SWIFT GULLIVER TRAVELLS

Character Analysis
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 who appoints his high court officials according to their skills with rope
dancing rather than their actual abilities. In other words, they're not exactly governed
according to rational principles. The court of Lilliput mostly seems to spend its time
plotting against one another. Gulliver, unfortunately, forms one of the primary targets
of these plots. His enormous size makes him both expensive and dangerous for the
Emperor to keep, so, even though he has made himself useful in Lilliput's wars
against Blefuscu, Gulliver eventually has to flee the country to avoid having his eyes
put out.

Gulliver as a Lilliputian
Gulliver is enormous and the Lilliputians are tiny, so obviously Gulliver is
not literally a Lilliputian. However, there are hints that Gulliver shares more with the
Lilliputians than he is fully willing to admit. Gulliver comments on their great
mechanical abilities: they have "arrived to a great perfection in mechanics" (1.1.8).
Many of the engines that they have constructed run towards weaponry.

As for Gulliver, in addition to being pretty flexible with class and language, Gulliver
also has "a head mechanically turned" (1.6.19). He offers to turn this mechanical
ability to the advantage of the King of Brobdingnag by making gunpowder, but is
refused. This kind of practical mechanical ability is (a) better than what the Laputians
do, but (b) completely despised by the brilliant, beautiful, rational horses of the
Houyhnhnms. For all of his giant size, Gulliver's mind works mechanically and in
terms of profit, like a Lilliputian – but it takes his exposure to the men of Brobdingnag
and the horses of the Houyhnhnms to see it.

The High Heels and the Low Heels

If Gulliver, an Englishman, is similar to the Lilliputians, it stands to reason that the
place he's from, England, is a lot like Lilliput. Swift makes England physically tiny to
introduce a new perspective on its politics and partisanship in the Lilliput chapters
of Gulliver's Travels.

One example of this new take on English politics is the deadly differences between
the high heels and the low heels. In Lilliput, political affiliation splits between men
who wear high-heeled shoes and men who wear low-heeled shoes. The high
heels, a.k.a. the Tramecksans, support Lilliput's constitution and the Emperor.
However, the low heels, a.k.a. the Slamecksans, are in power. The Emperor will only
put low heels into high office in his government, regardless of the abilities or
qualifications of the high heels. And the Emperor's son is even harder to pin down:
he wears one high and one low heel, so no one knows where he stands.
Basically, this is a jab at the Tories and the Whigs, prominent political parties in early
eighteenth century England (source: Robert Greenberg, Editor, Gulliver's Travels.
New York: Norton, 1961, 30). The Tories were political conservatives who supported
a consolidation of royal authority and the restriction of the power of English
Parliament (which is something like the American Senate). The Whigs were relatively
liberal and wanted more power to go to the Parliament.

Following England's 1689 Glorious Revolution (about which, check out our "Detailed
Analysis" of Part 4, Chapter 5), in which Parliament essentially installed a new king
on the throne, the Whigs were really riding high. And they began riding even higher
when George I came to the throne after the death of Queen Anne. George was pro-
Whig, and his Parliament was entirely Whig-dominated. Does this sound familiar to
you at all? Yep, the Whigs are like the low heels, the only men who have any power
in the Lilliputian government. And as you might have guessed from the sour grapes
feel of this section of the book, Swift was a Tory (or in Lilliputian terms, a high heel).
He had to return from England to Ireland once George I came to power (source).

The shallowness of the nature of this division – high heeled versus low heeled shoes
– emphasizes what the Emperor is not thinking about: actual ability. In fact, Gulliver
claims that the Lilliputians prefer to choose fools for office over wise men, because
they want to avoid corruption. Their logic is that it's less evil for guys to make
mistakes in office out of gross stupidity than for guys to make mistakes in office
because of bribery and favoritism. Of course, the assumption underlying this idea is
that the same mistakes have to be made either way. Hey Lilliputians, here's a crazy
idea: why not appoint people to office who are both smart and good?

The Big-Endians, the Little-Endians, and Blefuscu

Similarly shallow is the difference between the Big-Endians and the Little-Endians.
The story goes that, apparently, when this Emperor's grandfather was a child, he cut
himself when he cracked a boiled egg on its big, rounded end. Following this
accident, the current Emperor's great-grandfather laid down the law: no more
cracking eggs at the big end. Now, the entire island of Lilliput can only crack eggs at
the little end. This change completely outrages some Lilliputians, who raise
rebellions and flee to the neighboring island of tiny people, Blefuscu, a haven for Big-
Endians.

The cause of the Little-Endians versus the Big-Endians is an allegory of the long
(long) wars between Protestants (Little-Endians) and Catholics (Big-Endians) in
England. During Jonathan Swift's lifetime, battles between Catholics and Protestants
provided at least some of the fuel for the Glorious Revolution, Scottish Jacobite
rebellions, and the War of the Spanish Succession between England, France,
Austria, and Spain. The accusations that Lilliput makes against its neighboring island
across the channel, that they are sheltering Big-Endian exiles and plotting against
Lilliput, is a reference to the French harboring Catholic exiles following Henry VIII's
break with Rome to found the Anglican Church (source: Robert Greenberg,
Editor, Gulliver's Travels. New York: Norton, 1961, 31.).

Swift was himself a prominent Irish Anglican minister, and he believed strongly in the
national church. However, despite his own religious views, Swift very clearly
dismisses the use of differences of opinion, be it religious (Big-Endians vs. Little-
Endians) or political (high heels vs. low heels), as pretexts for warfare. He also
criticizes these differences being used as excuses to persecute honest, upstanding
public servants. This is a theme that recurs throughout Gulliver's Travels. For other
examples, see Lord Munodi in Part 3 and Gulliver's discussion of war with the Master
Horse in Part 4.

(However, we'd like to note – even though Swift doesn't seem too fond of religious
warfare, he still thinks states should have a religion. For more on this point, check
out "Why Does Swift Seem to Hate the Dutch So Much?" under our "Character
Analysis" of Japan.)

Courtly Manners
You remember, a while back, we mentioned that high positions in the Lilliputian
government are staffed with rope dancing competition winners. This game has two
meanings. First, this game indicates that being at court means literally dancing
attendance to people of higher station than you. It's all about impressing the big
boss, and not about substantial contributions to, well, anything. Secondly, being in
court is dangerous: these dancing ropes are a foot high – potentially fatal for the tiny
Lilliputians. As Gulliver learns when he gets the Articles of Impeachment written by
Skyresh Bolgolam, depending on the favor of a single powerful man like the Emperor
can result in the downfall of innocent people. These falls are just a little more literal in
Lilliput.