Study Questions

1. How does Gulliver get to Brobdingnag?

2. Why is he abandoned by his shipmates there?

3. Who picks him up?

4. Where is he taken?

5. How do people of gigantic size appear to Gulliver?

6. How does Gulliver struggle with Brobdingnagian animals?

7. Who in Brobdingnag befriends him most closely?

8. What does the farmer plan to do with Gulliver?

9. Why does Gulliver dislike the farmer’s plans?

10. Where is Gulliver taken toward the end of Chapter Two?

Answers

1. Gulliver gets to Brobdingnag because his ship is blown off course.

2. Gulliver’s shipmates escape without him from Brobdingnag because they are frightened by the giants there.

3. The farmer’s servant literally picks up Gulliver.

4. The farmer’s servant takes Gulliver to the farmer.

5. To Gulliver, people of gigantic size appear ugly, since their bodily flaws are immensely magnified.

6. Gulliver refuses to be frightened by the farmer’s cat and fights a bloody battle with Brobdingnagian rats.

7. The farmer’s daughter, known to Gulliver as Glumdalclitch, or “little nurse,” is the Brobdingnagian who befriends Gulliver most closely.

8. The farmer plans to publicly exhibit Gulliver for money.

9. Gulliver feels insulted by the idea of being exhibited as a curiosity.

10. Toward the end of Chapter Two, the farmer takes Gulliver in a box to the capital city of Brobdingnag.