Gulliver's Travels

Character Guide

Spoiler-free — fuller detail (with spoilers, if you want them) lives in the reader's Guide tab.

Lemuel Gulliver (the author)

An English surgeon with a taste for travel and navigation who narrates his own voyages after being shipwrecked or set ashore in strange lands.

The Lilliputians

A nation of people about six inches tall whom Gulliver encounters after washing ashore; they bind him with tiny ropes and eventually feed and study him.

The Emperor of Lilliput

The ruler of Lilliput who orders Gulliver fed and examined, and around whose court much of Gulliver's early treatment revolves.

Glumdalclitch

A young girl in Brobdingnag who becomes Gulliver's devoted nurse and caretaker, carrying him about and protecting him from mishaps.

The Brobdingnagians

A race of giants Gulliver meets on his second voyage, in whose country ordinary objects like hailstones and apples become dangerous by scale.

The Laputans

Inhabitants of the flying island of Laputa, encountered on Gulliver's third voyage, absorbed in abstract mathematics and music.

The Houyhnhnms

A race of intelligent, rational horses Gulliver meets on his fourth voyage, whose orderly society he comes to admire.

Gulliver's Master (a Houyhnhnm) (his honour)

The Houyhnhnm who takes Gulliver in, teaches him language and customs, and questions him closely about human society.

The Yahoos

Brutish, filthy humanoid creatures living wild in the land of the Houyhnhnms, whom Gulliver is startled to resemble.

The Sorrel Nag

A Houyhnhnm servant who shows particular kindness to Gulliver during his stay.

Captain William Robinson

A ship's commander who persuades Gulliver, against his family's wishes, to sign on as ship's surgeon for a new voyage.

The Struldbrugs (immortals)

A rare group of Luggnaggians born with a mark denoting that they will never die, described to Gulliver by a person of quality.

Glossary

Yahoo

A brutish, filthy humanoid creature in the land of the Houyhnhnms; the term (coined by Swift) has since entered English to mean a crude, uncivilized person.

Houyhnhnm

One of a race of intelligent, rational talking horses who govern their land and hold Yahoos in servitude.

struldbrug

A Luggnaggian born with a mark on the forehead denoting that they will live forever, though not remain forever young or healthy.

hurgo

The Lilliputian term for a great lord or nobleman.

calenture

A feverish tropical illness that afflicted sailors, sometimes causing delirium; several of Gulliver's crew die of it.

Glubbdubdrib

The 'island of sorcerers or magicians,' governed by a hereditary tribe of magicians, visited during Gulliver's third voyage.

Laputa

A flying island inhabited by theoretical scientists and mathematicians, part of Gulliver's third voyage.

buff jerkin

A tough leather jacket, mentioned as protecting Gulliver from Lilliputian arrows and spears.

aborigines

Used in the Houyhnhnm debate to mean the original, native inhabitants of a land, as opposed to later arrivals.

quire (context of egg controversy, referenced satire)

Not directly in passages but relevant background: Swift satirizes religious schism through trivial disputes; readers should note Lilliputian politics allegorize real historical conflicts.

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