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Gulliver's Travels
Irony occurs when there is some discrepancy between what we expect and what the reality is. We do not really expect Gulliver to end up in locations where human beings are so very different,...
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Gulliver's Travels
Swift was criticized for his satire because the novel itself is highly critical of the English government and English customs, the country's religious struggles, the monarchy's handling of those...
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Gulliver's Travels
Gulliver's Travels is a satirical work, and its main target is the experimental science promoted by Enlightenment thinkers such as Sir Isaac Newton. The Enlightenment was marked by a particular...
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Gulliver's Travels
Gulliver thinks that the king of Brobdingnag is pretty simple; he does not really understand the way the world works. Gulliver says, [The king] wondered to hear me talk of such chargeable and...
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Gulliver's Travels
Both Samuel Pepys and Jonathan Swift wrote with little embellishment, Pepys from a literal vantage point and Swift from a figurative one. In both Pepys' diary and Swift's Gulliver's Travels, there...
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Gulliver's Travels
The short answer is that the dwarf that lives in the Brobdingnagian court hates Gulliver because Gulliver has usurped his place as the shortest person in Brobdingnag. Gulliver says that the dwarf,...
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Gulliver's Travels
Gulliver actually escapes from Lilliput fairly easily: after falling out of favor with the Emperor of Lilliput, Gulliver walks across the channel separating Lilliput from Blefuscu, and then from...
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Gulliver's Travels
A character sketch outlines the nature of a character in a work of literature. Any assertions made about the character must be illustrated with quotes (or paraphrases) from the work to support your...
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Gulliver's Travels
The Lilliputians are very warlike while the society of Brobdingnag is quite peace-loving and gentle, especially in comparison to the society of Lilliput. In Lilliput, terrible wars have been...
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Gulliver's Travels
Firstly, the emperor of Lilliput is cautious. Although Gulliver signals that he desires his liberty when he is awakens to find himself bound on the beach, the emperor will not consent to give him...
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Gulliver's Travels
It is difficult to narrow down the scope of this satire to just one idea, but, broadly speaking, we could say that the major theme of Gulliver's Travels is that human beings are inherently flawed....
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Gulliver's Travels
Despite ruling a physically isolated kingdom that has no real need to be concerned with anyone else because it has no neighbors, the king of Brobdingnag is very interested to learn about the laws...
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Gulliver's Travels
Gulliver escapes from Lilliput by, first, visiting Blefuscu. He is treated very well there, and the king does not seem nearly as warlike and unreasonable as the emperor of Lilliput. Gulliver learns...
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Gulliver's Travels
In Lilliput, Gulliver finds that he is ten times the height of the average native. The Lilliputians prove themselves to be, in many ways, warlike and intolerant: one especially vitriolic...
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Gulliver's Travels
In Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift, Gulliver begins his story with a little about his background. He was the middle boy of five sons and was taken in as an apprentice to a London surgeon....
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Gulliver's Travels
Gulliver has a mild and fair disposition, which he exhibits when he is with the Lilliputians. When they have tied him up, he thinks that he can easily free himself from their chains, as they are so...
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Gulliver's Travels
Based on some of his experiences with the Lilliputians, Gulliver is revealed to be rather dim-witted. He cannot understand the ways in which his behavior -- especially urinating on the castle in...
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Gulliver's Travels
During his stay in Lilliput, Gulliver is given the name "Quinbus Flestrin" by the tiny Lilliputians. According to Swift, this name means something along the lines of "the Man-Mountain" or "the...
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Gulliver's Travels
As the third of five sons, Gulliver must forge his own path in the world. His father helps him to get a good education so that he can become a doctor. Gulliver apprentices for some four years...
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Gulliver's Travels
In Gulliver's Travels, Jonathan Swift pokes satirical jabs at most aspects of European life, including religion. Swift's parody of 18th century religion is most evident in Gulliver's first voyage,...
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Gulliver's Travels
The Emperor of Lilliput is described as being a little taller than his subjects and generally handsome. However, he's also proud, petty, swayed by corruption, and preoccupied with meaningless...
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Gulliver's Travels
It can be hard to define a reader’s “attitude” toward a character or characters. Attitudes are subject to all sorts of influences, some contained in the text, others caused by real life...
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Gulliver's Travels
Gulliver decides that the Lilliputians are good mathematicians because of their ability to accurately calculate his size, clothing needs, and food requirements. I would tend to agree with...
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Gulliver's Travels
Lemuel Gulliver is the main character in Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, and so he merits special attention when approaching the novel. For the most part, Gulliver is thoroughly normal; he...
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Gulliver's Travels
The Lilliputians are clever and inventive in that they do devise a way of subduing Gulliver when he first arrives on their shores as well as of moving him from the beach to the city. He is so much...
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Gulliver's Travels
The emperor of Lilliput is representative of George I, the king on the throne when Gulliver's Travels was published. The pro-Whig George I persecuted the High Church Tories. When Gulliver details...
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Gulliver's Travels
In Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, the narrative's main incidents can be found in the book's four voyages. In the first voyage, Gulliver is stranded on Lilliput, an island of small people...
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Gulliver's Travels
The main problem the Lilliputians face while attempting to move Gulliver from his place on the beach into their city is simply lifting and placing him into the vehicle with which they plan to move...
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Gulliver's Travels
The emperor of Lilliput is taller, by perhaps a centimeter or so, than anyone else in his court, and Gulliver says that the height difference is enough to impress a beholder. Likewise, he has...
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Gulliver's Travels
Gulliver's conscience will not let him participate in the total destruction of Blefuscu, or, as he puts it, he cannot allow himself to "be an Instrument of bringing a free and brave People into...
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Gulliver's Travels
Gulliver leaves his childhood home in Nottinghamshire in order to acquire an education. He attends a school in Cambridge called Emanuel College from age fourteen to seventeen. After this, as the...
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Gulliver's Travels
Gulliver tells us that it is his "Fortune" to travel after he has gone to study at Emanuel College in Cambridge (from age fourteen to seventeen) as well as after he has been apprenticed to Mr....
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Gulliver's Travels
The Emperor of Lilliput arrives early in Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, and he proves to be instantly memorable, as Swift uses both the Emperor and his policies to illustrate the absurd...
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Gulliver's Travels
For reasons unclear, Skyris Bolgolam (the High Admiral) becomes Gulliver's "mortal Enemy" almost as soon as Gulliver arrives in Lilliput. Bolgolam's hatred of Gulliver increases after Gulliver's...
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Gulliver's Travels
The reason for the dispute between the Lilliputians and the Blefuscudians begins with the great debate over which side of the egg is the proper one to break. When the grandfather of the current...
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Gulliver's Travels
When Gulliver first opens his eyes in Lilliput, he does not really remark on his feelings. He notes that he is bound by a great many ligatures to the ground, and he cannot get up. He hears...
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Gulliver's Travels
The king of Brobdingnag is a moral giant relative to Gulliver, certainly, and to the Europeans Gulliver describes to him. The king asks for a full account of Gulliver's home -- its government, its...
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Gulliver's Travels
Gulliver believed that it would be his fortune, at some point, to travel. In order to prepare himself for a life of travel, he continued his education for some time, procuring money enough to do...
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Gulliver's Travels
Gulliver goes to Blefuscu to escape the Lilliputian emperor's growing displeasure, later to find out that he has been named a traitor to Lilliput for several reasons and that Lilliputian leadership...
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Gulliver's Travels
When Gulliver wakes up in Lilliput, he sees that it is "just Day-light," and he realizes that he is unable to move his body at all. At first, he can see nothing but the sky since he is unable to...
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Gulliver's Travels
Gulliver describes the dress of the people of Lilliput in quite flattering terms in part because he found much to admire about them and in part because they were so small that everything about them...
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Gulliver's Travels
When Gulliver reaches the land of Laputa, he feels such disquietude and anxiety that it overwhelms his exhaustion and keeps him awake at night. He begins to feel despair, wondering how he will...
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Gulliver's Travels
When Gulliver frees his left arm, the Lilliputians ran out of his reach and then launched a volley of arrows into him. Of course, he is so big that the arrows do not cause him serious harm, but...
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Gulliver's Travels
When Gulliver reaches Brobdingnag, he and the other men see no source of freshwater nor any signs of human life, and he separates from the group, walking a mile or so in the other direction. When...
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Gulliver's Travels
In Gulliver's Travels, by Jonathon Swift, we hear about the adventures of Lemuel Gulliver. Lemuel is an average middle-class man who is very curious and very good at languages. He is also very...
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Gulliver's Travels
Gulliver later learns that the Lilliputians spent some time considering what to do with him, especially when he first arrived. The emperor initially seems to keep his distance from Gulliver...
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Gulliver's Travels
Gulliver is exhausted when he finally reaches an island after his shipwreck and only wants to nestle down in the soft grass and sleep his tiredness away. He 'slept sounder than ever I remembered to...
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Reference
At first, the Lilliputians consider starving Gulliver because they recognize that it is going to be very costly to feed him; however, they then consider how difficult his carcass will be to get rid...
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Gulliver's Travels
Gulliver and his Master Horse eventually come to the conclusion that Houyhnhnmland Yahoos are preferable to European Yahoos because, with Houyhnhnmland Yahoos, what you see is what you get....
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Gulliver's Travels
Gulliver says that he was received at the Blefuscudian court with "Generosity." Then, when Gulliver finds a boat that, with repairs, could take him home, the emperor of Blefuscu is willing to loan...
