to the garden to more imaginable to readers, which will thinks Gulliver is a piece of clockwork. do in privacy behind a leaf. Gulliver thereby make its lessons more applicable asks the reader’s forgiveness for to English lives. The Brobdingnagian king orders At first, the king’s perspective will only “dwelling on these…particulars” but philosophers to examine Gulliver to accept truth in the words of people who that, while they seem insignificant, try to determine where he is from, look like him. He assumes that Gulliver’s they “will certainly help a philosopher dismissing Gulliver’s own claims about words must be lies. Indeed, this rigid to enlarge his thoughts and his origins as a story made up by perspective shows that the king is not as imagination, and apply them to the Glumdalclitch and the farmer. The worldly as Gulliver, whose knowledge has benefit of public as well as private life,” philosophers are thoroughly puzzled equipped him to sympathize with and which is Gulliver’s purpose for writing and, after much study, can only listen to people of different appearances. his travels in the first place. determine that Gulliver is a freak of nature. After interrogating the farmer, BOOK 2, CHAPTER 2 the king finally starts to think Gulliver might be telling the truth. Gulliver is cared for by the The symbol of clothing recurs. Gulliver Brobdingnagan farmer’s nine-year- acquires this new set of clothes as he The king orders Glumdalclitch and Again, as Gulliver’s context and old daughter Glumdalclitch. enters this new society and begins to Gulliver housed in a special chamber perspective shifts, his clothes shift too. Glumdalclitch tends him diligently, acquire a new perspective. and Gulliver is fixed up with a custom- The royal family members seem to be making him new clothes, washing made bed and clothes of highest broadening their perspectives on those clothes regularly, and teaching quality. The king and queen are fond Gulliver, though the prince’s sudden him the Brobdingnagian language. of dining with Gulliver, who entertains dehumanizing disdain towards him Gulliver says that he owes his survival the royal family with his descriptions shows the limits of their view. At the in Brobdingnag to Glumdalclitch. of life in England. Once, the prince same time, Gulliver’s reflection indicates (ordinarily very earnestly interested how much his own perspective is being News about Gulliver spreads around From Glumdalclitch’s perspective, in Gulliver’s accounts of Europe) altered by his environment: human town and the Brobdingnagan Gulliver is a beloved being deserving observes to a table-mate “’how beings no longer seem “normal” to him. farmer’s miserly neighbor advises the humane treatment but, for her father contemptible a thing was human farmer to make money by showing and his neighbor, Gulliver is simply a grandeur, which could be mimicked by Gulliver “as a sight” at the local business opportunity. such diminutive insects as [Gulliver].” market. Glumdalclitch is horrified yb But Gulliver calls the prince’s view the idea, worrying that Gulliver will be understandable and says that he hurt by prodding strangers, but the himself had gotten so used to those farmer enthusiastically drives around him that he would have Glumdalclitch and Gulliver to the laughed at the sight of ordinary market the next day. human beings too.

Gulliver describes the biggest pests in The dwarf cruelly abuses his physical Still, the Brobdingnagian king, the Even though the Brobdingnagans are his daily life. The Brobdingnagan advantage over Gulliver to humiliate Brobdingnagian queen, the court, and fond of Gulliver, they can’t help seeing his queen’s dwarf enjoys torturing him. him. There is a bit of a suggestion here even Glumdalclitch cannot help crises as jokes. Gulliver’s reflection He once stuck Gulliver in the hollow that the dwarf, who has always been laughing at Gulliver’s accidents, even suggests that identity itself is completely of a marrow bone and once nearly small compared to the other as they genuinely feel sorry for him. dependent on perspective. A person’s drowned him in a pitcher of cream. Brobdingnagans, is asserting the power Gulliver tries to preserve his dignity dignity isn’t inherent but depends on its Gulliver is also plagued by flies, which he never could before over Gulliver. but reflects “how vain an attempt it is being recognized by the people around are huge compared to him and excrete Gulliver’s struggles emphasize the for a man to endeavor to do himself him. on his food or lay eggs all over it difference between his perspective and honor among those who are out of all (which no one else can see, though the Brobdingnagans perspectives: in the degree of equality or comparison with they are visible to Gulliver). Gulliver case of the fly xe crement, they can’t even him.” was also dangerously attacked by see the thing that causes Gulliver so wasps “as large as partridges” whose much discomfort. BOOK 2, CHAPTER 6 huge stingers he managed to remove Gulliver weaves the Brobdingnagian Growing more and more accustomed to and later showed as “curiosities” in queen a purse out of her own hair and his new perspective, Gulliver is able to England. builds a human-sized instrument to contribute to the society around him by play music to entertain the court. He making crafts and sharing his knowledge BOOK 2, CHAPTER 4 offers to teach the Brobdingnagian of England. Gulliver describes the kingdom of The geographical orientation between king about the governance of state in Brobdingnag, which is on a rocky “real” countries makes the tale seem Europe, which the king agrees to. peninsula which Gulliver surmises more “true.” Though it can be a nuisance, Over the course of several multi-hour must be in between Japan and Gulliver’s different perspective can also lessons, Gulliver proudly describes northwest America. Gulliver work in his favor. He can see things—like England’s land holdings and divisions frequently leaves the palace on the lice—invisible to those around him. of government, hoping his words can expeditions with Glumdalclitch, who His worldly knowledge also enables him do his country justice. carries him in a specially made and to make comparisons and judgments furnished box. On one trip, Gulliver is that the Brobdingnagans, who have After having heard five of these The king’s reaction gives further evidence fascinated to see beggars crawling never been to England, can’t. lessons, the Brobdingnagian king is that “truth” is not objective but with visible lice and gauged with unsatisfied and pummels Gulliver with subjective: it’s created by perspective. immense wounds. Gulliver is eager to questions and protests of disbelief. Whereas Gulliver thinks that he’s see the “chief temple,” but is After the next such lesson, he takes praising England and painting a grand unimpressed by the sight of it, Gulliver gently in hand and caresses portrait of his nation for the thinking that, in proportion to the size him as he says, “you have made a most Brobdingnagan king, the king hears only of the inhabitants, it is nowhere near admirable panegyric upon your a pitiable account of England’s evils and as impressive as Salisbury steeple in country; you have clearly proved that weaknesses. England. ignorance, idleness, and vice…qualify…a legislator; that laws BOOK 2, CHAPTER 5 are best…applied by those whose interest and abilities lie in perverting, Gulliver recounts various accidents Though Gulliver’s different perspective confounding, and eluding them.” The that befall him because of his may give him certain insights, it mostly king goes on to note that he has also “littleness”: he is nearly struck to causes him grief. Even situations that learned that England’s priests, death by apples that the queen’s would be pleasurable in the human soldiers, judges, and senators are dwarf shakes off the tree at him, is world—such as getting to be the only without merit. He concludes by saying nearly crushed by hail, nearly eaten by man present among a group of naked that his observations of Gulliver and a dog, and is pecked at by birds, who women—are grotesquely distorted in Gulliver’s reluctance to answer his steal his food. He is also treated with Brobdingnag. Gulliver’s physical questions has instructed him that curiosity by maids, who undress powerlessness dehumanizes him. The Englishmen are “the most pernicious Gulliver, cradle him like a baby, dress naked women in fact don't consider him race of little odious vermin.” and urinate in front of him, and play a man at all—they think of Gulliver as a with him on their naked bodies. He is baby. The monkey doesn’t recognize BOOK 2, CHAPTER 7 disgusted by the magnified odors and Gulliver as a human either. flaws of their huge bodies. He nearly Gulliver says he has only included the As Gulliver apologizes for including drowns in the trough the queen has Brobdingnagian king’s reaction to excrement in his narrative, so he had built for him to row in. His most England because of his “extreme love apologizes for including criticism against dangerous run-in was with a pet of truth” and apologizes to the reader England. Though Gulliver appears to be monkey, who, thinking Gulliver was a on the king’s behalf. He explains that apologizing for and dismissing the king’s baby monkey, stole him from the he did his best to evade many of the criticism, in reality Swift has managed to castle and climbed onto the roof to king’s questions and to cast “a more voice a solid attack against the English force-feed him. The monkey was soon favorable turn” to his answers “than state and society through the captured and killed and Gulliver truth would allow.” Still, he advises the Brobdingnagan king’s mouth. recovered from his injuries. reader to cut the king slack because his seclusion and ignorance of the rest of the world has left him narrow- minded and prejudiced in ways that Europeans “are wholly exempt” from.

Gulliver goes on to give a few Gulliver’s dismissal of the king’s The ship’s captain helps nurse the The process of Gulliver’s reentry examples illustrating the ignorance is ironic. In fact, Swift starved and panicked Gulliver back to continues to highlight the inseparability Brobdingnagan king’s ignorance. constructs the prose so that the reader health. When Gulliver asks if he’d seen of the themes of perspective and truth. When Gulliver told the king about can clearly see that the Brobdingnagan a giant bird, he says he’s seen no birds Gulliver’s worldly knowledge enables him gunpowder and its immense powers king’s ruling principles are humane and bigger than usual, Gulliver assumes to make assumptions about other of destruction and offered to help the virtuous and European politics are cruel the captain must have gauged their people’s limited perspectives (as he king make it, the king was appalled by and “inhuman,” just as the king says. sized incorrectly, being at a distance assumes the captain simply misgauged “such inhuman ideas” and wanted from them. Gulliver’s box is the birds’ sizes). Gulliver uses physical nothing to do with it. When Gulliver accidentally destroyed by careless evidence, including the symbol of his referred to the “science” of politics crewman trying to extract the clothing, to convince the humans around and political secret keeping in Europe, furniture, but Gulliver’s cabinet of him that his story is true. the king professed that he did not mementoes is preserved and he uses understand why secrets should be them to help convince the crew that kept from anyone but a country’s his account of Brobdingnag is true. He enemies and “confined the knowledge shows them his mouse-skin trousers. of governing…to common sense and The captain believes him and reason, to justice and lenity.” encourages him to write up his adventures for all to read. Gulliver continues, explaining the Gulliver’s perspective is again at odds “defective” education of the with Swift’s. Gulliver’s professed pity for The captain points out that Gulliver is Even though Gulliver knows that he is Brobdingnagans, who learn only Brobdingnagan ignorance only ends up shouting and Gulliver realizes he’s simply startled by the change in “morality, history, poetry, and highlighting all the ways in which their gotten so used to his Brobdingnag perspective and that in fact the human mathematics,” and though they excel society is superior to Europe. Where habits that he’s acting very strangely world is just as he left it, the power of in these fields, they only apply Europe is obsessed by impractical in the human world. He is amazed by perspective is so strong that he remains mathematics to “what may be useful in abstractions and over-analysis, the size of everyone, confessing never unable to adjust his behavior to line up life…so that among us, it would be Brobdingnag uses its knowledge to have looked in the mirror in with the world around him. Instead, he little esteemed.” They have no concept practically and efficiently. Brobdingnag out of shame for his acts completely out of proportion to his of abstractions. Their laws are brief, littleness. He finds the human world situation. blunt, and interpreted by everyone in tiny. The ship deposits Gulliver on the same way. Their literature is “clear, shore in England and, returning home, masculine, and smooth, but not florid.” Gulliver bends much too low to embrace his wife and can’t even see As to their military, Gulliver explains it Brobdingnag’s successful military his daughter. Looking at them, he is not professional but instead suggests that a state needn’t have feels they are “pigmies and I a giant.” comprised of ordinary tradesmen and specially appointed soldiers. Instead, His wife begs him never to leave home farmers and led by noblemen. Still, people with ordinary professions could again, but Gulliver soon sets out once Gulliver notes that they function also function just as successfully as a more. perfectly, as the soldiers are very standing militia. obedient since their officers are their BOOK 3, CHAPTER 1 landlords. Though Gulliver is surprised that such a geographically Much to his wife’s chagrin, Gulliver Though Gulliver’s worldly knowledge isolated kingdom even needs a accepts an invitation be a surgeon and usually assists him by helping him military, he has learned that there co-captain aboard the Hopewell. empathize with and understand other have historically been civil wars and Though the voyage starts out well, people around him, here it does him no the military was formed to keep they are soon hijacked by pirates, favors: instead of winning the Dutchman peace. most of whom are Japanese. Gulliver over, Gulliver’s ability to speak Dutch pleads in Dutch with one Dutch pirate, only winds up irritating the Dutchman BOOK 2, CHAPTER 8 begging him as a Christian and a further and landing Gulliver in an fellow European. The Dutchmen, abandoned canoe. Having spent two years in As with his return to human society from furious and determined to kill them all, Brobdingnag, Gulliver leaves by Lilliput, Gulliver’s reentry after recounts Gulliver’s plea to his accident. On a trip to the ocean, a Brobdingnag connects the themes of Japanese companions. The Japanese page supposed to be guarding perspective and truth and shows how captain then approaches Gulliver and Gulliver’s box gets distracted and a malleable a person’s sense of “truth” is. tells him they wouldn’t die. As he bows great bird swoops down and carries Having spent two years among in gratitude, Gulliver quips to the Gulliver’s box away by the ring in its Brobdingnagans, humans are no longer Dutchman that he has found “more roof. Gulliver is carried for some time the norm to Gulliver’s mind—they are mercy in a heathen.” This sparks the and then eventually dropped into the freaks, “pygmies.” man’s fury again, such that he water while the bird has a tussle with persuades the Japanese captains to some other birds. Gulliver hopes to be abandon Gulliver in a small canoe with found and waves his handkerchief out only four days provisions. (The rest of the window. Eventually, he feels his Gulliver’s crewmates are taken box hoisted up and he comes face to aboard the pirate ships.) face with a crew of astonished Englishmen. Gulliver is “confounded at the sight of so many pygmies.”

Thus abandoned, Gulliver rows to an Swift’s prose is again attuned to At the Laputian king’s orders, As usual, Gulliver’s entry into a new island where he finds eggs to eat and Gulliver’s perspective when it refers to Gulliver is measured for clothes using society’s perspective comes with a new begins to consider his impending the island in the sky as a vague, unknown a quadrant, a ruler, and compasses, set of clothes. The tailor’s measurements miserable death before sleeping in a thing. Gulliver assumes a pose of and the resultant clothes are very exemplify an inability to apply knowledge cave. Still feeling grim the next physical powerlessness to express his misshapen due to a failure in the practically. morning, he suddenly sees “a vast deference to the floating islanders. The calculation. Gulliver says such opaque body” cross the sun and move posture wins them over and inspires their mistakes were frequently made and towards the island. Through his moral power: they altruistically rescue largely ignored. binoculars he can distinguish it is a Gulliver from his abandonment. floating island with men moving about The Laputian king orders Laputa to The Laputian state manages its subjects on it. It moves closer and he bows in be steered towards Lagado, the by exerting its physical power. It positions supplication and begs their help. They capital of the kingdom below. Along itself physically above them. don’t understand English and speak the way, Laputa stops over certain their own language but understand towns and villages to hoist up Gulliver needs help and lower a chair “petitions” from the king’s people. on a chain for Gulliver to be drawn up Gulliver describes life among the Laputian society suffers the inability to among them. Laputians. Their speech relies very use knowledge to practical effect. The heavily on mathematical terms and Laputians’ refined geometrical and BOOK 3, CHAPTER 2 they insist that their houses be built astronomical theories are too complex to Gulliver is immediately surrounded by The designs on the floating islanders without any right angles because they serve the simple tasks of daily life (like a crowd of peculiar looking clothes suggest that their perspective hate practical geometry and can’t bear building houses). Because the Laputians’ individuals. Many of them don’t hold values astronomy and music. Though the to live in rectangles (many of their refuse to embrace more practical forms their heads up straight. Some are floating islanders’ elevation above the houses are thus misshapen, as the of geometry and astronomy, their cross-eyed. All wear clothes Earth suggests physical power, their workmen can’t manage the complex knowledge is basically useless and just elaborately decorated with celestial individual appearances only indicate mathematics of building them). They causes societal dysfunction. They live in bodies and musical instruments. physical powerlessness. Their drooping have no grasp of common sense or defective houses and can only discuss Amongst these people walk servants heads, crossed eyes, and pathetic practical knowledge and don’t know the day’s weather in terms of the sun’s carrying a blown bladder filled with reliance on flappers show that they even have words for ‘imagination’ and eventual demise. All of this contributes little pebbles or peas to flap at the cannot even control their own bodies. ‘invention.’ However, they confidently to Swift's satire of those in English and mouths and ears of those around pontificate on politics (as, Gulliver European culture who hold the them. Gulliver explains that he later notes, do mathematicians in England). theoretical and philosophical to be learned that these servants are called Everyone is perpetually obsessed with higher than everything else. “flappers” and they are responsible for the health of the sun and they all striking the mouths of those who worry ceaselessly about its impending should speak and the ears of those death. they should speak into, for the The Laputian women “have The Laputian women clearly don’t have speakers and listeners are so abundance of vivacity,” loathe their the same problem relating to their bodies distracted they would often forget if husbands, and take Lagadans (from that the Laputian men do, which makes left to carry on the conversation the kingdom below) to be their lovers sense as women must be more in touch themselves. The flapper is also on Laputa. Many women try to escape with their bodies given the fact of having responsible for preventing his absent- to Lagado, but it is difficult to get the to bear children. Their knowledge of life minded master from tripping over Laputian king’s permission to leave is visceral and practical. Still, the men things, bumping into walls, etc. Laputa because “the [Laputian] people that control the state use government Gulliver is led to the Laputian king, Gulliver’s interaction with the king of quality have found, by frequent law to restrain the women within Laputa. who is too absorbed with solving a implies that the islanders’ lack of control experience, how hard it is to persuade math problem to notice Gulliver for over their bodies was not due to their women to return from below.” the first hour. (And even then he only stupidity but rather to over-absorption in notices Gulliver because a flapper matters of the mind. BOOK 3, CHAPTER 3 bids him to.) The king gives orders for Gulliver to be sent away and fed. The Gulliver gets permission from the Though the Laputians generally seem food is cut into geometrical figures. Laputian king to explore the island unable to apply their knowledge to After dinner, a tutor arrives, sent by and proceeds to describe it: it is a practical effect, the astronomers’ use of the king to teach Gulliver the native four-and-a-half mile diameter circle their skills to navigate the island stands language and, in the days that follow, with a layer of adamant as its base and out as an exception. Still, the practical Gulliver studies hard to learn to speak an immense magnetic loadstone in a effect—that is, controlling the kingdom it. chasm at the island’s center. Laputa’s below through the elevated physical movements are controlled by highly motion of the island—is perhaps not so Gulliver learns that the floating island Gulliver has his own perspective on the skilled Laputians who are laudable. is called Laputa, a word whose truth about Laputa’s etymology, though astronomers (and know about many etymology means “high governor.” it seems a bit presumptuous to assume more celestial bodies, Gulliver notes, Gulliver privately doesn’t “approve of he knows more about the native than European astronomers do). The this derivation,” thinking it “strained.” language than the native speakers do. astronomers turn the magnet so that He thinks the etymology should either the attractive or the repellent actually be traced to two words end of the magnet faces the kingdom meaning ‘sun dancing on the sea’ and below (which either pulls Laputa ‘wing.’ towards or pushes it away).

The Laputian king manages the The king’s method of ruling his kingdom Munodi explains that forty years Munodi’s account speaks to the power of kingdom below by manipulating the is a clear abuse of physical power and prior, a group of Lagadans went up to perspective, showing how the value motions of the island. If a particular the mark of a dysfunctional state. Laputa and returned with mathematic system contained within a certain population is misbehaving, he hovers Indeed, the kingdom’s subjects don’t theories which they used to revamp perspective can stay strong even in the the island over them, depriving their respect the king and see him as the their entire society. Lagado and its face of evidence that seems to contradict land of sun and rain. If they continue selfish, pathetic tyrant that he is. Though surrounding towns all opened it. Thus, the people around Munodi misbehaving, he pelts them from the king thinks his lies about his leniency academies and filled them with remain convinced that their abstract above with stones. If they still convince the listeners of his nobility, his professors who invented “new rules theories are superior to Munodi’s ways, misbehave, he begins to lower the subjects see straight through his and methods of agriculture and even though their theories are crippling island towards them, threatening to deception. The Laputian king's abuse of building.” Munodi’s estate is one of the their society and wreaking havoc while flatten them completely. However (as power also comments on the way that last few hold-outs of the old ways. his traditional practices are yielding good the kingdom’s subjects well know) the those who pursue high-minded theory or However, all those highly new results. king is usually too worried about philosophy are often just as, or more, scientific and mathematic schemes damaging the base of Laputa to really corrupt and power-hungry than the less failed and have left the country want to crush any part of his kingdom. theoretically minded. impoverished, infertile, and Even as the king announces that he horrifically disorganized. Still, the spares his subjects because of his people stand by the new ways and leniency, they know the real reason. spurn Munodi’s allegiance to tradition. The king and Laputian princes are not Munodi says that he will secure allowed to leave Laputa ever. The permission for Gulliver to visit the Laputian queen is not allowed to academy in Lagado after a few days’ leave till she is finished bearing stay at his estate. children. BOOK 3, CHAPTER 5 BOOK 3, CHAPTER 4 Gulliver visits the academy in Lagado The projectors, who value theory above Gulliver does not enjoy his time on Because Gulliver doesn’t share the which is housed in several decrepit all else, aren’t assessing the practicality Laputa. Because he doesn’t know Laputians’ obsession with abstract buildings along a street. He of their experiments and are thus much about mathematics or music, knowledge and theory, he is excluded encounters men, called projectors, blissfully blind to their projects’ blatant most people ignore him and he from their inner circle and can connect engaged in many bizarre projects: one futility, though this futility is plainly converses only with “women, only with society’s outcasts who lack the is working on extracting sunbeams apparent to Gulliver. Swift’s description tradesmen, flappers, and court-pages,” same knowledge he lacks. from cucumbers; one on turning of the academy is also a not-so-subtle and a lord who feels out of place in human excrement back into food; one attack on the newly founded Royal Laputa too and is the only noble on turning calcine ice into gunpowder; Academy in contemporary London, an interested in hearing Gulliver talk one on building houses from the roof institution Swift felt was uselessly about Europe. Gulliver soon gets the down; one on learning to identify devoted to abstract knowledge. Laputian king’s permission to leave. paint colors by smell and texture; one on training hogs to plow fields; one on Gulliver sets off for Lagado where he This exchange sets up an interesting play training spiders to spin colored webs; visits the Laputian king’s friend, of perspectives, triangulating the one on treating colic by pumping air Munodi. Walking about Lagado, Lagadans’ perspective against Gulliver’s into people’s anuses. Gulliver Gulliver is astonished to find the city and Munodi’s along with the reader’s observes that while all of the and surrounding countryside in utter perspective itself. In this kingdom, the projectors are working cheerfully, destitution and disarray, and asks the English reader’s own views and values none of them seem to be making any king’s friend about it. Munodi takes are spurned and considered worthless by progress. Gulliver to his private estate to most of the kingdom’s population. discuss the matter. Munodi’s estate is Gulliver goes on to visit the The projectors continue to devote unlike all of Lagado—it is orderly and educational wing of the academy themselves to projects that are, as productive, with a mill, cropfields, where projector professors are giving Gulliver and the reader can see, a waste symmetrical landscaping, and lessons on how to write books using a of time. The projects are worse than rectangular house as one would find in mechanic word randomizer and how useless. The implementation of these England. When Gulliver praises it, to learn mathematics by eating wafers projectors’ theories would only hinder Munodi tells him his estate is reviled with equations written on them. They society, not help it. Women, who lack the by all of Lagado. are also discussing a new strategy to men’s abstract knowledge, are the only enable people to stop speaking (since citizens with the common sense speech stresses the lungs and perspective to resist the projectors’ plans. shortens the lifespan) and communicate only by showing each other the actual objects they wanted to refer to. This plan has been strongly contested by “women, in conjunction with the vulgar and illiterate” who object to the huge bulk of objects it forces people to carry around.

Summary & Analysis www.LitCharts.com | @litcharts ©2014 | Page 15 Gulliver's Travels BOOK 3, CHAPTER 6 BOOK 3, CHAPTER 7 Gulliver goes on to visit the academy’s The doctor’s plan is based solely on Gulliver leaves Lagado and sets out As a magician able to summon ghosts of political projectors, whom he judges abstract theory and has no grounding in planning to go to Luggnagg, an island the dead, the governor possesses to be totally insane. Gulliver does practical knowledge. Its brain transplant in between western American and extraordinary physical power. By admire one doctor among them, who proposal clearly ignores the most basic Japan. However, when there are no encountering the historical European proposes to manage politics by facts of medicine and human health. ships for Luggnagg he goes to the dead, Gulliver gets a chance to learn managing the physical ailments and island of Glubbdubdrib instead, which about his own society’s past. In doing so, corporeal bodies of politicians (since is governed by magicians who practice he discovers the flaws in his own “there is a strict universal necromancy. The Glubbdubdribbian knowledge and sees that his perspective resemblance between the natural and governor’s servants are all ghosts, on European history does not match up the political body”). When politicians which startles Gulliver at first, though with the perspectives of the historical disagree, he proposes performing he soon gets used to it. The governor figures themselves. Indeed, history surgery on their brains and giving offers to summon up any dead person lessons teach that Brutus is a villain and each half the brain of the other. Thus Gulliver wants to meet and so Gulliver Caesar a hero, but the ghosts themselves political arguments can be resolved sees Alexander the Great, Hannibal, reverse this dynamic. within one head. Caesar, Pompey, the Roman senate, Caesar and Brutus. Gulliver is very Gulliver also hears projector The projectors continue to demonstrate impressed by Brutus’ intelligent professors debating the standards by their own perverse values—here they benevolent appearance, and Caesar’s which people should be taxed, consider “honor, justice, wisdom, and ghost affirms this impression yb proposing that men be taxed on their learning” worthless. Still, unbeknownst to telling Gulliver none of his own life’s vices, follies, talents, sexual prowess, them, their tax system would encourage actions were as great as Brutus’ “wit, valour, and politeness,” but never just such “worthless” values (by leaving murder. on “honour, justice, wisdom, and them untaxed) and would therefore learning,” since those four are promote a more virtuous society. Gulliver summarizes the innumerable Gulliver is interested in meeting heroes of valueless. Women could be taxed on other ghosts he had summoned by the people: individuals who fight power’s “beauty” and style, but not on saying they were “chiefly…destroyers abusers and virtuously defend the rights “constancy, chastity, good sense, and of tyrants and usurpers, and the of a country’s people. good nature,” because the latter four restorers of liberty to oppressed and were too scarce to yield any tax profit. injured nations.” The projector professors also discuss The plan to select powerful state leaders choosing senators by a raffle, by chance or by irrelevant physical BOOK 3, CHAPTER 8 detecting conspiracies by examining characteristics is obviously flawed. Gulliver sets aside a day to see the This anecdote intertwines the themes of statesmen’s diets and excretions. ghosts of men renowned for their knowledge and deception—some of knowledge. He sees Homer and history’s most “knowledgeable” scholars Aristotle and their huge crowd of (the commentators) are exposed as Gulliver shares with the projector The reader’s perspective clashes with commentators, none of whom Homer shameful liars. professors a few political strategies Gulliver’s and the projectors’. Gulliver and Aristotle have met since the he has observed in the kingdom of seems to have no qualms about sharing commentators are so ashamed by the Tribnia where the Langdon (the his worldly knowledge of other society’s gross lies they’ve made up in their natives) falsely accuse people of manipulative and dishonest political commentaries that they’ve avoided conspirators to elevate their own strategies, and the projectors welcome Homer and Aristotle in the afterlife. standing, and prove their false the information. accusations by having skilled “artists” Gulliver calls up Descartes and Gulliver arranges the meeting between find hidden codes, meanings, Gassendi to school Aristotle in their these philosophers to establish absolute acrostics, or anagrams, in the systems. Aristotle freely admits his truth by showing Aristotle his own supposed conspirators words or own errors. Still, he says that new theories were lies. However, Aristotle letters. The professors thank Gulliver theories of nature go in and out of wisely recognizes that absolute truth heartily. Generally unimpressed by fashion and even those that purport does not exist—truth is just a matter of Lagado, Gulliver starts thinking about to be grounded in timeless people’s perspectives at a particular returning to England. mathematic principles will vary age to time. age. Gulliver also calls up the Roman emperors.

Summary & Analysis www.LitCharts.com | @litcharts ©2014 | Page 16 Gulliver's Travels Gulliver then calls up the modern Gulliver’s encounter with the past rulers BOOK 3, CHAPTER 10 deceased and meets the royalty and of European states makes him realize aristocracy of Europe, in all of whom that all the historical knowledge he One day, a Luggnaggian asks Gulliver This mark of immortality, positioned as it he can detect tainted and degenerate possesses has come from deceptive if he has seen any struldbrugs is next to the eyebrow, strongly blood brought into the bloodline by sources—the “prostitute” historians who (immortals). He explains that in resembles an eye. Indeed, immortality men of low standing. By conversing represented the rulers as morally and Luggnagg, children are occasionally would make one “see” things differently, with these royals and aristocrats, physically powerful men. Yet these rulers, born with a red spot on their forehead would greatly alter one’s perspective. Gulliver discovers how dishonest the Gulliver finds, were in fact weak on both above the left eyebrow which accounts of history are that portray counts: they are corrupt and their bodies indicates that that child is immortal. these people as grand and virtuous are physically debased by polluted The spot changes colors as the when really they are weaklings, bloodlines. Gulliver’s perspective on struldbrug ages and immortality is not commoners, villains, hypocrites, liars, history shifts. necessarily passed down to the and corrupt people. He calls historians struldbrug’s children. “prostitute writers.” The kings insist Gulliver is overjoyed to hear of the Gulliver’s rhapsody demonstrates the that virtue is just “a perpetual clog to struldbrugs and exclaims what a great European perspective that considers public business” and that the throne “happy nation, where every child hath death to be the greatest evil and longs for relies on “corruption.” at least a chance for being immortal!” immortality above all things. The fact Continuing in this conversation, Gulliver’s reflection links societal wealth He says he wants to ask permission to that Luggnagg possesses immortal Gulliver learns that all of history’s with societal corruption. The text is thus live in Luggnagg forever, talking with individuals makes it seem like an ideal good statesmen and virtuous leaders implicitly advocating a simpler lifestyle the struldbrugs. The Luggnaggians society to Gulliver and he is eager to are remembered as traitorous villains. as a path to virtue. are amused by Gulliver’s reaction and become a part of it. Gulliver reflects that, just like it ask him what he would do if he were happened in Rome, Europe’s granted immortality. Gulliver waxes acquisition of wealth has lead its poetic, saying he would gain great people to be less healthy and more wealth, learning, and knowledge of corrupt, and the past century has history as it passed; he would teach reduced England to a state of young men; commune with other disgusting degeneracy. immortals as a group of wise men, setting a virtuous, grand example for BOOK 3, CHAPTER 9 the rest of mankind. He would watch with joy as new discoveries were Gulliver leaves Glubbdubdrib for Though it’s a fairly harmless deception, made and obscure lands found over Luggnagg. On the ship to Luggnagg, Gulliver’s lie is nevertheless time. Gulliver lies and says he is Dutch hypocritical—he’s so often insisted on his because he aims eventually to go to utter truthfulness that the sight of him The Luggnaggians laugh at Gulliver’s Because the Luggnaggians have the Japan and knows that only Dutch lying so unapologetically diminishes response and one explains to him that knowledge of first-hand xperiencee with Europeans are allowed entrance. On some of his moral power. humans, like many races that lack immortals, they possess an entirely the ship, Gulliver hires a young immortals, misunderstand immortality different perspective on immortality than Luggnaggian to be his Luggnaggian entirely by thinking that it is the Gulliver does. Indeed, they recognize that interpreter. greatest good and death the greatest the very thing European society longs for evil. They imagine that immortality (immortality) is in actuality a Gulliver applies for and receives The ritual illustrates this king’s grotesque entails perpetual youthfulness, health, tremendous hindrance and burden to permission to visit Trildrogdrib, where abuse of physical power. He controls his wisdom, and wealth. In fact, by the society. Thus the immortal struldbrugs the Luggnaggian king and court state by physical domination and the struldbrugs’ example, the have to be legally excluded from society reside. Upon arrival, he is forced to threat of physical punishment. Luggnaggians know that as they age, (considered dead) at a certain point to approach the king in the manner of immortals grow cantankerous, limit the social damage they might cause. the country: that is, crawling on his “peevish, covetous, morose, belly licking the floor. Though the vain…incapable of friendship, and floor has been cleaned for him, a dead to all natural affection.” They are stranger, he notes that the king has jealous of youth and of the ability to the floor strewn with dust or ve en die. In Luggnagg, struldbrugs over age with poison before his enemies eighty are considered legally dead and approach, causing them great their heirs can claim inheritances discomfort and/or death. Gulliver while they themselves are excluded praises the king as he’s been from participation in society. All instructed to. mortal Luggnaggians despise the The Luggnaggian king is pleased with Still, despite his kingdom’s horrific rituals, struldbrugs and, indeed, once Gulliver Gulliver and provides him and his the king is as kind and welcoming sees them, he finds them horrible. He Luggnaggian interpreter with food towards Gulliver as all the other states tells the reader he never pined after and lodging for the three months have been. Though it's worth noting that immortality again. Gulliver stays there. the king is only kind after Gulliver has complete supplicated himself to the king.

Summary & Analysis www.LitCharts.com | @litcharts ©2014 | Page 17 Gulliver's Travels BOOK 3, CHAPTER 11 Suddenly, all the animals run away and Swift’s prose continues to stay true to Gulliver sees they have been scared Gulliver’s perspective. He describes the Though the Luggnaggian king wishes By orienting the (imaginary) country of away by a horse. When he tries to pet scene based on his current knowledge Gulliver to stay in Luggnagg, Gulliver Luggnugg in relation to the (real) country the horse, the horse seems repulsed (though his subsequent discoveries will insists on leaving and so the king of Japan, Swift lends Gulliver’s by Gulliver’s hand and won’t allow it to soon reveal how mistaken these initial sends him off with riches and a letter adventures verisimilitude, making it touch him. Another horse approaches. impressions are). Even from a position of of introduction to the Japanese seem like Luggnagg is actually a place Gulliver observes that they are ignorance, Gulliver’s perspective registers emperor. Upon arriving in Japan, any reader could potentially visit, just as “formal” with each other and seem to that these are no ordinary horses—their Gulliver pretends to be Dutch and they could potentially visit Japan. converse reasonably in a mysterious humanoid qualities leads him to assume asks the emperor to help him find a Gulliver adds lies upon lies by pretending language. They approach Gulliver and they must be humans in an elaborate Dutch ship leaving from Nangasac. He not only that he is Dutch, but that he has delicately examine and admire each disguise. also asks the emperor’s permission to made a specific promise to the item of his clothing. Gulliver excuse him (out of respect for the Luggnaggian king. concludes that the horses must be Luggnaggnian king) from the Dutch magicians who have turned maritime custom of trampling a themselves into horses. Listening to crucifix. The emperor is suspicious of them speak, he hears them using the this request, wondering aloud if word Yahoo, which he repeats. The Gulliver might not actually be a horses are impressed and try to teach Catholic. Nevertheless, he complies. him the word Houyhnhnm. The Gulliver sails back to England on a Since Gulliver has been so comfortable horses depart, one beckoning Gulliver Dutch ship, successfully convincing about lying to the Japanese emperor, it’s to follow him. the sailors that he, too, is Dutch. curious that he doesn’t seem to feel that When pressed about whether he’s same comfort now and uses evasive BOOK 4, CHAPTER 2 trampled his crucifix, Gulliver answers language to avoid the outright lie of This horse leads Gulliver to a house Gulliver, as a human Englishman, is that he’s “satisfied the emperor and saying he’s trampled the crucifix. and Gulliver readies the toys and operating from the perspective that court in all particulars.” The voyage jewelry he always carries to give to every civil society must be organized by passes smoothly and Gulliver returns native peoples. As he’s lead in, Gulliver human beings. He enters prepared to to Redriff in England to see his family keeps expecting to see a human voice greet human inhabitants with human after being gone five years. and wonders what kind of man has all gifts. horses for servants. Still, he sees no BOOK 4, CHAPTER 1 people, only a number of horses After five months in England (just long Gulliver suffers because he is unable to sitting neatly in clean rooms. enough to impregnate his wife), see the true character of the men he Gulliver observes the power dynamics This scene juxtaposes the perspectives of Gulliver sets out to sea again, this hires. Although Gulliver, as captain, between the horses and sees the gray Gulliver, the reader, and the horses. time as captain of the Adventure, an possesses moral power over the ship, his horse is the master horse. He seems Gulliver and the reader, who has seen offer made to him by a merchantman. authority is no match for the sailors’ to speak with the others about everything through Gulliver’s eyes, Several men die early on in the voyage physical power. Gulliver, frequently repeating the consider the grotesque animals he met and the replacements Gulliver hires, word Yahoo. He leads Gulliver out on the beach to be beasts. Yet the horses he realizes too late, had been pirates behind the house where some of the have all along seen no essential in the past. The crew mutinies, filthy ugly animals Gulliver first difference between Gulliver and the imprisoning Gulliver below deck and encountered are tied up eating raw Yahoos. As they present their eventually abandoning him on an meat. The gray horse has Gulliver perspective, Gulliver suddenly realizes unknown shore. stand beside one for comparison and the errors of his own view—though the Gulliver begins to walk inland and Swift’s prose stays true to Gulliver’s Gulliver realizes to his horror that the Yahoos are disgusting and crude, they runs into “ugly” “animals” with thick perspective—not knowing the creatures’ animal is actually a human being are in fact humans. hair on their heads, breasts, anuses, identity or names, he refers to them only (albeit a very degenerate, wild, and and genitals, but bare skin elsewhere. as “animals.” He likewise uses other rude one). The horses refer to the They have no tails, can walk upright, vocabulary associated with animal as Yahoos and Gulliver sees and climb trees. One approaches animals—such as “paw” and “herd”—to they think he is a Yahoo too, except for Gulliver and raises its “fore-paw.” describe them. the presence of his clothes, which the When Gulliver bats it away with his horses seem to think are a part of his sword, a whole “herd” of the animals body. comes running, but, afraid of Gulliver’s sword, simply climb up a tree and throw their feces at him.

The master horse tries to feed This exchange is a perspective-widening Once Gulliver gains enough fluency, The European and Houyhnhmn societies Gulliver the meat the Yahoos eat but one for both Gulliver and the horses. he begins to tell the master horse possess exactly opposite perspectives on Gulliver is disgusted and gestures for Whereas Gulliver previously considered about Europe, asking the master the superiority of humans vs. animals. milk. The horse gives Gulliver milk and civility to be a human characteristic, he is horse please not to be offended by the Gulliver uses his worldly knowledge (his allows him to stand beside him while now witnessing dignity and civilized tale of his past. The master horse is experience of both European and he and the other horses eat together behavior among horses. Whereas the still puzzled by the possibility that Houyhnhmn society) to try and help the in a civilized fashion indoors. They eat horses previously considered humans to Yahoos would be capable of building master horse understand the European cold oats, except for a very old visiting be carnivorous beasts, they are now ships or that any Houyhnhnms would perspective. horse, who has them warm. Gulliver witnessing a human being refusing meat allow them to be in charge of such a shows them that his gloves are and acting politely. project. Gulliver explains that, where removable, which pleases the horses. he comes from, Houyhnhnms are They teach him more words. Later, irrational beasts and Yahoos are the Gulliver accepts some oats to eat and rational rulers. He tries to make the beats them into a cake. He expresses master horse understand by saying to the reader that, during his time in that he was just as astonished to find this land, he sometimes missed meat civilized Houyhnhnms here as the and salt, but that he got used to eating master horse would be to find civilized oat cakes. Yahoos in Europe. Come evening, the master horse The position is significant—in this society, BOOK 4, CHAPTER 4 lodges Gulliver in a place behind “the Gulliver is situated in between the house” but separate from “the stable beastly humans and the genteel horses. The master horse is astounded by From the master horse’s Houyhnhmn of the Yahoos.” Gulliver’s account and has a hard time perspective, it is difficult to imagine a believing the conditions of society ruled by Yahoos. This Houyhnhnms in European society or conversation also illustrates the that they would ever submit to Houyhnhmn’s belief in the superiority of BOOK 4, CHAPTER 3 Yahoos. In an apologetic tone, Gulliver moral power over physical power. But in Gulliver proceeds to study the From the Houyhnhnms’ perspective, it is explains that the Houyhnhnms in the land of the Houyhnhmns, moral Houyhnhnm’s language under the remarkable that humans could learn and Europe lack reason and that they are power and physical power are both tutelage of the master horse, a kind reason since they attribute those abilities subjected by brutal physical training. found in the same bodies (the and patient teacher who marvels at only to horses. Because he lacks the The master horse is disgusted, but Houyhnhmns’). It is hard for him to Gulliver’s un-Yahoo-like capacity for worldly knowledge Gulliver possesses, does grant that “reason in time will conceptualize human society where learning and reason. He asks about the master horse has trouble conceiving always prevail against brutal strength,” moral power is concentrated in Gulliver’s origin but does not believe of other societies. The fact that their and thus, if European Yahoos were physically powerless bodies (human Gulliver’s account, since he can’t language lacks even the word for ‘lie’ indeed endowed with reason, it would bodies). imagine Yahoos being in charge of any proves just how honest Houyhnhnm make sense that they’d be the rulers. country. He suggests Gulliver’s story society must be. Still, he doubts that beings so puny as is “the thing which was not,” since the Gulliver would be capable of Houyhnhnm language has no word for “employing that reason in the common “lie.” offices of life.” The Houyhnhnms continue to think Again, Gulliver contradicts his professed The master horse asks Gulliver if all Although, from Gulliver’s perspective, the that Gulliver’s clothes are a part of his devotion to complete truthfulness. The European Yahoos look like him and European human body’s differences from body and Gulliver takes care to care Gulliver takes to keep up the Gulliver begins proudly to recount his the Yahoo body indicate its dignity, moral undress only in their absence so as to Houyhnhnms’ illusions about his clothes and the other European Yahoos superiority, and civility, the master horse keep up the illusion and thereby isn’t strictly a lie but it is certainly an distinctions from the Yahoos the takes a more practical perspective. From distinguish himself from the Yahoos as evasion of truth. By agreeing to keep the Houyhnhnms know. But the master this angle, he sees that Gulliver’s body is much as possible. But one day, a truth about Gulliver’s clothes a secret, horse observes that all of these weaker and less capable than a Yahoo’s servant disturbs Gulliver in his sleep the master horse sympathizes with his distinctions are in fact “for the worse,” body. The master horse’s understanding and sees his naked body. The master perspective, understanding Gulliver’s since Gulliver’s body type lacks the that every living creature abhors Yahoos horse asks Gulliver to explain himself desire to distance himself from the Yahoos’ strong nails, tough hands, shows how dependent “truth” is on and Gulliver undresses for his gentle Yahoos. ability to walk on all fours. He perspective: his understanding is not the admiring examination. He calls criticizes the unattractiveness and absolute fact the master horse thinks it is Gulliver a perfect Yahoo, though awkwardness of Gulliver’s features but is instead a byproduct of his cultural Gulliver says it bothers him to be and the weakness of his body that perspective. called a Yahoo of any sort. He also needed clothes. The master horse also asks the master horse to keep the wonders how the creatures of Europe truth about his clothes a secret, which are able to overcome the natural the master horse consents to. abhorrence of Yahoos that is born into every living thing. But he lets these matters lie in favor of hearing Gulliver recount his own past.

Summary & Analysis www.LitCharts.com | @litcharts ©2014 | Page 19 Gulliver's Travels Gulliver describes his past up till the Again, the master horse’s complete BOOK 4, CHAPTER 6 present but has to spend many hours ignorance about deception and crime clarifying the criminal backgrounds of indicates the virtuous state of When the master horse expresses Again, the master horse’s ignorance of the pirate crew who mutinied against Houyhnhmn society, in contrast to bafflement as to why lawyers would greed—both for money and for food/ him on his last voyage. The master human society. engage in such loathsome work, goods—indicates the virtuous character horse has no concept of crime or vice Gulliver tries to explain the concept of of Houyhnhmn society in comparison to and the Houyhnhmns’ language has money and the human thirst for it. European society. no terms for “power, government, war, This leads to a description of what law, punishment” and many other such kinds of things money can acquire, things. Thus, it takes a lot of explaining which leads Gulliver to explain before he understands. England’s huge trade in foreign food and drink, despite the fact that BOOK 4, CHAPTER 5 England’s own soil is capable of producing enough food to feed its Gulliver summarizes the various Gulliver’s apology indicates his shifted entire population. discussions he had with the master perspective—he considers Houyhnhmn horse over the course of two years, refinement superior to English language Gulliver goes on to describe Gulliver continues to portray the begging allowance for the “barbarous” and culture. statesmen, explaining that the chief European state as a corrupt, immoral English language’s inability “to do minister of state is a person institution whose members grasp power justice” to the master horse’s views. completely consumed by his hunger by immoral means and retain that power for power and thoroughly dishonest. through lies and deception. He has When Gulliver recounts the endless Like the Brobdingnagan king, the master Thus, the people around him always adopted the Houyhnhnm perspective. petty wars and unjustified violence horse sees Europe’s violent political believe exactly the opposite of what among European states, the master tactics as a grotesque, unreasonable the chief of state says. The chief of horse reflects that, though such abuse of physical power. Whereas state rises to his position either by constant fighting is certainly not Europeans might point to their murdering female relatives, betraying reasonable, at least they can’t be very technological advances in weaponry and his predecessor, or by lambasting “the bloody as Yahoos like Gulliver have cunning war strategies as signs that their corruptions of the court.” The chiefs of such short claws and flat mouths that society is more sophisticated than state control their councils through they wouldn’t be able to hurt each Houyhnhmn society (which is ignorant of bribery and every member of court other very gravely. When Gulliver tells guns and war), the text suggests learns “insolence, lying, and bribery.” the master horse about weapons and otherwise. Put in the words of the master When the master horse remarks that The master horse, accustomed to his explains the typical European artillery horse’s perspective, European “advances” Gulliver’s superior appearance to the honest society, assumes that noble and its uses, the master horse is indeed look debased and repulsive, and Yahoos of the Houyhnhnms must appearances indicate noble essences. Yet disgusted. He concludes that no seem a lot more like ignorance than bespeak his nobility. Gulliver corrects Gulliver, well versed in his own society’s reasonable being could commit such knowledge. this impression, explaining that, in lies and deceit, knows that appearances atrocities and thus that the reason Europe, all nobles look sick, sallow, can perversely contradict essences. Gulliver insists the European Yahoos and weak because they are raised “in possess can only be “some quality idleness and luxury” and debauchery. fitted to increase...natural vices; as the Thus, in Europe, “a healthy robust reflection from a troubled stream appearance” always signifies a low returns the image of an ill-shapen birth like Gulliver’s. body, not only larger but more distorted.” BOOK 4, CHAPTER 7 When Gulliver describes the “science” Gulliver presents an extremely grim view Gulliver justifies his grim portrait of Gulliver acknowledges outright the shift of European law, he describes lawyers of European society’s justice system. His humankind to the reader, explaining in his perspective that has only been as liars trained to manipulate language description of law’s “science” harkens that his time among the Houyhnhnms implied earlier: he feels the Houyhnhnms into claiming that the truth is back to Laputia and implicitly compares had opened his eyes to the evils of have helped him see the dark “truth” whatever they are paid to claim; he the members of Europe’s justice system human nature and human society and about human society and made him describes courts being ruled by legal to the useless, misguided projectors of that he had in fact been hoping to live realize he wants nothing to do with precedent with no regard for reason the Lagadan academy. Indeed, lawyers permanently among the Houyhnhnms humans. or common sense; he describes trials and judges are, from Gulliver’s and never return to England. as long, tedious, aggressive accounts perspective, just a bunch of liars unable of endless details that are always to apply their knowledge to any good besides the point of the actual case in effect in society. question; he describes the impenetrability of legal jargon to common people. The master horse reflects that it’s a pity that people with such great mental abilities as lawyers must have aren’t teachers of “wisdom and knowledge.” Gulliver assures him that it’s no pity for in fact lawyers are “the most ignorant and stupid generation among us” in all matters apart from the law.

The master horse, having reflected on From Gulliver’s accounts, the master Gulliver goes on to describe the ways Houyhnhmn society is governed by Gulliver’s portrait of humankind, horse deduces the “truth” about human of the Houyhnhnms. Their reason is absolute reason—their dedication to concludes that the European Yahoos society that so alters Gulliver’s so perfect and absolute that they rational thinking and behavior produces are “animals, to whose share…some perspective. According to this view, never have disagreements or a perfectly moral, egalitarian society, small pittance of reason had fallen” of humans are completely lacking in moral differences of opinion—in fact, they albeit one lacking in individual which they made no use than “to power, are pathetically disabled don’t even have a word for “opinion.” personality and affection. aggravate…natural corruptions physically, and have managed to They love all of their species equally and…acquire new ones.” Thus, they organize a society that is simply the and treat their relations as well as were in many ways worse off than the grotesque reflection of their they treat neighbors and strangers. reason-less Yahoos, for they also unreasonable minds. They don’t show their children lacked those Yahoos’ physical affection but instead educate them in strength, swiftness, agility, and strong reason. claws. As to the European state, the master horse points out that they are The Houyhnhnms practice family Houyhnhmn society embodies the “plainly owing to our gross defects in planning so that each marriage is utopian ideals of equality and balance. reason, and by consequence in virtue; arranged by family and friends of a Still, embracing those ideals seems to because reason alone is sufficient to couple to balance the partners’ require them to abandon any chance of govern a rational creature.” respective strength and beauty individual love and choice. without giving thought to “courtship, The master horse continues, saying Though, from the Europe’s perspective, love, presents, jointures, settlements.” that, apart from their physical European clothes, access to fancy foods/ Each couple has two offspring, one inferiority, the European Yahoos luxury goods, wealth, political savvy, and colt and one foal, before stopping Gulliver has described resemble the complex emotions indicate their society’s (servant couples have three in order Yahoos of the Houyhnhnms in refinement and civility, the master to keep the households well-stocked countless other respects. The Yahoos horse’s Houyhnhmn perspective sees the with servants). of the Houyhnhnms also loathe the same qualities as evidence of the sight of one another’s bodies (which opposite. He recognizes those qualities The Houyhnhnms’ children are Another example of Houyhnhmn the master horse assumes is the real as evidence of savagery and brutality, educated in “temperance, industry, society’s embodiment of a utopian, reason for Europeans’ clothes); linking the possessors of those qualities exercise…cleanliness,” “strength, egalitarian ideal. This equality of the greedily hoard food; overeat; purge; to the Yahoos and indicating their speed, and hardiness,” and both sexes is in marked contrast to European suffer sickness from immoderation society’s degradation. genders receive the same kind and society’s sexism. (which is cured by eating their own degree of education. The master excrement); seek intoxication; live in horse is disgusted by human Yahoos’ filth; suck up to their leaders, then propensity to discriminate between throw their excrement at that leader male and female education. as soon as he is replaced; lust after Every four years, a representative Another example of Houyhnhmn and hoard jewels; suffer malaise when council of all the land meets to discuss society’s embodiment of utopian ideals: indolent (which can only be cured by “the state and condition of the several their state is perfectly democratic and physical exertion); and indulge the districts” and then immediately treats all subjects equally. grotesque lust of their females. supplies undersupplied districts with hay, oats, cows, Yahoos, or extra BOOK 4, CHAPTER 8 children. Gulliver often goes out to study the Even though Gulliver knows, Yahoos in order to learn more about intellectually, that the Yahoos are BOOK 4, CHAPTER 9 human nature. The master horse humans, his own perspective on what it Gulliver recounts the proceedings of From the Houyhnhnm perspective, consents to this and sends along one means to be a human prevents him from one of the Houyhnhnms’ councils as humans are an invasive species that of his servants for Gulliver’s being able to reconcile himself to the relayed to him by the master horse. needs to be restrained. (This is more or protection. Gulliver recounts that the truth of this knowledge. Thus he The council debated the question less the European perspective on Yahoos often approach him during his examines the Yahoos as a foreign species “whether the Yahoos should be horses—an invasive species humans observations and imitate his and refers to them as “monkeys.” exterminated from the face of the restrain by castration, harnesses, and movements like “monkeys.” He once earth?” Those in favor point out that stables.) Having acquired knowledge of tries to capture a toddler Yahoo for the Yahoos are not only a nuisance the human practice of castration from closer examination but his efforts to and a drain on Houyhnhmn resources, Gulliver, the master horse can now apply subdue it don’t work and the baby they are not even native to the land that knowledge to the uses of his own squirms, bites, and defecates all over but instead appeared from Houyhnhnm society, though now it will Gulliver before escaping. somewhere else many years ago. The be humans, not horses, who get Gulliver explains that, among the Houyhnhmn society treats human master horse steps in, sharing the castrated. Houyhnhmns, the Yahoos are kept in Yahoos much the way European human knowledge of humankind he’s learned kennels, sent to dig up roots and catch society treats its animals. Gulliver is from Gulliver, to surmise that the small game in fields, and fish. Once mortified because, though he considers Yahoos were originally from Gulliver’s while Gulliver is swimming in a river himself different from the Yahoos, the own society and are his degenerated he is assaulted by a young female young woman proves that, from the relatives. He suggests controlling the Yahoo who can’t contain her lust for Yahoo perspective, he is a Yahoo. Yahoos as Gulliver has described his him. Gulliver is mortified yb the own people controlling the reason- incident, feeling he can no longer deny less horses: castration. The council that he is “a real Yahoo” since the agrees to implement this plan. female Yahoos recognize him as a potential mate.

Gulliver proceeds to detail more of Unlike the Laputans, Houyhnhmns put In parting, Gulliver kisses the hoof of Though it would be considered grotesque the Houyhnhmns cultural features. their knowledge to practical use and the master horse. He acknowledges and self-debasing to kiss a horse’s hoof in They make excellent wound dressings; enhance the good of society. Their easy that “detractors are pleased to think it human society, Gulliver insists that, from they make good practical use of attitude towards death could be improbable that so illustrious a person his perspective, kissing a Houyhnhmn astronomy; they write excellent considered superior to the human should descend to give so great a hoof was an honor. Any reader who poetry; they make simple, sturdy tendency to grieve and lament death, but mark of distinction to a creature so thinks otherwise, he warns, just doesn’t buildings; they use their front hooves the Houyhnhmn attitude could just as inferior.” But Gulliver explains that, “if know the truth about Houyhnhmn as humans do hands; and they make easily be considered a disturbing these censurers” only knew “the noble superiority. pottery. They only ever die of old age emotional numbness. and courteous disposition of the and never lament death. In fact, Houyhnhnms, they would soon Gulliver recalls one female change their opinion.” Houyhnhmn coming to a social lunch gathering a few hours after her BOOK 4, CHAPTER 11 husband had died that morning. Gulliver resolves that he would rather Adopting the Houyhnhmn perspective Gulliver explains that the This linguistic tactic emphasizes that live out the rest of his life on an has stranded Gulliver between Houyhnhnms have no words for evil evils and weaknesses are aspects of uninhabited island than return to live societies—he won’t be accepted by the and thus, to express anything bad, human, not Houyhnhmn, culture. amongst Yahoos. He lands on one he Houyhnhmns and he can’t himself they “borrow from the deformities or thinks is uninhabited but is soon accept the human society of England. ill qualities of the Yahoos” and simply chased off by savages who shoot From Don Pedro and his crew’s append the word “Yahoo” to the word arrows at him, scarring his knee. perspective, Gulliver’s “elevated” of the thing. When he next pulls up on shore, he is Houyhnhmn habits are absurd and discovered by the crew of a laughable. BOOK 4, CHAPTER 10 Portuguese ship captained by Don Pedro de Mendez. They are all baffled Gulliver describes his happy Gulliver’s contentment reflects his new by Gulliver’s resolution not to return contentment living with the master perspective on Houyhnhmn superiority, to live with Yahoos and laugh at his horse. A room has been built for him as does his disturbing comfort with horsey voice and strange clothes. away from the house and he makes a treating human beings’ bodies like When they insist he board their ship mattress stuffed with feathers and dispensable animal pelts to make clothes to return to Europe, he is extremely Yahoos’ hair. He makes new clothes from. He has ceased to see the Yahoos as reluctant to and tries to kill himself by out of rabbit skin and makes shoe human beings, as sentient entities. He jumping into the sea. A crew member soles from dried Yahoo skin. He enjoys sees them as animals. captures him before he falls and perfect physical and mental health Gulliver is chained to his cabin. and is never tempted to do any evil, Gulliver is repulsed by the sight of the freed from the corruptive context of humans around him. humanity. During the rest of the voyage, Don Despite Gulliver’s conviction that human Gulliver explains that, although he Although there are clearly virtuous Pedro acts tenderly towards Gulliver, beings are immoral and repulsive, Don didn’t feel so fond of the advantages to Houyhnhmn over human listening to him and gradually Pedro acts as tenderly as the master Houyhnhmns when he first arrived society, Gulliver’s extreme pro- beginning to believe his stories (even horse did, listening to Gulliver describe among them, the more he learned Houyhnhmn perspective seems though he first seems to suspect what seems at first an unbelievable from and about them, the more he problematic as it results in self-loathing Gulliver is lying). He makes Gulliver account of Houyhnhmn culture just as admired them and the more he and an inability to accept his own body. promise not to kill himself and, when the master horse listened to Gulliver cultivated the views about humans they reach Portugal, takes Gulliver describe the European society he initially that Houyhnhmns held about Yahoos. into his own bachelor’s home and thought was a lie. When he sees his own reflection in gives him a new set of clothes. He water, he is disgusted and he aspires helps Gulliver ease slowly back into as much as possible to imitate the familiarity with human society. He physical characteristics of a horse. eventually convinces Gulliver that he One day, the master horse sends for Gulliver may imitate a horse and aspire should return to his family in England. Gulliver and explains that, at the to forget his own humanity in favor of Gulliver sails back to England where Indeed, Gulliver’s new perspective and council, the Houyhnhnms had becoming Houyhnhmn but, from the his family, it turns out, has presumed worldly knowledge have crippled him in confirmed that it wasn’t right for him Houyhnhmns’ perspective, Gulliver is him dead. He refers to his wife as human society. He is alienated from all to live with Gulliver, a Yahoo, and that clearly a human being who will never “that odious animal” and faints at her people, even his own family members, Gulliver should be sent back whence truly fit in Houyhnhmn society. embrace. He tells the reader that, at and can no longer see humans as loved he came. The master horse is the time of writing, it has been five ones or fellow companions. His effort to reluctant to send Gulliver away but years since he’s been back in England recreate Houyhnhmn society by buying knows he must. Gulliver is so upset by and he still can’t stand the sight, smell, two irrational European horses proves this news that he faints. But, after or presence of his wife and his equally futile. recuperating, he and the master horse children. Upon his return, he begin planning Gulliver’s departure. immediately buys two horses and Gulliver builds a canoe out of Yahoo dotes on them, never saddling or skins and prepares to set off. bridling them and spending as much time with them in the stable as he can. The only human he likes is the groom, because he smells like a horse.

Summary & Analysis www.LitCharts.com | @litcharts ©2014 | Page 22 Gulliver's Travels BOOK 4, CHAPTER 12 In response to those who have Swift positions the reader’s perspective suggested Gulliver should have laid at angles to Gulliver’s. Even though Gulliver addresses the reader, Through Gulliver’s vehement insistence claim to the lands he discovered for Gulliver claims not to be talking about explaining that he has written his on his own truthfulness, Swift plays with England, he points out that the English society, it is clear to the reader travels only worrying about the plain the novel’s verisimilitude. Gulliver Lilliputians are not worth conquering that Gulliver’s criticisms apply very aptly truth and never indulging in equates truthfulness in writing with and that humans would be no match to England. In Swift’s day, England was a entertainment or elaboration, as moral power (goodness), and doesn’t for the Brobdingnagans, the fierce imperial nation, conquering and other travel writers do. Gulliver seem to recognize or leave room for the Laputians’ floating island, or the subduing foreign peoples with brutal wishes all travel writers were sworn pleasures of fiction and fantasy. Houyhnhmns’ hooves and strength. physical power in order to colonize them to the level of truth that he holds Then he adds that he actually had for the English throne. himself to because he thinks travel another reason for not conquering writers have a moral obligation to these people for England: it troubles write for “the public good.” Others’ him that shipwrecked pirates so often travel books have in the past delighted lay violent claim to the kind, gentle him, but he’s realized through his own peoples that take them in and initiate travels that they were writing lies. a huge bloody effort “to convert and Gulliver confesses that he knows that Gulliver’s confession cleverly sidelines civilize an idolatrous and barbarous travel writers “like dictionary-makers” the question of whether his account is people.” Gulliver adds that this are quickly outshone by new editions true. If there are untruths in his book, he description of course does not apply and he admits that those who visit the assures the reader, those are only trivial to England, “who may be an example lands he’s visited in the future will cultural details that will naturally shift to the whole world for their wisdom, surely write their own travels and and evolve over time. He doesn’t even care, and justice in planting colonies.” “justle me out of vogue.” Still, since he acknowledge that anyone might doubt Gulliver announces that “having thus Gulliver closes the text by announcing is only writing for the public good and the more basic truth of those cultures’ answered the only objection that can plans to retreat into his Houyhnhmn not for personal fame. He is sure existence. ever be raised against me as a perspective, loathing human society and people will grow more virtuous after traveller,” he will retire to his private trying to make his human family more reading about the societies he contemplation of the Houyhnhmns like Houyhnhmns. His final thought describes. and continue to try to improve “the makes a complex point about moral Gulliver is pleased that his book will Gulliver’s assurance that he wrote Yahoos of my own family” and to virtue and truthfulness. If humans were “meet with no censurers,” because without any kind of bias denies the habituate himself to his own image in truly moral, Gulliver explains, they would surely no one will object to a plainly undeniable fact of his own the mirror. Gulliver adds that, not flaunt their pride of it but would factual account of distant lands where perspective—his claim is plainly false. regarding Yahoos, he would have an instead treat their morality like a natural Europe has no economic or political There is no way to write, see, or speak easier time getting used to them if part of their selves, equivalent to an arms interest. He points out that he also except through one’s necessarily limited they were all the open villains that and legs. The Houyhnhnms, who are wrote without any emotion or and prejudiced perspective. lawyers, thieves, fools, politicians, truly moral, take morality for granted prejudice, wrote purely for the physicians are—it’s some Yahoos’ because it is such an essential, natural betterment of mankind, and ventures pride that he really can’t stand. He part of their society. to pronounce himself “an author points out that pride is a foreign perfectly blameless.” concept to the Houyhnhnms and they “are no more proud of the good qualities they possess” than Gulliver is of possessing arms and legs, “which no man in his wits would boast of, although he must be miserable without them.” He warns any readers who are proud to stay away from him.