Gulliver’s Travels PART III

Chapters 1-4

Back to his sea-bound adventures, Gulliver accepts an offer to be a ship surgeon on Hopewell. However, the ship is attacked by a fleet of pirates, and Gulliver finds himself abandoned on a small boat. He rows to an island and sleeps in a cave he finds there. Upon waking, he notices a floating island and pleas for help from the people moving about on the island. They lower a chair from the island to bring him in, even though he does not speak their language.

Gulliver has now reached the Laputian island where he meets people dressed in clothes shaped like geometric symbols and musical instruments. He also meets a group of servants called Flappers who are responsible for aiding distracted civilians into being mindful. They do so to prevent them from walking off the edge or into a wall. The Laputian king is too absorbed in thoughts and isn’t able to recognize Gulliver’s arrival. Nonetheless, the king does send Gulliver away to be fed, clothed (in misshapen clothes as they do not have practical measurement methods; they are obsessed with abstract geometry), and taught the native language. The capital of the kingdom is called Lagado, a landmass that hovers right under this one. The king orders that their island be steered towards Lagado.

Gulliver shares that the Laputian people lack practical knowledge. Notably, they don’t have words for the concept of imagination. They are obsessed with mathematical problems, especially conceptual ones. He also shares that they are constantly worried about the impending death of the Sun. The Laputian women tend to prefer the company of men from the world below to men from their own island.

The island is crafted by skilled astronomers who’ve made the most out of the laws of physics to ensure that the island hovers. The Laputian king punishes misbehavior in the land below by denying them energy from the Sun or by pelting stones. Though he does pelt stones, the king would never flatten the land below, since that would endanger the solid base of the floating island, which is made of material called “adamant.” Gulliver does not enjoy his time on the island and sets off to Lagado, the land below. He meets Munadi, a friend of the Laputian king. Gulliver notices widespread destitution in this place. Munadi shares that the poverty is a result of the indiscriminate application of modern theories aimed at modernizing Lagado. Instead of ushering in prosperity and development, the approach has only made the land infertile and almost uninhabitable. However, he stresses that the Lagadians still swear by the potency of these new theories and technology.

Analysis

Gulliver has by now realized that he can put himself in favorable positions by empathizing with and even offering to submit himself to the people he encounters on his voyages. However, this does not work with the pirates, who banish him to a solitary boat. There is palpable irony in the floating island situation: it requires immense focus and application to keep the island floating, but the people on the island lead distracted lives. Further, the characterization of the people and the king of the floating island satirizes distant abstract thinking bereft of practical applications. This is also evident in the work done by the Flappers, who ensure that distracted people do not crash into walls or fall off the island.

The Laputians are obsessed with grand mathematical problems, but do not know how to execute simple measurement-related tasks, such as sewing clothes and building houses. This is another example of rather useless abstract thinking. In fact, this gap between the practical and the abstract is one of the factors that drives Gulliver’s decision to leave the island. Notably, Swift excludes women from this lampooning: unlike men, women are presented as humans in touch with their body on account of their central role in reproduction. The king’s governance, however, does not seem to be driven by good values or intellect; instead it comes across as a tyranny of the cultural elite.

The terrible plight of Lagado illustrates the consequences of ignoring the true concerns of a citizenry and other immediate, practical realities. The king is preoccupied with abstraction, and fails to address pressing issues.