Study Questions

2.  In Lilliput, Lemuel Gulliver is charmed by Lilliputians at first, but later feels disgusted. Why? Give examples.

3.  In Lilliput, how do you see the Lilliputian Emperor? And Flimnap and Bolgolam?

4.  In Gulliver's voyage to Lilliput, how does Swift portray Gulliver's character?

5.  How is the King of Brobdingnag portrayed? How about the Queen?  What does Gulliver offer to the king? In this act how is Gulliver changed?

6.  Who are the Struldbruggs? Are they happy to have eternal life?  Why or why not?

7.  Describe the Houyhnhnms and Yahoos.  What are their strength and weakness? What is your attitude toward them?

8.  Who is Captain Pedro De Mendez?  Why does Swift put him at the end of the book?

9.  How does Swift describe women in Gulliver's Travels?

10. How would you compare Gulliver's Travels with More's Utopia since these two

   works invent an ideal imaginary state and satirize one's own society?

2.  How does the realistic style establish the narrator's persona and what are Gulliver's qualities as a narrator? Are you inclined to believe him and do you want to hear more?

3.  What is the reader's impression of the Lilliputians--at the beginning? Later? Find the reason that cause the reader's change of opinions.

4.  Discuss the size discrepancies in Gulliver's Travels. What does Swift suggest by the smallness of the Lilliputians and the big size of the Brobdingnagians?

5.  Size discrepancies point to the relativism of human nature. Find passages that show how Swift satirizes by treating humanity as malformed and diseased, both in body and soul, which is one of the conventions of satire.

6.  Gulliver never explains conditions in England to the Lilliputians as he does in Part II to the Brobdingnagians. What may be his (the author's) reason?

7.  Summarize your understanding of Swift's method of narration.  How does Gulliver function as a foil to the Lilliputians and to the Brobdingnagians and by what exactly does the author achieve satiric effect?