Gulliver in Brobdingnag.

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Ranita Ang

Comparative Literature 2CW

Assignment #1

October 15, 2003

Gulliver in Brobdingnag

        The setting of the passage to be analyzed here is that of Gulliver’s voyage to a land of giants.  The speaker’s context here is the basic comic devices of reversal and exaggeration.  When the dimensions of things are reversed there is a comic effect.  When clowns at the circus ride around in a tiny car the effect is hilarious. In a famous Gary Larsen cartoon a gigantic monster is seen peering into a man’s car through the wing mirror which reads: “Things reflected in this mirror may appear to be larger than they are.”   The comic context employed by the speaker in the following passage, then, is that of a man suddenly turned tiny by circumstances beyond his control.  There are, of course, classical antecedents for this type of size reversal.  Odysseus in the cave of Cyclops would provide the best example.  There are, no doubt, many who would argue that this incident in the Odyssey is not meant as humor.  May we not at least wonder, however, if some of Homer’s audiences didn’t chuckle when they heard about how the “subtle” Odysseus outwitted the giant?  It will be argued in the following that Swift’s intention throughout Part II as a whole is comic irony, and that the passage to be analyzed typifies the situation in which Gulliver finds himself when surrounded by giants.

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        Starting off, a simple exaggeration introduces the passage: “The King’s palace is…about seven miles round…” suggesting the colossal size of the castle, the rooms within are “two hundred and forty Foot high.” Gulliver who is, as we have learned earlier, a proud and dignified man is reduced by his comparatively tiny dimensions to the role of a doll.   All of his proud bearing and gentlemanly dignity disappears in a puff of smoke when his Mistress Glumdalclitch holds Gulliver up in her hand to give him a better view of the surroundings.

         Swift’s choice of words at the beginning of ...

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