6,999 Matching Annotations
  1. Jul 2019
    1. .

      I really appreciate Swift's wit and imagination which make this novel so thought-provoking and fascinating. I also like how he makes use of satire to explore the political and socioeconomic issues affecting the English people in his time. After reading this novel, I have a strong desire to study about the political history of England, which I am not totally familiar of, and I believe that would help me understand this novel better. Overall this is a complex story which deals with various themes such as morality and ethics, society and class, and gender issues. It is a combination of political satire and adventure; on the surface, it seems easy to understand, but actually it is not.

    2. I lamented my own folly and wilfulness in attempting a second voyage against the advice of all my friends and relations.

      He curses his own stupidity and recklessness in trying a second voyage against all the advice of his friends and relations.

    3. These people are most excellent mathematicians, and arrived to a great perfection in mechanics

      He keeps thinks he can escape by outdoing them in physical strength, but I think these people might be able to outsmart him.

    4. The chains that held my left leg were about two yards long, and gave me not only the liberty of walking backwards and forwards in a semi-circle, but, being fixed within four inches of the gate, allowed me to creep in, and lie at my full length in the temple.

      The chains allow him to move immediately around the gate to his temple, so he can lie down inside the building or stand up outside of it.

    5. On each side of the gate was a small window, not above six inches from the ground; into that on the left side the king’s smith conveyed four score and eleven chains, like those that hang to a lady’s watch in Europe, and almost as large, which were locked to my left leg with six-and-thirty padlocks

      He's kept tied down to the ground as the tiny people build him a set of chains.

    6. one of them, an officer in the guards, put the sharp end of his half-pike[11] a good way up into my left nostril, which tickled my nose like a straw, and made me sneeze violently; whereupon they stole off

      He wakes up after four hours because one of his guards climbs onto his face and sticks his spear up his left nostril, making him sneeze violently, and the guards sneak off. This is comical!

    7. the first words I learnt were to express my desire that he would please give me my liberty, which I every day repeated on my knees.

      The first words he learns from the emperor are to ask the emperor to set him free, which he begs him every day on his knees.

    8. My little friend Grildrig, you have made a most admirable panegyric upon your country; you have clearly proved that ignorance, idleness, and vice are the proper ingredients for qualifying a legislator; that laws are best explained, interpreted, and applied by those whose interest and abilities lie in perverting, confounding, and eluding them.

    9. He laughed at my odd kind of arithmetic (as he was pleased to call it), in reckoning the numbers of our people by a computation drawn from the several sects among us, in religion and politics. He said, he knew no reason why those who entertain opinions prejudicial to the public should be obliged to change, or should not be obliged to conceal them. And as it was tyranny in any government to require the first, so it was weakness not to enforce the second: for a man may be allowed to keep poisons in his closet, but not to vend them about for cordials.

    10. Here I walked on for some time, but could see little on either side, it being now near harvest, and the corn rising at least forty feet. I was an hour walking to the end of this field, which was fenced in with a hedge of at least one hundred and twenty feet high, and the trees so lofty that I could make no computation of their altitude.

    11. .

      A very funky story. This seems to me to be the only fiction or fantasy piece we have read and it does not disappoint on the crazy factor. Honestly, I would not be surprised to find out the author wrote this based on a crazy dream or drug induced hallucination. However, the story was plain enough to enjoy and understand. The creativity was praiseworthy. I find the lack of desire to be with his family (compared to the desire to adventure, sail, and make money) saddening. But, at least the ending satisfied this.

    12. Undoubtedly philosophers are in the right when they tell us that nothing is great or little otherwise than by comparison

      Yes, we form our ideas of qualities based on relativity. What is large to an ant is small to a human, what is large to a human wight be tiny to a giant. What is hot to a Londoner might be cold to a Texan (just to throw in some current events).

    13. but that which first surprised me was the length of the grass, which, in those grounds that seemed to be kept for hay, was about twenty feet high.

      Sounds like someone should really invest in a good lawn mower or a landscaping service.

    14. Molucca Islands

      Maluku islands (spice islands). A group of islands of eastern Indonesia between Sulawesi and New Guinea. Inhabited by various Malay and Papuan peoples, the islands were colonized first by the Portuguese in the 1500s and later fell to the Dutch in the 1600s. The Moluccas, long known as the "Spice Islands," have historically provided much of the world's cloves, nutmeg, and mace.

    15. I again left my native country

      I find this way of saying he left his him interesting and clear in showing his priorities. He did not leave his family or his home, rather he left his native country. Obviously his focus is on travel, not on comfort or family.

    16. My hours of leisure I spent in reading the best authors, ancient and modern, being always provided with a good number of books; and, when I was ashore, in observing the manners and dispositions of the people, as well as learning their language, wherein I had a great facility, by the strength of my memory.

      Obviously a smart man. A surgeon, reader, and easily understands or learns new languages.

    17. It is allowed on all hands, that the primitive way of breaking eggs, before we eat them, was upon the larger end; but his present majesty’s grandfather, while he was a boy, going to eat an egg, and breaking it according to the ancient practice, happened to cut one of his fingers. Whereupon the emperor, his father, published an edict, commanding all his subjects, upon great penalties, to break the smaller end of their eggs.

      Traditionally, Lilliputians broke boiled eggs on the larger end; a few generations ago, an Emperor of Lilliput, the present emperor's great-grandfather, had decreed that all eggs be broken on the smaller end after his son cut himself breaking the egg on the larger end.

    18. Lilliput and Blefuscu

      are two fictional island nations neighboring in the South Indian Ocean, separated by a channel 800 yards wide.

      Map of Lilliput and Blefuscu showing the location in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of Sumatra:

    19. Dionysius Halicarnassensis

      Dionysius Halicarnassensis was born about the middle of the first century, B.C.; he endeavored in his history to relieve his Greek countrymen from the mortification they had felt in their subjection to the Romans, and patched up an old legend about Rome being of Greek origin and therefore their "political mother."

    20. .

      Interesting last reading! We get to see history of Gulliver, his family background, and his struggles. It is amazing to see his life and get a deep understanding of the character. As all of the reading done so far in this class, this reading also provided some strong imagery through out part I. The story provided another perspective of battling in a nation through Gulliver's life.

    21. Hekinah degul

      “Degul”, writes Rothman, is the Hebrew word for “flag”, and the verb “hikinah” in Hebrew means “to transfer, impart, or give”. “Thus,” writes Rothman, “one might deduce that Hekinah Degul pronounces a militant stance, offers a display of colours, and urges Gulliver's capitulation to the Lilliputian flag.”

    22. Gulliver’s Travels 

      Gulliver's Travels, or Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships is a prose satire of 1726 by the Irish writer and clergyman Jonathan Swift, satirising both human nature and the "travellers' tales" literary subgenre.

    23. Jonathan Swift

      "Born on November 30, 1667, Irish author, clergyman and satirist Jonathan Swift grew up fatherless. Under the care of his uncle, he received a bachelor's degree from Trinity College and then worked as a statesman's assistant. Eventually, he became dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin. Most of his writings were published under pseudonyms. He best remembered for his 1726 book Gulliver's Travels."

    24. In a little time, I and my family and friends came to a right understanding: but my wife protested I should never go to sea any more; although my evil destiny so ordered, that she had not power to hinder me, as the reader may know hereafter. In the meantime I here conclude the second part of my unfortunate voyages.

      He finds his way home and it takes him a while to get accustomed back to his normal life. His wife never wants him to go to sea anymore. Overall this was an easy read and I enjoyed it!

    25. ome of them upon hearing me talk so wildly thought I was mad; others laughed; for indeed it never came into my head that I was now got among people of my own stature and strength. The carpenter came, and in a few minutes sawed a passage about four feet square, then let down a small ladder upon which I mounted, and from thence was taken into the ship in a very weak condition.

      Gulliver is saved by his own people and boards their ship

    26. He appeared as tall as an ordinary spire steeple, and took about ten yards at every stride, as near as I could guess. I was struck with the utmost fear and astonishment, and ran to hide myself in the corn, from whence I saw him at the top of the stile, looking back into the next field on the right hand, and heard him call in a voice many degrees louder than a speaking trumpet; but the noise was so high in the air that at first I certainly thought it was thunder.

      now he is the little guy and scared so he hides

    27. They look upon fraud as a greater crime than theft, and therefore seldom fail to punish it with death; for they allege, that care and vigilance, with a very common understanding, may preserve a man’s goods from thieves, but honesty has no fence against superior cunning; and, since it is necessary that there should be a perpetual intercourse of buying and selling, and dealing upon credit, where fraud is permitted and connived at, or hath no law to punish it, the honest dealer is always undone, and the knave gets the advantage

      Anyone who falsely accuses someone of a crime is put to death because they consider lying to be far worse than a theft because a honest person is more vulnerable to a liar than a thief.

    28. I desired the secretary to present my humble duty to the emperor, and to let him know that I thought it would not become me, who was a foreigner, to interfere with parties; but I was ready, with the hazard of my life, to defend his person and state against all invaders.

      He didn't want to interfere btwn the two parties but regardless, he is ready to help defend Lilliput

    29. swore and subscribed to the articles with great cheerfulness and content, although some of them were not so honorable as I could have wished; which proceeded wholly from the malice of Skyrris Bolgolam, the high admiral; whereupon my chains were immediately unlocked, and I was at full liberty.

      he swore to all the articles and was set free

    30. ave an account of my behavior to the six criminals above-mentioned, which made so favorable an impression in the breast of his majesty, and the whole board, in my behalf, that an imperial commission was issued out

      Thank goodness he did the right thing by setting the men free because it literally saved his life and instead they choose to treat him with kindness.

    31. I made a countenance as if I would eat him alive. The poor man squalled terribly, and the colonel and his officers were in much pain, especially when they saw me take out my penknife; but I soon put them out of fear, for, looking mildly, and immediately cutting the strings he was bound with, I set him gently on the ground, and away he ran. I treated the rest in the same manner, taking them one by one out of my pocket; and I observed both the soldiers and people were highly delighted at this mark of my clemency, which was represented very much to my advantage at court.

      They thought Gulliver was going to eat the 6 men but instead they are pleased to see that he pulls out a penknife and sets them all free.

    32. I confess, I was often tempted, while they were passing backwards and forwards on my body, to seize forty or fifty of the first that came in my reach, and dash them against the ground. But the remembrance of what I had felt, which probably might not be the worst they could do, and the promise of honor I made them

      Gulliver was tempted to get a hold of 40-50 of the little people and throw them to the ground but remembers the promise he made them. He decides not to and instead is grateful for their hospitality.

    33. fourteen years old,

      Okay, so while doing the writing project 3, I read that Roger Ascham attended college at the age of fourteen as well, but didn't quite understand if it was a true possible thing. So I guess it was possible back then.