CHAPTER - 1

Our hero, Lemuel Gulliver, starts out his adventures with a description of his origins:
he's from Nottinghamshire in England, and he has spent several years at college at
Cambridge.

Sadly, Gulliver's father runs out of money for young Gulliver's education, so he sends
Gulliver as an apprentice (read: someone who works for a skilled tradesman in
exchange for first-hand, practical training in said trade) to Mr. James Bates, a London
surgeon.

Gulliver also spends a lot of time studying math and navigation, because he wants to
travel.

Eventually, with the financial help of his uncle, his father, and some other relatives,
Gulliver travels to Leyden (now Leiden, a city in Holland), where there is a famous
university known for its teaching of medicine.

After studying at Leyden for a couple of years, Gulliver returns to England, where Mr.
Bates gives Gulliver a recommendation to join the crew of the ship the Swallow as a
surgeon.

Gulliver travels for three years on the Swallow and gets as far as the Levant (a.k.a.
the eastern portion of the Mediterranean and the areas that border it, including parts
of Egypt, Syria, Israel, Lebanon, and Turkey.)

He comes back to London and settles down to marry Mrs. Mary Burton, who comes
with a dowry (read: a certain amount of money settled on her by her family once she
marries) of 400 pounds nice for Gulliver!

Gulliver's former boss and current patron, Mr. Bates dies a couple of years later, and
Gulliver's business starts to go bad.

Gulliver decides to go to sea again, traveling this time to the Far East and the West
Indies.

He spends a lot of time reading while he's at sea; when Gulliver is ashore, he enjoys
observing the customs of the people he meets.

But even the sea starts to lose its interest for Gulliver, and he decides to head home
to London to hang out with his wife.

Gulliver moves his business to various parts of London, but he continues to fail at
making a living, so he hits the sea once again three years later.

He sets sail with Captain William Prichard on the Antelope, heading to the South
Seas (in other words, the oceans south of the equator.)

As you might expect, things go wrong. All of the following happens in one long
paragraph:
1. A storm blows up.
2. The ship winds up in the Northwest of "Van Diemen's Land" what we now
call Tasmania, an area in the southeast of Australia.
3. 12 members of the ship's crew die and the rest are weakened by hard work
and lack of food.
4. High currents and rough seas make it hard for the crew to get from the ship's
anchorage point to shore.
5. So the Antelope sends six crew members, Gulliver included, in a small
rowboat to go to shore.
6. The boat capsizes and all of the six sailors except for Gulliver drown.
7. In the water, Gulliver totally loses track of where he is, but he still manages
eventually to find his way to a shore.
8. Gulliver's feeling a bit sleepy from all of this exercise and the half-pint of
brandy he drank onboard ship before getting into this rowboat, so he lies
down to sleep.
9. He wakes up at dawn after a lovely nap in the grass.
10. Gulliver tries to stand up, but he can't move at all. He's stuck lying on his
back.
11. Gulliver notices that his arms and legs and even his long hair all appear to be
tied down.
12. He can't look right or left, so he has no idea what is happening, but he does
feel something moving across his chest towards his chin.
13. Gulliver turns his eyes down to look over his chin and he sees a tiny, tiny
human being, no bigger than the length of Gulliver's finger.
14. The tiny fellow is carrying a tiny, tiny bow with lots of tiny, tiny arrows and
there are also around 40 other tiny guys following him. (Incidentally, these
tiny people are the Lilliputians residents of Swift's made-up island of
Lilliput.)
15. Gulliver yells in fright at the sight of all of these tiny people. At this roar, they
jump or fall back in fear.
16. Gulliver manages to break the strings tying down his left arm, but the strings
attached to his hair really hurt, so he can still barely turn his head.

17. The little people all run away a second time and they shoot his left hand full
of about a hundred arrows. Some of them try to stick his sides with itsy bitsy
spears, but they can't get through his leather vest.
18. Gulliver decides to lie still until nighttime, when he might be able to use his
left hand to free himself.
19. But he can hear a huge number of people massing: more and more of the
little people arrive, and they start building something near him.
20. It appears to be a stage, from which an important little person recites a
speech to Gulliver. Gulliver can't understand the speech, but he does hear
the words, "Langro Dehul san" (1.1.5). Gulliver deliberately acts as
submissive as he can during this to indicate that he intends no harm.
21. Gulliver is hungry, thirsty, and really has to pee, so he gestures with his left
hand that he needs to eat and drink.
22. The important little person making speeches is called the "Hurgo" (1.1.5),
and he orders his people to bring Gulliver food.
23. All the tiny people are amazed at how much Gulliver can eat and drink.
24. The tiny people keep dancing around in joy as they watch him stuffing
himself and drinking their wine.
25. (By the way, Gulliver keeps talking about "hogsheads" of wine. A hogshead is
a large barrel that, in normal human terms, holds many gallons. For these
people, a hogshead holds less than half a pint.) They all shout, "Hekinah
Degul."
26. Gulliver has to admit that he's impressed: these people seem totally fine with
climbing onto his body and walking around even though they know his left
hand is free and even though he's a giant to them.
27. After Gulliver finishes eating, a representative of the Imperial House climbs
the scaffolding to talk to Gulliver.
28. Through sign language, the representative of the Emperor manages to get
across that Gulliver must be carried as their prisoner to the capital city about
half a mile away. Gulliver wants to go free, but the Emperor won't allow it.
Gulliver will be well treated, though.
29. Gulliver thinks about fighting, but changes his mind when he sees the
number of little people has increased. He agrees.
30. The Hurgo and all of his people climb down and get out of the way.
31. The strings binding Gulliver's left side are loosened enough that Gulliver can
roll over and pee (or "make water," as he puts it).

32. The little people also treat Gulliver's tiny arrow wounds, which makes his
injuries stop stinging.
33. So all in all, what with the food, the peeing, and the medical treatment,
Gulliver stops freaking out and starts feeling sleepy again.
34. He crashes for about eight hours thanks, he discovers later, to a sleeping
potion in his wine.

And that's the end of this super-long paragraph!

Gulliver discovers later that the Emperor is the one who ordered that Gulliver be tied
up and fed in this way so that he could be brought to the capital city.

Gulliver says, you may think this whole drugging thing seems like a cowardly thing
do, but really, it's smart. After all, if they had tried to kill Gulliver as he slept, their tiny
weapons would have woken him up. His rage might have given him the strength to
break the ropes they used to tie him.

These tiny people are great mechanics and already have lots of machines designed
for hauling trees and other heavy things.

Using a system of pullies, they hoist Gulliver onto one of these machines and tie him
to it.

1,500 of the Emperor's horses, all of which are about four and a half inches high,
drag Gulliver to the capital city.

Gulliver falls asleep yet again (what is up with this guy?), but he wakes up about four
hours into their trip. Gulliver awakens because one of his guards climbs onto
Gulliver's face and sticks his spear up Gulliver's left nostril. Gulliver sneezes violently,
and the guards sneak off.

Finally, Gulliver and all of his guards make it to the capital city, where they are met by
the Emperor and his Court.

Gulliver is tied to an old, huge (by these people's standards) temple, which is no
longer in use for religious purposes because a murder was once committed there.

Gulliver is kept tied down to the ground as the tiny people build him a set of chains,
and many thousands of the city's inhabitants use the opportunity to come climb all
over him.

Finally, Gulliver's chains are done, and he is freed of his ropes. He can finally stand
up, for the first time since arriving in this land.

Gulliver's chains allow him to move immediately around the gate to his temple, so he
can lie down inside the building or stand up outside of it.

Chapter 2 Summary
"The Emperor of Lilliput, attended by several of the
nobility, comes to see the author in his confinement.
The Emperor's person and habit described. Learned
men appointed to teach the author their language. He
gains favour by his mild disposition. His pockets are
searched, and his sword and pistols taken from him."

When Gulliver stands up the next morning, he sees a beautiful landscape laid out in
front of him, like a garden. None of the trees are taller than seven feet high, and all of
the fields look like beds of flowers.

Gulliver's panicking a bit because it's now been about two days since he last peed.
Finally, he decides to sneak back into his temple and go in a corner.

Gulliver assures us that this is the only time he does something as unsanitary as
peeing in his own house.

For the rest of his stay in this country, every morning two tiny people come with
wheelbarrows for him to relieve himself in, and then they take it away not a job we
envy.

Anyway, after relieving himself in the corner of the temple, Gulliver heads outside
again. The Emperor comes to visit him and orders him to be given food and water.

Gulliver then describes the Emperor: he's a tiny bit taller than anyone else around
him, with a strong, masculine face. He's around 28 and therefore "past his prime"
(1.2.3), but he has been Emperor for seven years and has done a reasonably good
job of it.

The Emperor wears simple clothing, but he also carries a gold, jewel-encrusted
helmet and sword.

The Emperor and Gulliver try to speak to each other for a couple of hours, but even
though Gulliver speaks a bit of German (what he called "High Dutch"), Dutch (or
"Low Dutch"), Latin, French, Spanish, Italian, and Lingua Franca, they still can't talk
to each other.

The Emperor and his Court clear out.

Gulliver has to deal with a huge crowd that has gathered around him in curiosity.

Six members of the crowd get rowdy and shoot at him with their arrows.

His guard catches the wrongdoers, ties them up, and gives them to Gulliver for
punishment.

He puts five of them in his pocket and the sixth, he pretends that he is going to eat.
But then he just takes out his pocketknife, cuts the guy's ropes, sets him on the
ground, and lets him go. Gulliver's mercy makes him really popular with the little folk.

Gulliver spends about two weeks sleeping on the floor of his temple while the
Emperor orders a bed to be made for him.

As the news spreads that Gulliver has arrived in the capital city, lots of curious
people pour into the city to see him.

The Emperor is concerned that all of this curiosity is going to lead people to neglect
their homes and businesses. He orders that anyone who has seen Gulliver once has
to go home, and that no one is allowed to come within fifty yards of his house without
a license. This turns into a great money-making industry for the court.

Throughout this time, the Emperor is discussing what to do with Gulliver over the
long term. A highly-ranked friend of Gulliver's who is in on the discussion tells
Gulliver that:
1. The Emperor is worried that Gulliver's eating habits will send the country into
famine.
2. They think of starving him or shooting him in the face and neck with poisoned
arrows to kill him off. But then they would have to deal with his giant rotting
corpse, which might bring a plague to the capital city.
3. Everyone is so impressed with Gulliver's treatment of the six people who shot
him with arrows that the Imperial Commission sends out an order to all the
country's villages that they must send a certain amount of food and drink to
the city for Gulliver every day.
4. The Emperor orders six hundred people to wait on Gulliver, 300 tailors to
make him a suit, and 6 scholars to teach Gulliver their language.
5. After three weeks, Gulliver's got a good grasp of their speech, so he chats
with the Emperor. He asks him regularly for his own freedom, but the
Emperor always says: "Lumos Kelmin pesso desmar lon Emposo" "Swear
a peace with him and his kingdom" (1.2.6).
6. The Emperor requests Gulliver's permission to have him searched, and
Gulliver agrees.
7. Gulliver helps the Emperor's guards into all of his pockets except one secret
one, where he keeps some objects that, he says, should only matter to him.
Gulliver also won't let them look at his two fobs (read: small vest pockets
usually used for holding a watch), which contain a silver watch and a small
amount of gold.
8. The two guards then give Gulliver a careful inventory of what they have found
on him, which they give to the Emperor.

And we have reached the end of another super-long paragraph!

Gulliver transcribes the guards' inventory into English.

Apparently, they call him "the Great Man Mountain" (1.2.7).

They describe all of these relatively common objects (at least, common in the
eighteenth century) a handkerchief, snuff (a kind of powdered tobacco for sniffing),
comb, razor, knife, journal, and pocket watch from the perspective of people utterly
unfamiliar with what they are looking at. For example, a comb is described as "a sort
of engine, from the back of which were extended twenty long poles" (1.2.7).

It also turns out that, even though Gulliver does not offer to put them in his watch
pocket, they notice his watch chain coming out of said pocket, so he has to show
them the contents anyway.

After searching Gulliver's pockets, the two guards see that Gulliver is wearing a
leather belt around his waist. Attached to this belt is a large sword and a pouch for
carrying gunpowder and shells.

The Emperor hears this inventory of Gulliver's possessions and then orders Gulliver
to show his sword and pocket pistols.

The Emperor also signals three thousand of his troops to stay on hand during this
display of Gulliver's weapons just in case.

So, when Gulliver takes his scimitar (a kind of curved sword) out of its scabbard (a
sheath for a sword), all of the Emperor's troops shout because they think Gulliver's
about to assassinate their Emperor.

But he doesn't, of course: Gulliver puts the scimitar back in its scabbard and places it
on the ground.

Gulliver also loads his pistols and shoots into the air to demonstrate how a gun works
to the Emperor.

The tiny people are so shocked by the sound that hundreds of them fall to the
ground; even the Emperor takes some time to collect himself.

Gulliver then places his pistols and his firearms on the ground next to his sword.

Gulliver gives his watch, money, knife, razor, comb, snuffbox, handkerchief, and
journal to the Emperor to examine but these things, he gets back. The scimitar,
pistols, and ammunition, on the other hand, get carted off to the Emperor's
storehouses.

Inside the super-secret pocket that Gulliver does not reveal to the Emperor, he has:
his glasses, a "pocket perspective" (1.2.11) (probably a magnifying glass or
telescope), and "several other little conveniences" (1.2.11) he won't describe. These

are all delicate objects that Gulliver is worried might get lost or broken if he shows
them to anyone.

Gulliver's Travels Part 1, Chapter 3 Summary

"The author diverts the Emperor and his nobility of both sexes,
in a very uncommon manner. The diversions of the court of
Lilliput described. The author hath his liberty granted him upon
certain conditions."

The Lilliputian court comes to like Gulliver thanks to his gentle behavior.

Because the Emperor admires Gulliver so much, the Emperor orders his people to
put on a couple of shows for Gulliver

The main show is a kind of rope dancing, which is performed only by people who
hold high office in Lilliput. In fact, in order to get a high office in Lilliput, you have to
beat all the other candidates in this rope dancing competition. Skill at this dance is
the main qualification for court positions.

Because the dance involves seeing who can jump the highest on a piece of rope
without falling, there are lots of accidents. People try to jump too high or miss the
rope and whatnot and some of these falls are even fatal.

The Emperor also likes to make his court play a kind of limbo. Sometimes his
courtiers creep under a stick he's holding and sometimes they jump over. Whoever
jumps and crawls the best wins a prize from the emperor: a colored belt, like a karate
belt, proving the winner's skills.

Gulliver invents a game to entertain the emperor: he sets up a raised stage using his
handkerchief and a set of sticks.

On this stage, he sets a troop of 24 of the Emperor's horsemen to perform their

maneuvers and drills.

This game goes on until one of the horses tears through the handkerchief with its
hoof and injures itself; after that, Gulliver decides the handkerchief is too weak to
support the Lilliputians.

As Gulliver gets busy entertaining the Emperor's court, he hears news that
something else has washed ashore: a giant black thing that doesn't seem like a living
creature.

It is, in fact, Gulliver's hat, which the Lilliputians drag to the capital. Gulliver is happy
to get it back again.

The Emperor (whose sense of humor, we have to admit, seems kind of weak)
decides that he wants Gulliver to pose standing with his legs as far apart as they can
go.

The Emperor orders his troops to march between Gulliver's legs in rows of 24 men.

Even though the Emperor also tells his armies not to make any comments about
Gulliver's body, a bunch of them can't help looking up and laughing.

Gulliver's pants are in such tatters at this point that he's flashing all of the Emperor's
armies. There are, he tells us, "opportunities for laughter and admiration" (1.3.7) for
the Lilliputians after all, Gulliver implies, he's a giant, and his penis has to be
proportionally huge.

Gulliver lobbies hard to be set free, and finally the whole court agrees, with one
exception: Skyresh Bolgolam, who seems to feel he is Gulliver's enemy (Gulliver
says, without reason).

Bolgolam at last agrees that Gulliver should be released, but only if Bolgolam can
make the conditions for Gulliver's freedom.

The contract for Gulliver's freedom has the following rules:

1. Gulliver won't leave Lilliput without permission;
2. He won't come into the main city without the Emperor's permission and two
hours of notice (because up until now, he's been chained to that temple just
outside the city gates);
3. The "man-mountain," as they continue to call him, will only walk on the
kingdom's main roads, and will not lie down in any meadows or fields;
4. He will be careful not to stomp on anyone or pick them up without their
consent;
5. Once a month, if there are particularly urgent messages the Emperor wants
to send, Gulliver will have to carry the messenger and his horse to his
destination and back again;
6. Gulliver will defend Lilliput against their enemy, the island of Blefuscu;
7. He will help workmen pick up stones to build walls and royal buildings;
8. In two months' time, Gulliver will give the Emperor his calculation of how big
the island of Lilliput is;
9. If Gulliver observes all of these rules, the Emperor will provide Gulliver with
food, drink, and "access to our royal person" (1.3.18) in other words,
Gulliver will get to spend as much time as he wants with the Emperor. Lucky
guy!

Gulliver agrees to all of these rules, even though some of them seem to come from
the pointless hatred of Skyresh Bolgolam.

The Emperor permits Gulliver to go free, and his chains are unlocked at last.

Gulliver's Travels Part 1, Chapter 4 Summary

"Mildendo, the metropolis of Lilliput, described, together with
the emperor's palace. A conversation between the author and
a principal secretary, concerning the affairs of that empire. The
author's offers to serve the emperor in his wars."

After Gulliver gets his freedom, the first thing he does is to ask the Emperor if he can
go into Mildendo, the main city of Lilliput.

The Emperor agrees, and Gulliver steps into the town. He walks through the main
streets and visits the Emperor's palace.

At this point, Gulliver spends some time describing the state of Lilliput itself, as told to
him by Redresal, the country's principal secretary.

Apparently, there are two rival factions in the empire, the Tramecksans and the
Slamecksans.

The Tramecksans are also called the "high heels" because they wear high-heeled
shoes; the Slamecksans are the "low heels."

Even though the high heels are big fans of Lilliput's constitution, the Emperor will
only staff his government with representatives of the low heels. (And of course, since
Redresal, the principal secretary, has a high post in the Emperor's cabinet, we can
figure out that Redresal is also a low heel.)

The two parties hate each other so much that they can't eat, drink, or talk to each
other.

While the Emperor's heels are definitely low, his son, the heir to the throne, seems
less decided: one of his heels is high, the other, low, which makes it tough for him to
walk around. (For more on what the heck Swift is talking about, see our "Character
Analysis" of the Lilliputians.)

Not only is Lilliput divided inside, but it's also threatened from the outside by the
island of Blefuscu, a second island empire "almost as large and powerful as this of
his majesty" (1.4.5).

Redresal admits that there may be countries outside the Lilliput/Blefuscu binary, but
Lilliput's philosophers think there probably aren't. They like to believe that Gulliver is
an alien who has dropped from the moon.

The war between Lilliput and Blefuscu has been going on for three years.

It all started with the grandfather of the current Emperor, who cut his finger on an
eggshell when he was a kid.

The Emperor's great-grandfather thinks that the reason his son cut his finger was
because he broke his egg on its rounded, big end rather than the little, pointed end.

Even though, up until this moment, everyone had always cracked their eggs on the
big end, the current Emperor's great-grandfather decrees that, from now on,
everyone will have to crack their eggs on the little end for safety's sake!

Redresal calls people who crack their eggs at the larger end Big-Endians; those who
break their eggs at the smaller end are called Little-Endians.

(All this stuff with the eggs may sound totally nuts, but Swift is making a larger point
about English politics and religion check out our "Character Analysis" of the
Lilliputians for an explanation of this scene.)

The people are so against this new egg-cracking law that they keep rebelling against
the Emperor. These uprisings get funding from Blefuscu, which is a country of BigEndians.

In fact, Blefuscu is currently calling up its navy for a full-scale invasion of Lilliput,
because so many Big-Endian refugees from Lilliput's Little-Endian government have
found their way to Blefuscu.

The Emperor of Lilliput expects Gulliver to use his strength to defend the island,
which is why he has commanded Redresal to tell Gulliver about the Big-End/LittleEnd conflict.

Gulliver promises Redresal that he will do everything he can to protect Lilliput.