Wednesday, January 2, 2019

In Guilliver's Travels, what two accidents hurt Gulliver while he is in the garden of the court?

In Gulliver’s Travels, Gulliver goes to the garden of the court in part 2, chapter 5. There he is seen as extremely small among the large people of Brobdingnag, and his stature makes him extremely vulnerable to injury and danger. In the garden, Gulliver has all sorts of adventures, like rowing a boat in a river created by the queen and outrunning giant falling apples.
The two instances where Gulliver is hurt occur because of animals that happen on him in the garden. The first is when he is interacting with birds in the garden. Gulliver attempts to attack one of the birds and capture it, but the bird is close to his size, and it wakes up from its stupor to attack him:

However, the bird, who had only been stunned, recovering himself gave me so many boxes with his wings, on both sides of my head and body, though I held him at arm's–length, and was out of the reach of his claws, that I was twenty times thinking to let him go (part 2, chapter 5).

The second instance is like the first. A monkey at one point is released and takes Gulliver. The monkey isn’t trying to hurt him; instead, it is treating him like a child and feeding him sweets. The problem is that the monkey overfeeds him, and Gulliver becomes too full—and when he tries to escape, it squeezes him more tightly. Eventually, he can get away, and his injuries are described:

I was almost choked with the filthy stuff the monkey had crammed down my throat: but my dear little nurse picked it out of my mouth with a small needle, and then I fell a–vomiting, which gave me great relief. Yet I was so weak and bruised in the sides with the squeezes given me by this odious animal, that I was forced to keep my bed a fortnight (part 2, chapter 5).

Gulliver faces many dangers in the garden, but his encounters with the bird and the monkey are the two that cause him actual harm. He is lucky to survive his time in the garden, as many of the things that happen could easily kill him.

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