Gulliver's Travels

Gulliver's Travels

Lemuel Gulliver loved the sea, maps, and distant countries. He worked as a ship’s doctor. Whenever he came home, he promised his family he would stay and live quietly for a while. But a few months later, new ships raised their sails in the harbour, and Gulliver set off again.

During one voyage, a storm struck his ship. Gulliver fought the waves for a long time. Just as his strength was failing, he felt solid ground beneath his feet. He staggered ashore, walked a little inland, and fell asleep on the grass.

He woke to a strange sensation: he could move neither his arms nor his legs. Fine ropes even pinned his hair to the ground. Looking sideways, he saw a man on his chest, no taller than the length of a hand.

The others followed him.

So Gulliver ended up in Lilliput, the country of tiny people.

At first, the Lilliputians feared the giant. They brought baskets of bread and barrels of water and set guards around him. Gulliver acted gently and soon convinced them that he meant no harm. They let him travel through their country, though he had to watch every step to avoid its houses, trees, and people.

The Lilliputians took pride in their laws, ceremonies, and court customs. To win high office, some courtiers competed to see who could jump most skilfully over a thin rope. It amused Gulliver, but he soon learned that small bodies did not mean small ambitions.

Lilliput was at war with the neighboring island of Blefuscu. The dispute began over which end to break a boiled egg from. What seemed like a trifle to Gulliver turned into a matter of honor for the two states.

Gulliver did not want people to suffer because of such a quarrel. He helped the Lilliputians stop the enemy fleet, but refused to turn the victory into a complete conquest of their neighbors.

Not everyone at court liked this.

Gulliver learned that even a useful guest should not rely entirely on a ruler’s favour. He left Lilliput for Blefuscu, found an abandoned boat, and eventually reached home.

But the sea called him again.

During his next journey, Gulliver landed on an unknown shore with several sailors. Suddenly his companions rushed to the boat and sailed away, and Gulliver saw the reason: a man as tall as a tower was approaching the shore.

Now Gulliver himself was small.

Thus began his journey through the country of Brobdingnag.

The farmer who found him placed Gulliver on a table. His young daughter cared for the strange visitor, making him a little bed, sewing his clothes, and teaching him her language. Gulliver called her Glumdalclitch—his little nurse—though to him she was a giantess.

In Brobdingnag, ordinary things became dangerous. A cat seemed larger than an ox, wasps were like birds, and a bowl of soup resembled a lake. For the first time, Gulliver knew what it meant to be the smallest person around and depend on other people’s care.

Later, he was brought to the royal court. The king and queen became interested in the traveler, and Gulliver told a lot about Europe: about governments, wars, wealth, laws and politics. He expected the king to be captivated.

But the giant listened attentively and asked simple questions:

“If your laws are good, why do people quarrel so often? If rulers are wise, why do states fight? If wealth makes a country great, why do the poor live next to the rich?”

Gulliver felt embarrassed. From the height of Brobdingnag, many things that people were proud of looked completely different.

During an outing by the sea, an eagle seized the little travelling box that housed Gulliver, then dropped it into the water. Sailors aboard an English ship spotted the box and hauled it on deck. Gulliver returned home for a second time.

After living among giants, he wondered for several days why all the people around him seemed so tiny. Then his eyes got used to it. But the habit of traveling did not go away.

His third voyage led somewhere stranger still. The island of Laputa floated above the sea, held aloft by a mysterious force. Its people thought endlessly about mathematics, music, and the stars. They were so absorbed in calculations that servants had to tap them gently with special flappers to remind them to listen to someone or watch where they walked.

On land, Gulliver visited an academy where scientists were engaged in incredible experiments. Some tried to build houses, starting from the roof, others spent years on projects that did not make anyone's life easier.

Gulliver did not mock science; he respected knowledge. Yet he learned that intelligence is valuable when it remembers the real world and the people living in it.

After many adventures, he reached England again. Surely this would be enough.

But Gulliver went to sea for the fourth time.

The last land was the most mysterious. Intelligent horses called Houyhnhnms lived there, valuing truth, calm, and reason. Nearby lived strange creatures in whom Gulliver saw exaggerated human weaknesses.

After living among the Houyhnhnms for a long time, he began to think the horses were perfect and humans nearly always wrong. Then he recognised another danger: admiration for a different world can blind us to the good in our own.

He had to leave the country. After new adventures, Gulliver was rescued by sailors, and he returned to his family.

Those four voyages changed him forever.

In Lilliput, he saw great quarrels grow from tiny causes. Brobdingnag showed him how different a person looks from far above. Laputa taught him that knowledge without common sense can lose its way among beautiful formulas. Among the Houyhnhnms, he learned how noticing others’ faults can make us forget the good nearby.

Back home, Gulliver could no longer see the world as before. Every country had been a curious mirror, enlarging one quality, shrinking another, and making him look more closely at himself.

And, perhaps, the farthest of all his journeys was not the journey across the ocean.

It was the journey from being certain he understood everything to asking a simple question:

‘How does it look from the other side?’

May this story leave a little light in your heart ✨