Study Questions

1. Why does Gulliver tell the King of Brobdingnag about gunpowder?

2. What is the King’s reaction to what Gulliver tells him about gunpowder and firearms?

3. What does Gulliver think of the King of Brobdingnag’s ideas about government?

4. What are the Brobdingnagian books like according to Gulliver?

5. What is the Brobdingnagian army like according to him?

6. Why do they have an army, since there are no external enemies?

7. Why is Gulliver unhappy at the beginning of Chapter Eight?

8. Where is Gulliver when he is about to leave Brobdingnag?

9. How does he leave Brobdingnag?

10. How does he return to England?

Answers

1. Gulliver is trying to help the King of Brobdingnag to defend his kingdom by telling him about gunpowder and firearms.

2. The King is shocked that brutally destructive weapons such as firearms exist.

3. Gulliver thinks that the King of Brobdingnag’s idealistic ideas about government are narrow, meaning naive.

4. Brobdingnagian books, according to Gulliver, are gigantic, direct, practical and not theoretical.

5. Gulliver tells the reader that the Brobdingnagian army is a militia, in which the commanders are local landowners.

6. The Brobdingnagians have an army, despite the lack of external enemies, to prevent civil strife.

7. At the beginning of Chapter Eight, Gulliver is unhappy because he is afraid that he will spend the rest of his life being treated like a poor animal by the Brobdingnagians.

8. When he is about to leave Brobdingnag, Gulliver is at the seashore.

9. Gulliver is picked up in his box by an eagle and dropped in the sea.

10. Gulliver is picked up by an English ship in which he is taken back to England.