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Summary of Gulliver’s Travels Part 2 Chapter 1
Summary of Gulliver’s Travels Part 2 Chapter 1
A great storm is described; the long boat is sent to fetch water; the narrator goes with it to discover the country. He is left on shore, is seized by one of the natives, and carried to a farmer’s house. His reception, with several accidents that happened there, is described and so are the inhabitants.
Two months after returning to England, Gulliver became restless again. He set sail on a ship called ‘The Adventure’, travelling to the Cape of Good Hope and Madagascar before encountering a monsoon that blew the ship off course. The ship eventually arrived at an unknown island and a group of sailors, including Gulliver, went off to explore it. Gulliver left the group to do some looking around on his own. There were no inhabitants about and the landscape was barren and rocky. Gulliver was walking back to the boat when he saw his mates running for their boat. He was about to call out to them when he saw that they were being pursued by a ‘monster.’ The sailors made their getaway, leaving Gulliver behind on that island of monsters. When he saw the giant was following the boat, Gulliver ran away, and when he stopped, he was on a steep hill from which he could see the countryside. He was shocked to see that the grass was about twenty feet high.
He walked down what looked like a high road but turned out to be a footpath through a field of barley. He walked for a long time but could not see anything beyond the stalks of com, which were forty feet high. He tried to climb a set of steps into the next field, but he could not mount them because they were too high.
As he was trying to climb up the stairs, he saw another one of the island’s giant inhabitants. He appeared as tall as an ordinary spire steeple, and took about ten yards at every stride. Struck with fear and astonishment, Gulliver hid in the com, and heard him call in a voice that sounded to Gulliver like thunder. At that, seven monsters, who appeared to be servants or labourers, came and began to harvest the crop with scythes. Gulliver lay down and bemoaned his state. He was sure he would die there, and for the first time Gulliver yearned mournfully for his family. ‘I reflected,’ says Gulliver, ‘what a mortification it must prove to me to appear as inconsiderable in this nation as one single Lilliputian would be among us.’ But he had enough presence of mind to realise that such thoughts were ridiculous at such a time. For he reasoned, he’d probably end up a ‘morsel in the mouth of the first among these enormous barbarians….’
One of the servants came close to Gulliver with both his foot and his scythe, so Gulliver screamed as loudly as he could.
The giant finally noticed him, and picked him up between his fingers to get a closer look. Although the giant’s fingers were hurting him, Gulliver did not struggle in the least for fear he should slip through his fingers as the giant held him in the air above sixty feet from the ground. Gulliver tried to speak to him in plaintive tones, bringing his hands together, and the giant seemed pleased, placed him in his pocket and walked to his master.
The giant’s master, the farmer of these fields, took Gulliver from his servant and observed him more closely. He asked the other servants if they had ever seen anything like Gulliver, then placed him onto the ground. They sat around him in a circle. Gulliver knelt down and began to speak as loudly as he could, taking off his hat and bowing to the farmer. He presented a purse full of gold to the farmer, which the farmer took into his palm. He could not figure out what it was, even after Gulliver emptied the coins into his hand.
The farmer took Gulliver back to his wife, who was frightened of him. The servant brought in dinner, and they all sat down to eat, Gulliver sitting on the table not far from the farmer’s plate. They gave him tiny bits of their food, and he pulled out his knife and fork to eat, which delighted the giants. The farmer’s son picked Gulliver up and scared him, but the farmer took Gulliver from the boy’s hands and struck his son. Gulliver made a sign that the boy should be forgiven, and kissed his hand. After dinner, the farmer’s wife let Gulliver nap in her own bed. When he woke up he found two rats the size of bulldogs
attacking him. He was so startled, frightened, disoriented, and disgusted, that he defended himself with his ‘hanger,’ or sword and killed one of them.