Gulliver and the King of Brobdingnag

The relationship between Lemuel Gulliver and the King of Brobdingnag is the central intellectual and moral axis of the second voyage, a sustained dialogue in which the king's rational, humane skepticism systematically dismantles Gulliver's patriotic pride and exposes the corruption of European civilization. Their bond begins with suspicion and condescension, deepens into genuine intellectual exchange, and culminates in the king's devastating verdict that the English are "the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth." This arc transforms Gulliver from a confident advocate of his own nation into a man who, upon returning home, can barely tolerate the sight of his own countrymen.

First Encounter and Initial Skepticism

When the Queen of Brobdingnag first carried Gulliver to the king in his cabinet, the monarch, a prince of much gravity and austere countenance, did not even recognize Gulliver as a rational being. He asked the queen, in a cold manner, how long it had been since she grew fond of a splacnuck—a term for a small, insignificant animal. The queen, possessing infinite wit and humor, set Gulliver on his feet upon the scrutoire and commanded him to give an account of himself. The king, though learned in philosophy and mathematics, initially conceived that Gulliver might be a piece of clockwork, a contrivance of some ingenious artist. Only when he heard Gulliver's voice and found his answers regular and rational did the king conceal his astonishment. He remained unsatisfied with Gulliver's story, suspecting it was a tale concerted between Glumdalclitch and her father to sell Gulliver at a better price. He put several other questions and received rational answers, defective only by a foreign accent and rustic phrases learned at the farmer's house.

Intellectual Exchange and the King's Interrogation

The king took pleasure in conversing with Gulliver, inquiring into the manners, religion, laws, government, and learning of Europe. Gulliver, seated in his little chair and table placed at the king's left hand before one of the salt-cellars, gave the best account he was able. The king's apprehension was so clear and his judgment so exact that he made very wise reflections and observations upon all Gulliver said. However, when Gulliver became too copious in talking of his own beloved country—of its trade, wars by sea and land, schisms in religion, and parties in the state—the prejudices of the king's education prevailed. He took Gulliver up in his right hand, stroked him gently with the other, and after a hearty fit of laughing, asked whether Gulliver was a Whig or a Tory. Turning to his first minister, who waited behind him with a white staff near as tall as the mainmast of the "Royal Sovereign," the king observed how contemptible a thing was human grandeur, which could be mimicked by such diminutive insects as Gulliver. He continued, saying these creatures have their titles and distinctions of honor; they contrive little nests and burrows they call houses and cities; they make a figure in dress and equipage; they love, they fight, they dispute, they cheat, they betray. Gulliver's color came and went several times with indignation to hear his noble country so contemptuously treated.

Over several audiences, each of several hours, the king heard Gulliver's account of England with great attention, frequently taking notes and memorandums of questions he intended to ask. In a sixth audience, consulting his notes, the king proposed many doubts, queries, and objections upon every article. He asked what methods were used to cultivate the minds and bodies of the young nobility, what qualifications were necessary for new lords, and whether a bribe or some other sinister view could have no place among them. He inquired into the arts practiced in electing commoners, whether a stranger with a strong purse might influence vulgar voters, and whether zealous gentlemen might have views of refunding themselves by sacrificing the public good. He sifted Gulliver thoroughly upon the courts of justice, asking about the time and expense of determining between right and wrong, and whether advocates had liberty to plead in unjust causes. He fell upon the management of the treasury, finding that taxes of five or six million a year sometimes amounted to more than double in issues, and wondered how a kingdom could run out of its estate like a private person. He was amazed to hear of a mercenary standing army in the midst of peace among a free people. He laughed at Gulliver's arithmetic in reckoning the numbers of people by computation drawn from religious and political sects. He was perfectly astonished with the historical account of the last century, protesting it was only a heap of conspiracies, rebellions, murders, massacres, revolutions, and banishments.

The King's Verdict and Gulliver's Proposal of Gunpowder

In another audience, the king recapitulated the sum of all Gulliver had spoken, compared the questions with the answers, and then, taking Gulliver into his hands and stroking him gently, delivered his unforgettable verdict. He told Gulliver that he had made a most admirable panegyric upon his country, but had 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. He observed among the English some lines of an institution which in its original might have been tolerable, but these were half erased and the rest wholly blurred and blotted by corruptions. He concluded that the bulk of the natives were the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth.

Hoping to ingratiate himself further, Gulliver told the king of an invention discovered three or four hundred years ago—gunpowder—and offered to direct his workmen in making tubes of a size proportionable to all other things in the kingdom, which would batter down the strongest walls or destroy the whole metropolis. The king was struck with horror at the description of these terrible engines and the proposal. He was amazed that so impotent and grovelling an insect as Gulliver could entertain such inhuman ideas. He protested that although few things delighted him so much as new discoveries in art or nature, he would rather lose half his kingdom than be privy to such a secret, and commanded Gulliver, as he valued his life, never to mention it again. Gulliver, in his own narrative, laments this as a strange effect of narrow principles and short views, a defect arising from the king's ignorance in not having reduced politics into a science as the more acute wits of Europe have done.

Thematic Significance

The relationship between Gulliver and the King of Brobdingnag embodies the novel's central critique of European civilization. The king, living wholly secluded from the rest of the world, represents a standard of natural reason, justice, and humanity against which Gulliver's proud account of England is measured and found wanting. The king's rejection of gunpowder, his contempt for political intrigue, and his insistence on common sense and the improvement of agriculture over the arts of war and statecraft invert the values Gulliver takes for granted. This dialogue forces the reader to question the very foundations of European progress and to see, through the king's unclouded eyes, the moral deformity that size and power cannot hide. The king's final verdict, delivered with gentle stroking, is all the more devastating for its calm certainty, and it permanently alters Gulliver's perception of his own kind, preparing the ground for his misanthropic transformation in later voyages.