Gulliver's Travels Essay

In Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift, the narrator encounters two different races of people. The first group of people he meets, the Liliputians, are six inches tall, yet live in a very complex society. They are all very educated and talented at their specific trades. The second group he meets are known as the Brobdingnagians, who are giants that are about sixty feet tall. They are very dirty and unpleasant people, who exploit the narrator for his short height of six feet.

The Liliputians and Brobdingnagians are different in many ways, from size to culture. The Liliputians are about six inches tall, while the Brobdingnagians are a towering sixty feet tall. When the narrator arrived in Liliput, the Liliputians tried to restrain him, but didn't have material strong enough to do so. Eventually, they realized they could use the narrator to their advantage against their enemy Blefuscu, who are the same size as them. On the other hand, the Brobdingnagians used the narrator as a source of entertainment for his small size.. At first, a farmer found him and went to major cities and made the narrator do tricks and performances for people in return for money. eventually, the queen of the Brobdingnagians took in the narrator so he could be her entertainment. Clearly, the difference here is that the Liliputians used the narrator as a weapon to weaken their enemy, while the Brobdingnagians used him for his small size as entertainment to profit off. The narrator's size compared to the race of people he was with determined his purpose and what he could or couldn't do.

Although in some cases, these two groups of people have similarities. First off, they both took advantage of the narrator. Even though they used him for different reasons, they nonetheless exploited his size in one way or another. All they really cared about was using the narrator in a way where they themselves could benefit, whether it be by war victories, or just using him for profit and entertainment. Neither cared about the well being of the narrator. The Liliputians wanted him to keep going out to fight Blesfuscu, and when he didn't want to, he was charged with crimes. The Brobdingnagian farmer who found the narrator almost starved the him to death because all he did was force him to perform all day. Both groups also find the narrator as exotic and unfamiliar due to his foreign size. Neither think that there is a whole other world of people like the narrator and basically feel that he is one of a kind. They are very ethnocentric, even the Liliputians, despite their size. They recognize their king as the most powerful man in the world, even after meeting the narrator.

In conclusion, it is clear that even though there are significant differences between the two races of people, there are many similarities, specifically in their mentalities. Even with their different sizes, they both exploit the narrator in one