's Gulliver's Travels: Summary & Characters

Lesson Transcript

In this lesson, you'll learn about and the unusual characters he meets on his adventures as he travels to the different lands of Jonathan Swift's 'Gulliver's Travels.' End the lesson with a quiz to test your knowledge.

Who Is Gulliver? Written by Jonathan Swift, Gulliver'Gulliver'ss TravelsTravels is the story of the adventures of Lemuel Gulliver, the narrator and protagonist of the story. Gulliver is a married surgeon from (1) _____, England, who has a taste for traveling. He works as a surgeon on ships and eventually becomes a ship captain.

Through one unfortunate event at sea to the next, Gulliver finds himself (2) _____ in foreign lands and absurd situations, from being captured by the miniature Lilliputians to befriending talking horses, the (3) _____. Although Gulliver's vivid and detailed storytelling makes it clear that he is intelligent and well-educated, his perceptions are naïve and (4) _____. Gulliver never thinks that the absurdities he encounters are funny, and never makes the satiric connections between the lands he visits and his own (5) _____.

Lilliput Gulliver's adventures begin in Lilliput, when he wakes up after his shipwreck to find himself bound by the tiny threads of the (6) _____, a civilization of miniature people fewer than six inches tall. They shout at him and poke him with their tiny arrows, and then construct a wagon to carry him into the capital city to present him to the emperor.

The emperor decides to keep Gulliver captive, spending a fortune to feed him. Because of his tiny size, his belief that he can control Gulliver seems silly, but his willingness to execute his subjects for minor reasons of politics or honor gives him a frightening aspect. The emperor decides to use Gulliver as a weapon in the war against the (7) _____, another society of tiny people whom the Lilliputians hate because of perceived differences concerning the proper way to eat eggs. Lilliputians and Blefuscudians are prone to conspiracies and jealousies, and are quick to take advantage of Gulliver in political intrigues of various sorts. A fire breaks out in the royal palace, and Gulliver extinguishes the fire by (8) _____ on it. As a result of having urinated on the royal palace, he is tried and convicted of treason and sentenced to be shot in the eyes and then starved to death. But, he escapes to Blefuscu, where he finds a boat, is able to repair it, and sets sail for home, England.

Brobdingnag After staying in England with his wife and family for two months, Gulliver sets off on his next adventure, which takes him to a land called (9) _____, populated by giants about 60 feet tall called Brobdingnagians. Here, he is found by a farmer, who puts him in a cage and displays him around . His exploitation of him as a laborer nearly starves Gulliver to death, and the farmer decides to sell him to the queen, who he must entertain with his musical talents.

The queen of Brobdingnag is so delighted by Gulliver's beauty and charms that she agrees to buy him from the farmer for 1,000 pieces of gold. The queen seems to care about her new pet, asking Gulliver whether he would consent to live at court and inquiring as to the reasons for his cold goodbyes to the farmer. The queen employs a teacher and caretaker for Gulliver, a girl named (10) _____, who affectionately tends to him throughout his adventures in Brobdingnag.

The king of Brobdingnag, in contrast to the emperor of Lilliput, is well-versed in political science. The king's relationship with Gulliver is limited to serious discussions about the history and institutions of Gulliver's native England. Though at one point, the king dismisses him and refers to the English as (11) _____. Gulliver does not escape his captors and their ill treatment until the king and queen decide to take him on a trip, and his cage is plucked up by an eagle and dropped into the sea, where he manages to find his ship and sail back to England.

Laputa and Other Islands After another two months with his family, Gulliver sets sail again and gets marooned by pirates on a small island. As he's sitting on this island, he sees a shadow passing overhead. It is a floating island called (12) _____, inhabited by Laputans, theoreticians and academics who rule over the land below, called . He signals them for help and is brought up by rope.

Here, the inhabitants are impractical and out of touch with reality, often engaging in inane research and ruining their farms and buildings with newfangled reforms. The Laputans are so inwardly absorbed in their own thoughts that they must be shaken out of their meditations by special servants called (13) _____, who shake rattles in their ears.

Gulliver also visits (14) _____, an island of sorcerers, where he gets to meet the ghosts of famous historical figures, and , an island with an absolute king who rules over a population of senile (15) _____. Eventually, he makes his way to Japan and then sails back to England once more, this time for five months, before he sets out again. Land On his fourth and final adventure, Gulliver sails out as a captain in his own right. But his sailors mutiny against him and maroon him on a distant island, Houyhnhnm Land. This island is populated by rational-thinking (16) _____, called .

The Houyhnhnms maintain a simple, peaceful society governed by reason and truthfulness, and they do not even have a word for 'lie' in their language. They are the masters of the (17) _____, brutish, unkempt humanlike creatures who are not capable of government and are kept as servants to the Houyhnhnms, pulling their carriages and performing manual tasks.

It is through the Houyhnhnms that Gulliver is led to re-evaluate the differences between humans and animals and to question humanity's claims to (18) _____. Gulliver learns the Houyhnhnms' language and spends many satisfying hours in conversation with them, so much so that when they tell him he must leave, he is devastated.

He leaves obediently, knowing that it is his resemblance to the Yahoos that is at the heart of it; they are just like him, except that Gulliver has learned to clip his nails, shave his face, and wear clothes. He makes a canoe and paddles to a nearby island, where he is picked up by a Portuguese ship that returns him to England and his family. Once Gulliver returns to his family, however, he can only see them as brutish Yahoos. He can barely stand to be in the same room with them. He longs for the Houyhnhnms and spends at least four hours a day talking to his two stallions in their stable.

Lesson Summary Gulliver'Gulliver'ss Travel's Travel's, written by Jonathan Swift, recounts in first-person narrative the vibrant adventures of (19) _____, a surgeon who works on ships and time after time encounters himself stranded in new lands, a victim of shipwreck, piracy, and mutiny.

In Lilliput, he's taken captive by the Lilliputians, miniature people less than six inches tall, where the emperor is surprisingly able to control him until his escapes from Blefuscu. In his following adventure, he's enslaved by a giant civilization and becomes a figure of entertainment, first by an exploiting farmer and then by the queen and king of Brogdingnab.

Subsequently, he visits the floating island of , populated by absurd, self-absorbed scientists. On his final adventure to Houyhnhnm Land, he befriends a peaceful civilization of horses who rule over the brutish, (20) _____ Yahoos. After learning the ways of the Houyhnhnms, Gulliver is unable to adjust to living in society, since he can only view the English like they are Yahoos.

Learning Outcomes Once you're through with the lesson, you should be able to:

Recall who Gulliver is from Gulliver's Travels

Explain the importance of Lilliput

Describe Brobdingnag and the characters Gulliver meets there

Consider the importance of Laputa and other islands and the inhabitants there Recall his adventures to Houyhnhnm The Ship's Log of Lemuel Gulliver: -- Lilliputians -- urinating -- rationality -- Nottinghamshire -- Houyhnhnms -- stranded -- Brobdingnag -- home -- gullible -- Blefuscu -- -- odious vermin -- immortals -- Laputa -- flappers -- -- horses -- Yahoos -- Lemuel Gulliver -- humanlike