Gulliver’s Travels

Part 1
Chapter 6

Gulliver describes the general customs and practices of Lilliput in more detail, beginning by
explaining that everything in Lilliput— their animals, trees, and plants—is sized in proportion to
the Lilliputians. Their eyesight is also adapted to their scale: Gulliver cannot see as clearly close-
up as they can, while they cannot see as far as he can.

The Lilliputians are well educated, but their writing system is odd to Gulliver, who jokes that
they write not left to right like the Europeans or top to bottom like the Chinese, but from one
corner of the page to the other, “like the ladies in England.”

The dead are buried with their heads pointing directly downward, because the Lilliputians
believe that eventually the dead will rise again and that the Earth, which they think is flat, will
turn upside down. Gulliver adds that the better-educated Lilliputians no longer believe in this
custom.

Gulliver describes some of the other laws of Lilliput, such as a tradition by which anyone who
falsely accuses someone else of a crime against the state is put to death. Deceit is considered
worse than theft, because honest people are more vulnerable to liars than to thieves, since
commerce requires people to trust one another. The law provides not only for punishment but
also for rewards of special titles and privileges for good behavior.

Children are raised not by individual parents but by the kingdom as a whole. They are sent to
live in schools at a very young age. The schools are chosen according to the station of their
parents, whom they see only twice a year. Only the laborers’ children stay home, since their job
is to farm. There are no beggars at all, since the poor are well looked after.