The monkey incident in Brobdingnag

The monkey incident in Brobdingnag stands as the most physically dangerous and psychologically humiliating ordeal Gulliver endures in the giant kingdom, an event that reduces him from a court curiosity to a helpless plaything and exposes the absolute powerlessness of his stature. The attack occurs when Glumdalclitch locks Gulliver in her closet while she goes out on business. The weather is warm, and both the closet window and the windows and door of his larger box—his usual living quarters—are left open. As Gulliver sits quietly meditating at his table, he hears something bounce in at the closet window and skip about the room. Peering out without leaving his seat, he sees a frolicsome monkey, belonging to one of the clerks of the kitchen, frisking and leaping up and down until it reaches his box, which it views with great pleasure and curiosity, peeping in at the door and every window.

The Seizure and the Ascent

Gulliver retreats to the farthest corner of his room, but the monkey, peeping in on every side, puts him into such a fright that he lacks the presence of mind to conceal himself under the bed. After some time spent peeping, grinning, and chattering, the monkey espies him and reaches one of its paws in at the door, as a cat does when playing with a mouse. Though Gulliver shifts place to avoid it, the monkey seizes the lappet of his coat—made of thick, strong Brobdingnag silk—and drags him out. Taking him in its right fore-foot, the monkey holds him as a nurse does a child, exactly as Gulliver has seen the same sort of creature do with a kitten in Europe. When he struggles, the monkey squeezes him so hard that he submits, and he has good reason to believe the animal takes him for a young one of its own species, for it often strokes his face very gently with its other paw. The monkey's diversion is interrupted by a noise at the closet door, as if someone is opening it. It suddenly leaps up to the window by which it entered, then onto the leads and gutters, walking on three legs and holding Gulliver in the fourth, until it clambers up to a roof next to the palace. Glumdalclitch gives a shriek the moment the monkey carries him out; the poor girl is almost distracted. That quarter of the palace falls into an uproar; servants run for ladders; hundreds in the court see the monkey sitting on the ridge of a building, holding Gulliver like a baby in one of its fore-paws. Many of the rabble below cannot forbear laughing, and Gulliver himself admits the sight was ridiculous enough to everyone but himself. Some people throw up stones, hoping to drive the monkey down, but this is strictly forbidden, or else his brains would very probably have been dashed out.

The Rescue and Aftermath

Ladders are applied and mounted by several men. The monkey, observing this and finding itself almost encompassed, and unable to make speed enough with three legs, lets Gulliver drop onto a ridge tile and escapes. Gulliver sits there for some time, five hundred yards from the ground, expecting every moment to be blown down by the wind or to fall by his own giddiness and tumble from the ridge to the eaves. An honest lad, one of his nurse's footmen, climbs up, puts him into his breeches-pocket, and brings him down safe. Gulliver is so weak and bruised in the sides from the squeezes given him by the odious animal that he is forced to keep his bed for a fortnight. The king, queen, and all the court send every day to inquire after his health, and the queen makes him several visits during his sickness. The monkey is killed, and an order is made that no such animal should be kept about the palace.

The King's Mockery and Gulliver's Humiliation

When Gulliver attends the king after his recovery to return thanks for his favors, the king rallies him a good deal upon this adventure. He asks what Gulliver's thoughts and speculations were while he lay in the monkey's paw, and what he would have done upon such an occasion in his own country. Gulliver tells his majesty that in Europe they have no monkeys except such as are brought for curiosities from other places, and so small that he could deal with a dozen of them together if they presumed to attack him. As for the monstrous animal with which he was so lately engaged—it was, indeed, as large as an elephant—he claims that if his fears had suffered him to think so far as to make use of his hanger, he might have given it such a wound as would have made it glad to withdraw its paw with more haste than it put it in. He delivers this in a firm tone, like a person jealous lest his courage should be called in question. His speech produces nothing besides loud laughter, which all the respect due to his majesty from those about him cannot make them contain. This makes Gulliver reflect how vain an attempt it is for a man to endeavor to do himself honor among those who are out of all degree of equality or comparison with him—a moral he has since seen very frequent in England, where a contemptible varlet without the least title to birth, person, wit, or common sense shall presume to look with importance and put himself upon a foot with the greatest persons of the kingdom.