Study Questions

1. How does Gulliver get to Laputa?

2. How does Laputa differ from a normal country?

3. How do the people differ from those in most countries?

4. What unusual kind of servants do the better-off Laputans have?

5. What is unusual about Laputan food and clothing?

6. What does the King of Laputa ask Gulliver about England?

7. What makes the island fly?

8. How do the Laputans put down rebellions?

9. What have Laputan astronomers discovered?

10. How were rebels successful in one case against Laputa?

Answers

1. Gulliver gets to Laputa after being cast adrift on a small boat by pirates who have captured his ship.

2. Laputa is a flying or floating island, moving above the ground.

3. The Laputans are almost totally absorbed in abstract spec¬ula¬tion, to the neglect of practical activities.

4. The better-off Laputans have servants called “flappers.” Their servants gently hit them with balloon-like objects filled with dried peas or pebbles so they will not be totally distracted in thought from the outside world.

5. Laputan food is shaped like geometrical figures or musical instruments and their clothing is similarly decorated. Their clothing is also decorated with astronomical figures. Clothing is made and fitted using navigational instruments and mathematical calculations, and it is ill-fitting.

6. The King of Laputa asks Gulliver about the state of mathe¬matics in England; he is interested in nothing else about England.

7. A magnetic rock in a cave in the center of the island of Laputa makes it fly.

8. The Laputans put down rebellions by flying over the rebellious area, blocking out sunlight, and if necessary throwing down rocks.

9. Laputan astronomers have discovered two additional satellites of Mars.

10. Rebels against Laputa were able to get favorable terms by putting magnetic towers at the four corners of their city, defeating Laputan measures against them.