Journal to begin You are all told that you can be anything you want, even President of the United States! But think about presidents and presidential candidates (and most politicians, for that matter). What makes a realistic political candidate? Don’t think of an ideal political candidate, rather think realistically.

A Voyage to Lilliput The Lilliputians represent the English. What does their small stature suggest about English character? What does the rope dance satirize? Is Gulliver a character who appreciates the ironies of what he sees and says? How do you know? Use textual evidence?

A Voyage to Brobdingnag What difference in perspective is achieved in Gulliver’s going from the Lilliputians to the Brobdingnagians? What conclusions does the King of Brobdingnag reach about: English politicians English lawyers How does Swift use the character of Gulliver to intensify the impact of the Brobdingnagian King’s horror at the English political and social system? When Gulliver offers the King the secrets of guns and gunpowder, what is the King’s reaction to the offer? What is the King’s reaction to Gulliver?

Overall Gulliver’s Travels makes use of an unreliable narrator. What does this mean and how does this affect our reading? Which device do you think creates a more effective situation for satire: a hero who is a giant among Lilliputians or one who is a pygmy among Brobdingnagians? Or do you think these devices are equally effective? Give examples from the text to support your viewpoint. How does the tone of Swift’s satire on human beings change as he moves from the Lilliputians to the Brobdingnagians? To what to you attribute this change of tone? What change of tone occurs at the very beginning of Gulliver’s discourse to the King of Brobdingnag on “his own dear native country?”