Summary - Chapter 4, Voyage to Brobdingnag Notes | Study English Class 9 - Class 9

"The country described. A proposal for correcting modern maps. The king's palace; and some account of the metropolis. The author's way of travelling. The chief temple described."

• The island is 6,000 miles long and between 3,000 and 5,000 miles wide. ("It's a whole continent right smack dab in the middle of the Pacific Ocean" To be "smack dab" in the "middle" of something is to be directly at its center. This slang term originated in the late 1800s.), between California and Japan.
• The kingdom of Brobdingnag sits at the southern end of the island, surrounded on three sides by ocean and on one side by impassable mountains.
• The country has 51 cities, the largest of which is Lorbrulgrud.
• The king's palace in Lorbrulgrud is a mass of buildings about 7 miles around.
• Glumdalclitch takes Gulliver on frequent outings into the city, accompanied by her governess (a woman who acts as both caretaker and private tutor for young kids).
• When Gulliver goes on these outings, he is placed in a special box for travel, with windows on three sides to allow him to look out.
• Whenever they travel through the city, passersby always stop to look at Gulliver – he has become very famous.
• Gulliver and Glumdalclitch go out to see the primary temple of the city, which is both beautiful and 3,000 feet in height – about three-fifths of a mile.
• (To give you a sense of scale, this makes the steeple of this temple almost three times the height of the Empire State Building.)
• Believe it or not, Gulliver is disappointed – he expected the temple to be taller.
• Gulliver tells us that the king's kitchen is also amazing: it's 600 feet high (just under half the height of the Empire State Building).
• Gulliver is also most impressed by the sight of the Brobdingnagian King's military guard on parade, in detachments of 500. The horses are, of course, enormous – around 60 feet high.