The apple incident with the dwarf
The apple incident with the dwarf is one of the most pointed and physically dangerous pranks Gulliver endures during his stay in Brobdingnag. It occurs in the gardens of the court, where Glumdalclitch often carries Gulliver in her smaller box and sometimes sets him down to walk. The queen's dwarf, a figure of intense personal malice toward Gulliver, seizes an opportunity to humiliate and injure him after Gulliver provokes him with a verbal slight. The event not only exposes the raw physical vulnerability of a man the size of a Lilliputian among giants but also reveals the intricate social dynamics of the Brobdingnag court, where Gulliver's survival depends on the favor of the powerful and his own capacity for strategic forgiveness.
Background and Provocation
The dwarf, who stood not quite thirty feet high and was the smallest person in the kingdom before Gulliver's arrival, had long resented the newcomer. He habitually swaggered and made cutting remarks about Gulliver's littleness, and Gulliver retaliated with taunts of his own, calling the dwarf "brother" and challenging him to wrestle. One day in the court gardens, as Glumdalclitch set Gulliver down near some dwarf apple trees, Gulliver could not resist making a witty allusion between the dwarf and the trees—a pun that worked in the Brobdingnagian language as it does in English. This provocation was the immediate spark for the dwarf's retaliation.
The Attack and Its Consequences
Watching his opportunity, the dwarf shook one of the apple trees directly over Gulliver's head. A dozen apples, each nearly as large as a Bristol barrel, came tumbling down. One struck Gulliver on the back as he chanced to stoop, knocking him flat on his face. He received no other hurt, but the force of the blow was considerable. The dwarf was caught and, despite the seriousness of the assault, was pardoned at Gulliver's own request, because Gulliver acknowledged that he had given the provocation. This act of clemency was consistent with Gulliver's earlier behavior toward the six Lilliputian ringleaders who had shot arrows at him, and it served to maintain his reputation for mildness and generosity at court.
The Dwarf's Pattern of Malice
The apple incident was not an isolated act of cruelty. The dwarf had previously wedged Gulliver into a marrow bone on the queen's plate, leaving him stuck for nearly a minute in a ridiculous posture, and had frequently released handfuls of flies under Gulliver's nose to frighten him. The most serious of the dwarf's attacks came later, when he dropped Gulliver into a large silver bowl of cream, from which Glumdalclitch had to rescue him after he swallowed above a quart. For that offense the dwarf was soundly whipped, forced to drink the cream, and ultimately given away by the queen to a lady of high quality, so that Gulliver saw him no more. The apple incident thus stands as the first major physical assault in a sequence that escalated until the dwarf's removal from court.
Thematic Significance
The apple incident dramatizes the central irony of Gulliver's situation in Brobdingnag: a man who had been a colossus in Lilliput is now a plaything, subject to the whims and cruelties of beings who treat him as a curiosity. The dwarf, himself a marginalized figure, becomes the most direct agent of this humiliation, and Gulliver's response—pardoning his attacker—reveals both his practical wisdom and his powerlessness. The event also prefigures the more terrifying encounters that follow, such as the monkey that carries Gulliver to the roof of the palace, and it reinforces the king's dismissive view of European humanity as a race of "little odious vermin." In the end, the apple incident is a small but vivid emblem of the precariousness of Gulliver's existence and the constant threat of violence that shadows his every moment in Brobdingnag.
