Gulliver’s Travels

As with all the characters in Gulliver’s Travels except for the title character, Mr. James Bates exists mainly as a name, without any particularly distinctive traits. He helps Gulliver set up his m… The Lilliputians The Lilliputians inhabit the first island Gulliver visits. They all stand about six inches tall, with proportionally tiny buildings and trees and horses. The Lilliputians are ruled by an Emperor wh… The Lilliputian Emperor Swift is definitely playing with fire with this one: the Lilliputian Emperor represents the King of England at the time of the publication of Gulliver’s Travels, George I.

George was a strongly pro… Flimnap and Skyresh Bolgolam Flimnap is the treasurer of Lilliput; he quickly takes against Gulliver thanks to some totally absurd rumors floating around court that Gulliver is having an affair with Flimnap’s wife. Seriously,… Redresal Redresal is principle secretary of Lilliput and also styles himself Gulliver’s friend – when Bolgolam and Flimnap are agitating for Gulliver’s death by poison, Redresal suggests the kinder al… The Brobdingnagians The Brobdingnagians are giants: they average around 60 feet tall, and their lands and animals are correspondingly huge.

Gulliver is incredibly vulnerable in this country, which is why it makes sens… The Brobdingnagian King As opposed to the Lilliputian Emperor, who primarily uses Gulliver as a weapon against Blefuscu, the Brobdingnagian King wants Gulliver to teach him English governance in case there’s something wor… The Brobdingnagian Queen’s Dwarf The Queen employs a little person who is 30 feet tall. This person is thrilled to have a man at court even smaller than he is and delights in torturing Gulliver. As always in this novel, no charact… Glumdalclitch Glumdalclitch is Gulliver’s kindly 9-year-old nurse.

She carries him about Brobdingnag in a box meant for his protection, sews his clothes, and generally treats him like a pet. A lot of the humor i… The Laputians The Laputians are a race of weirdos whose heads are always leaning to the right or left and whose eyes never focus on the world around them. They live on a floating island controlled by a central m… The Laputian King Just like the Lilliputian and Brobdingnagian leaders, the Laputian King is the same as all of his people except more so: he is a representative model Laputian. This means that he is more than usual… Lord Munodi

Lord Munodi is the one sensible man in all of Laputa. You know that saying, “in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king”? Lord Munodi is proof that that is not true: in the land of the blin… The Projectors The people who make Lord Munodi’s life hell are these guys, the Projectors, who believe in pursuing science and philosophy without too much regard for practical outcomes. Swift definitely seems to… Glubbdubdrib Gulliver can’t immediately find a ship to take him from Balnibarbi to the island of Luggnagg. He’s lucky, though: he makes two random friends (whose names we never even learn) in the port city of M…