Book 2 Group B (Morgan, Josh)

Gulliver as a character, in the world of Brobdingnag

• Liliputant State and those who live there (Part 1, Page 8)
  • Swift uses the absurdity of how the Liliputant's use tests of physical power and agility rather than tests of moral power and reason to determine who will hold its govermental officials by comparing it to WARFARE in general.
• The emperor is the ruler of Liliput in which Gulliver repects
  • The people of this land are six inches tall and Gulliver is notably bigger than everyone on that land.
  • Despite the Emeperor's size, the emperor execute his subjects for minor reasons of politics which rationalizes with Gulliver
  • Gulliver repects "rational" thought (the seriousness of political power)
• Gulliver as subservient/helpless (quote on p 109 sort of sums it all up) power dynamics
  • p 84 (penguin edition I think)<-- getting tired of being presented in an inn by the farmer
    • calls himself his master's "slave" on 87
  • normalized sense of smallness (93)
  • taken by eagle (127) contrast with how he left Lilliput (fled political death), and end of third book (lied to board a Dutch vessel), and unwillingly exiled at end of book 4
    • role of politics/nature/personal abilities in various exits of land
  • OTHER ANIMAL ENCOUNTERS which are interesting because they invert the understanding that humans have dominance over nature (making the various significances of Gulliver's smallness more immediate)
    • dog (102)
    • monkey (107-109)
    • rats (79)
    • wasps (96)
    • frog (107)
  • Talking with King about British/global society
    • Physical shape of conversation is pretty funny and telling- Gulliver's entire body is visible to King as only the King's head would readily visible to tinytiny Gulliver. (112-113)
    • wishes he had the voice of Demosthenes or Cicero (113) <-- making himself small in the face of historical figures parallels his smallness in the face of the King
      • worth noting neither of these are British figures.
      • The King is shocked at how violent the Nature of the Western culture is
        • Gulliver wants to make weaponary (gunpowder) but the king is horrified at this action
        • "I cannot but conclude the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth." (Part 2, Chapter 6, Page 6)
• contrast all of this subservience with the fact that ALL of this book is being refracted through Gulliver's perspective. All other voices are filtered, altered by his own. This makes him, for the reader, the most powerful figure in the book.
  • also, Gulliver almost immediately makes it to court. He does not remain poor after landing in B, and even the poor family ends up richer for his presence

conclusion

• The power dynamics between Gulliver and the people he ends up with are often very complex, which clashes with the reader's perception of Gulliver since his position as narrator necessarily lends him a position of great power.
• Guliver has no emotional life, his comments are strictly factual. He takes rational thought such as politics seriously. So, in his mind his power dynamic is those who are able to complete their thoughts politically.