Gulliver's Travels Summary and Analysis of Part III, "A Voyage to Laputa ...

and
Japan"
Chapter I
"The Author sets out on his Third Voyage, is taken by Pyrates. The Malice of a Dutch-man. His
arrival at an Island. He is received into Laputa."
After being at home for only ten days, Gulliver is visited by a ship captain who invites him on a
voyage departing in two months. Gulliver convinces his wife that this is a good opportunity and
sets off, again working as the surgeon.
After they sail for three days, a storm arises, driving the ship to the north-northeast, where they
are attacked by pirates. They are unable to defend themselves. Gulliver insults the captain of the
pirate ship and as punishment is set adrift in "a small Canoe, with Paddles and a Sail, and four
Days Provisions."
On the fifth day of sailing in his canoe, Gulliver reaches a small island, where he spends the
night in restless sleep. In the morning he notices that what he thought was a cloud floating
above the island is actually a floating island. Gulliver calls up to the people he sees moving
about the island. They lower down a system of pulleys that can pull Gulliver up.
Chapter II
"The Humours and Dispositions of the Laputians described. An account of their Learning. Of
the King and his Court. The Author's Reception there. The Inhabitants subject to Fears and
Disquietudes. An Account of the Women."
As soon as Gulliver steps onto the floating island, he is surrounded by a crowd of people. He
finds them very strange even though they are of a size similar to his. Their heads are slanted to
the left or right, and their clothes have pictures of either musical instruments or astronomical
signs.
Gulliver learns that he is on Laputa. The people here have terribly short attention spans, so they
carry around "Flappers." These are used for hitting other people during conversation in order to
keep them focused. After dinner a man is sent to teach Gulliver the language.
Gulliver finds that the Laputian houses are built very poorly and with no right angles. This is
odd because the men here are obsessed with mathematics. The people here never have peace of

mind. They are constantly worrying about dangers such as the possibility that the sun might go
out. The women are very sexual creatures who often cheat on their husbands, especially with
their preferred men from Balnibarbi, but the men are so wrapped up in mathematics that they
do not notice. The King of Laputa is not remotely interested in the government of England.
Chapter III
"A Phenomenon solved by modern Philosophy and Astronomy. The Laputians' great
Improvements in the latter. The King's method of suppressing Insurrections."
Gulliver learns that Laputa is floating above Balnibarbi, the island on which he landed his
canoe. Laputa contains 10,000 acres and is perfectly circular. It is able to move about the surface
of Balnibarbi but not beyond its borders, and it can move up and down because of its magnetic
forces. When a town from Balnibarbi acts up, the King has Laputa moved directly above it so
that it can receive no sun or rain. No one from the Royal family is allowed to leave Laputa.
Chapter IV
"The Author leaves Laputa; is conveyed to Balnibarbi; arrives at the Metropolis. A Description of
the Metropolis, and the Country adjoining. The Author hospitably received by a great Lord. His
Conversation with that Lord."
Gulliver finds Laputa terribly boring because the people there are all much more intelligent
than he is. He has a hard time conversing with them and is generally ignored. He petitions to go
down to Balnibarbi, and his request is granted. On Balnibarbi, Gulliver meets Lord Munodi,
who invites Gulliver to stay at his home. Munodi's home is beautiful and kept well, but when
the two travel out into the country Gulliver finds that the rest of the land is barren and sadly
kept. Munodi explains that this is because many years back, people from Balnibarbi visited
Laputa, and when they returned they decided to change things to a more academic way of
living. This idea has failed. Munodi's land is plentiful because he never changed his way of
living.
Chapter V
"The Author permitted to see the grand Academy of Lagado. The Academy largely described.
The Arts wherein the Professors employ themselves."
Gulliver visits the Grand Academy of Lagado, the largest metropolis of Balnibarbi. The scientists
there are constantly working on experiments that Gulliver finds pointless. For instance, he meets
a man who is trying to extract sunlight from cucumbers. Other experiments are trying to turn
excrement back into the food it began as, trying to make gunpowder from ice, and trying to

employ spiders as weavers of silk. Professors are also attempting to alter the communication of
Balnibarbi by doing away with language altogether.
Chapter VI
"A further account of the Academy. The Author proposes some Improvements, which are
honourably received."
Gulliver then visits the part of the Academy designated for studies of government. He finds the
professors especially in this wing to be entirely crazy. They propose such things as studying
excrement to find treasonous people and taxing people based on beauty and wit.
Chapter VII
"The Author leaves Lagado, arrives at Maldonada. No ship ready. He takes a short Voyage to
Glubbdubdrib. His Reception by the Governor."
Gulliver decides to take a trip to the Island of Luggnagg but finds that no ships will be available
for the voyage for a month, so it is suggested that he visit Glubbdubdrib, which he translates to
mean the island of sorcerers or magicians. Once he arrives in the governor's home, he finds that
"The Governor and his Family are served and attended by Domesticks of a kind somewhat
unusual." Gulliver learns that the governor has the power to bring back the dead for the
purpose of serving him. Gulliver is given the option to bring back anyone he would like. He
chooses Alexander the Great, who tells Gulliver that he actually died because he drank too
much. He then brings back a parade of other famous dead.
Chapter VIII
"A further Account of Glubbdubdrib. Antient and Modern History corrected."
Gulliver spends a great deal of time speaking with various famous dead people. He speaks with
Homer, Aristotle, and Descartes and even gets them into conversation with one another. He later
brings back a few English Yeomen and finds them much larger and stronger than the English
people today. He worries that his countrymen are diminishing with time.
Chapter IX
"The Author's Return to Maldonada. Sails to the Kingdom of Luggnagg. The Author confined.
He is sent for to Court. The manner of his Admittance. The King's great Lenity to his Subjects."
Gulliver travels to Luggnagg, posing as a Dutchman. He says, "I thought it necessary to disguise
my Country, and call my self an Hollander, because my Intentions were for Japan, and I knew

the Dutch were the only Europeans permitted to enter into that Kingdom." His true identity is
discovered, however, and Gulliver is made a prisoner. He later learns that anyone who wants to
come before the king must crawl on hands and knees and lick the floor. The king, it turns out,
uses this tradition to his advantage when he wants to get rid of someone-simply by poisoning
the floor.
Chapter X
"The Luggnaggians commended. A particular Description of the Struldbrugs, with many
Conversations between the Author and some eminent Persons upon that subject."
Gulliver learns about the Struldbrug children who are born to Luggnaggians but who have a
red dot on each of their foreheads. These children are immortal, which causes Gulliver to
fantasize about what he would do if he were immortal. He dreams of the ability to take his time
becoming a master of many different subjects and amassing great wealth. But Gulliver soon
comes to learn that the Struldbrug children are actually very unhappy and jealous of those
people who can die. They find their own lives depressing.
Chapter XI
"The Author leaves Luggnagg and sails to Japan. From thence he returns in a Dutch Ship to
Amsterdam, and from Amsterdam to England."
After offering Gulliver employment in the court but finally seeing that he is determined to leave,
His Majesty gives him license to leave, a letter of recommendation to the Emperor of Japan, and
a gift of 444 pieces of gold and a very valuable red diamond. In Japan he is told to trample the
crucifix, which all Dutchmen are happy to do, but Gulliver manages to get out of doing so. He
takes a ship to Amsterdam and then to England, where he happily returns to his family.
Analysis
Again, Gulliver arrives at his new adventure in dramatic style, this time being cast from his ship
by pirates and left to drift about the sea. The time alone serves as a kind of existential
preparation for encountering a new society. He arrives exhausted, hungry, thirsty and alone,
completely ready to take in new ideas and opinions. Even so, he finds many of the Laputians'
ideas difficult to swallow. In general, Part III gives Swift a chance to try out a number of ideas
for alternative civilizations, and each one could support its own full narrative.

On Laputa, the floating island, Swift creates a way of physically stratifying a society. Those who
work with their hands for a living-and the ridiculous professors-live on Balnibarbi. The upper
class, including the royal family and the more able intellectuals, live on the floating island of
Laputa. In this way Swift makes the separation between the two types of people visually
obvious, with the better above the lesser.
We also learn that when a town from Balnibarbi acts up and needs to be punished Laputa is
moved above them, blocking out the sun and rain. This signifies a serious problem that Swift
sees in many governments. Justice should only be about retribution when necessary, but the
royalty makes the citizens even more unhappy by taking away that which they need to live.
Swift indicates that rebellions could be avoided all together if the citizens' satisfaction became a
priority of the royalty.
One main difference between the people of Laputa and the people of Balnibarbi is that those
living in Laputa have very limited attention spans. One thinks here of the absentminded
professor.
Indeed much of what goes on there seems to be related to the curse of being smart but
impractical. Although the people of Laputa are very intelligent, it gets them little. With their
slanting heads, they do not see things directly as they are. They seem to have no common sense,
which for someone like Swift, who cares a great deal about the material world, may be more
important than raw intelligence. Because of their lack of sense, they spend too much time
worrying about ridiculous things rather than noticing what is really wrong in their own lives.
They are so unaware that the men do not know that their wives cheat on them. This
emasculating fact is all too common for the unmanly intellectual.

When Gulliver visits Balnibarbi, he finds that the people have suffered an even worse fate. Being
unsuited for the intellectual life, they have tried to live on the basis of pseudo-academic life and
have failed miserably. The land has become barren because the people neglect it completely.
Instead they focus all of their attention on their ridiculous academics. By trying to be something
they are not-that is, like many would-be intellectuals-the Balnibarbi people have lost what they
once had, and now they are left with nothing. Swifts comments here on the importance of selfevaluation and living the life to which one is suited. There is elitism here, with the lower people
needing to understand their natural place-but it is an elitism based on nature. A society needs
many different kinds of people in order to survive, and not everyone should be an intellectualand besides, the intellectuals do not do so well themselves.

In Glubbdubdrib, Gulliver is able to bring back great figures from history, including truly wise
people such as Aristotle. Nearly everything that he learns is different from what has been
recorded in the history books. Swift shows here that history cannot be trusted, especially
because those involved typically are not the ones who write their own history. The trouble now
is that Swift has shown us that we cannot trust others and we do not often do well when we
falsely trust in ourselves. We must trust in ourselves but only with a clear view of who we really
are-our proper location, perspective, and size all matter.
In Luggnagg, Gulliver meets a king who has his courtiers lick the floor as they approach him,
crawling on their hands and knees. Once again, we find Swift commenting on the ridiculous
rules of royals who abuse their power.Immortality turns out not to be as wonderful as many
people think. The Struldbrugs are depressed, perhaps because there is no reason to act quickly.
They have all the time in the world. Meanwhile, they have plenty of time to see what mortals
have done for themselves and their society in their fleeting time alive. It is interesting that Swift
includes Japan, a real place, among these fantastic places. In his time, Japan was a closed society
that did not generally want to traffic with the outside world. It was at the far edge of the East
and as mysterious as these truly fictional places.

Science satire the "Book - III" in "Gulliver's Travels"

Question: ( 1 ) : Discuss the satire on science in the Book- III of Gullivers Travels
Answer: To remind people about the fundamental moral duties to society and fellow beings,
Jonathan Swift has brought science in Book- III of Gullivers Travels. In this book Swift
satirizes the scientists science and the intellectuals. It does not mean that he was against
scientific experiments. Many of Swifts critics misunderstand when he ridicules scientist and
science. He was adequately aware of the values of pure science. He has attacked science for a
moral purpose. If we read, analyse and justify the third book of Gullivers Travels, we will be
able to understand the fact.Gulliver makes his third voyage to a flying land called Laputa which
is a satire on science. It is governed by scientific rules rather than moral ones. As it is a flying
land, it shows how far it is from the concrete values and reality. Thus Swift is not satirizing
reason but the wrong use of reason. This is an island inhabited by men who are able to put their
island into a progressive nation as they please. The Laputans pride in their scientific progress is
quite vain since they are totally detached from common humanity, normal standard of life and
reality.
The science that perverts man from his normal self and moral self is not wanted by Swift. The
people of Laputa are very strange as regarding their shapes are faces. Their hands are all
reclined whether to the right or the left. One of their eyes turns inward and the other directly up

to the zenith. The first one signifies their engrossment in their won theories and abstract
speculation. The latter shows their absorption in the stars and space. Their chief preoccupations
are science, mathematics, astronomy and music. These intellectual pursuits make their outlook
narrow and insensible. These pursuits engross even their practical life so much that they love
their aesthetic sense. They express everything in terms of rhombus, circle and parallelograms so
on. They are so unmindful and callous to the realities of life that their wives leave them to seek
physical gratification. In this regard we can remember the wife of the prime minister who lives
with a footman.
Next we find Gulliver in Lagado, the capital city of Balinbarbi. He finds no difference between
Laputa and Lagado. The people of Lagado are also run by the system of science. Here he visits
the Academy of Projectors where he finds a man who has been engaged in a project for eight
years for extracting sun beam out of cucumbers and finds another man who has been employed
for a long time to restore human excrement to its original food and other meaningless projects.
But Gulliver is quite surprised that although the people are starving, the lands are left
uncultivated. By mentioning the absurd experiments, Swift has created an atmosphere of
useless activities, aimless researches, perverted causes and distorted reason.
Here swift is pointing out the crimes committed against humanity. The moral teaching of Swift
is that intellectual pursuit is not governed by self-control and humanitarian zeal for public care.
The scientist will easily forget his moral responsibility. They will think for thinking sake, not for
human sake. They will work only to satisfy their vanity causing a huge loss of money, energy
and time. These kinds of activities are sure to be destructive and damaging to human
potentialities.
Swift is very much realistic when we see that the progress of science ushers in a moral
decadence. With the advancement of science the age of Swift began to lose her ground on moral
strength. Swift portrays this moral decadence with the example of the immoral life of the
Laputan women.
Swift also satirized the astronomical researches of his time without becoming aware of the
future success of the astronomers in exploring different stars and planets and ascending the
moon. Moreover, he ridiculed those scientists who pretended to be scientists but they are
actually vain, dull and non-creative.
In conclusion, it is clear that Swifts satire on science is perfectly realistic. He feels that science
deserves moral contempt for its neglect of social and moral duties. Therefore, he condemns it by
witty manipulation of the scientists and their experiments which amuse us. He perfectly
exposes the futility of the scientific activities which are far from reality of life.

Character Analysis
The Lilliputians inhabit the first island Gulliver visits. They all stand about six inches tall, with
proportionally tiny buildings and trees and horses. The Lilliputians are ruled by an Emperor
who appoints his high court officials according to their skills with rope dancing rather than
their actual abilities. In other words, they're not exactly governed according to rational
principles. The court of Lilliput mostly seems to spend its time plotting against one another.
Gulliver, unfortunately, forms one of the primary targets of these plots. His enormous size
makes him both expensive and dangerous for the Emperor to keep, so, even though he has
made himself useful in Lilliput's wars against Blefuscu, Gulliver eventually has to flee the
country to avoid having his eyes put out.
Gulliver as a Lilliputian
Gulliver is enormous and the Lilliputians are tiny, so obviously Gulliver is not literally a
Lilliputian. However, there are hints that Gulliver shares more with the Lilliputians than he is
fully willing to admit. Gulliver comments on their great mechanical abilities: they have "arrived
to a great perfection in mechanics" (1.1.8). Many of the engines that they have constructed run
towards weaponry.
As for Gulliver, in addition to being pretty flexible with class and language, Gulliver also has "a
head mechanically turned" (1.6.19). He offers to turn this mechanical ability to the advantage of
the King of Brobdingnag by making gunpowder, but is refused. This kind of practical
mechanical ability is (a) better than what the Laputians do, but (b) completely despised by the
brilliant, beautiful, rational horses of the Houyhnhnms. For all of his giant size, Gulliver's mind
works mechanically and in terms of profit, like a Lilliputian but it takes his exposure to the
men of Brobdingnag and the horses of the Houyhnhnms to see it.

The High Heels and the Low Heels

If Gulliver, an Englishman, is similar to the Lilliputians, it stands to reason that the place he's
from, England, is a lot like Lilliput. Swift makes England physically tiny to introduce a new
perspective on its politics and partisanship in the Lilliput chapters of Gulliver's Travels.

One example of this new take on English politics is the deadly differences between the high
heels and the low heels. In Lilliput, political affiliation splits between men who wear highheeled shoes and men who wear low-heeled shoes. The high heels, a.k.a. the Tramecksans,
support Lilliput's constitution and the Emperor. However, the low heels, a.k.a. the Slamecksans,
are in power. The Emperor will only put low heels into high office in his government, regardless
of the abilities or qualifications of the high heels. And the Emperor's son is even harder to pin
down: he wears one high and one low heel, so no one knows where he stands.
Basically, this is a jab at the Tories and the Whigs, prominent political parties in early eighteenth
century England (source: Robert Greenberg, Editor, Gulliver's Travels. New York: Norton, 1961,
30). The Tories were political conservatives who supported a consolidation of royal authority
and the restriction of the power of English Parliament (which is something like the American
Senate). The Whigs were relatively liberal and wanted more power to go to the Parliament.
Following England's 1689 Glorious Revolution (about which, check out our "Detailed Analysis"
of Part 4, Chapter 5), in which Parliament essentially installed a new king on the throne, the
Whigs were really riding high. And they began riding even higher when George I came to the
throne after the death of Queen Anne. George was pro-Whig, and his Parliament was entirely
Whig-dominated. Does this sound familiar to you at all? Yep, the Whigs are like the low heels,
the only men who have any power in the Lilliputian government. And as you might have
guessed from the sour grapes feel of this section of the book, Swift was a Tory (or in Lilliputian
terms, a high heel). He had to return from England to Ireland once George I came to power
(source).
The shallowness of the nature of this division high heeled versus low heeled shoes
emphasizes what the Emperor is not thinking about: actual ability. In fact, Gulliver claims that
the Lilliputians prefer to choose fools for office over wise men, because they want to avoid
corruption. Their logic is that it's less evil for guys to make mistakes in office out of gross
stupidity than for guys to make mistakes in office because of bribery and favoritism. Of course,
the assumption underlying this idea is that the same mistakes have to be made either way. Hey
Lilliputians, here's a crazy idea: why not appoint people to office who are both smart and good?
The Big-Endians, the Little-Endians, and Blefuscu
Similarly shallow is the difference between the Big-Endians and the Little-Endians. The story
goes that, apparently, when this Emperor's grandfather was a child, he cut himself when he
cracked a boiled egg on its big, rounded end. Following this accident, the current Emperor's
great-grandfather laid down the law: no more cracking eggs at the big end. Now, the entire
island of Lilliput can only crack eggs at the little end. This change completely outrages some

Lilliputians, who raise rebellions and flee to the neighboring island of tiny people, Blefuscu, a
haven for Big-Endians.
The cause of the Little-Endians versus the Big-Endians is an allegory of the long (long) wars
between Protestants (Little-Endians) and Catholics (Big-Endians) in England. During Jonathan
Swift's lifetime, battles between Catholics and Protestants provided at least some of the fuel for
the Glorious Revolution, Scottish Jacobite rebellions, and the War of the Spanish Succession
between England, France, Austria, and Spain. The accusations that Lilliput makes against its
neighboring island across the channel, that they are sheltering Big-Endian exiles and plotting
against Lilliput, is a reference to the French harboring Catholic exiles following Henry VIII's
break with Rome to found the Anglican Church (source: Robert Greenberg, Editor, Gulliver's
Travels. New York: Norton, 1961, 31.).
Swift was himself a prominent Irish Anglican minister, and he believed strongly in the national
church. However, despite his own religious views, Swift very clearly dismisses the use of
differences of opinion, be it religious (Big-Endians vs. Little-Endians) or political (high heels vs.
low heels), as pretexts for warfare. He also criticizes these differences being used as excuses to
persecute honest, upstanding public servants. This is a theme that recurs throughout Gulliver's
Travels. For other examples, see Lord Munodi in Part 3 and Gulliver's discussion of war with the
Master Horse in Part 4.
(However, we'd like to note even though Swift doesn't seem too fond of religious warfare, he
still thinks states should have a religion. For more on this point, check out "Why Does Swift
Seem to Hate the Dutch So Much?" under our "Character Analysis" of Japan.)
Courtly Manners
You remember, a while back, we mentioned that high positions in the Lilliputian government
are staffed with rope dancing competition winners. This game has two meanings. First, this
game indicates that being at court means literally dancing attendance to people of higher station
than you. It's all about impressing the big boss, and not about substantial contributions to, well,
anything. Secondly, being in court is dangerous: these dancing ropes are a foot high
potentially fatal for the tiny Lilliputians. As Gulliver learns when he gets the Articles of
Impeachment written by Skyresh Bolgolam, depending on the favor of a single powerful man
like the Emperor can result in the downfall of innocent people. These falls are just a little more
literal in Lilliput.
THE BROBDINGNAGIANS
Character Analysis

The Brobdingnagians are giants: they average around 60 feet tall, and their lands and animals
are correspondingly huge. Gulliver is incredibly vulnerable in this country, which is why it
makes sense that the satire turns increasingly towards the fragility (and grotesqueness) of the
human body. Gulliver stumbles into cow pats and is nearly drowned by a frog. All of these tales
are truly dire to him, but to the Brobdingnagian court, they are a laugh riot.
In fact, Gulliver's own ego becomes a subject of satire in this section of the novel. The
Brobdingnagian King asks Gulliver if he is a Whig or a Tory (about which, see our "Character
Analysis" of the Lilliputians), and then laughs. The difference between Whigs and Tories
matters about as much to a Brobdingnagian as the distinction between Lilliputian high and low
heels matters to Gulliver. Brobdingnag gives Gulliver a taste of his own medicine. On the last
island, he was fed and clothed by thousands of servants. Now, he receives the services of
Glumdalclitch, a 9-year-old who treats him like a doll.
A Matter of Perspective: English Gunpowder and Enormous Moles
Once Gulliver has thoroughly learned the Brobdingnagian language, the King begins to ask him
questions about how England is ruled: why is the state in debt? Why do people gamble? The
King asks some probing questions about England that Gulliver can't answer (and that,
presumably, the reader is supposed to mull over). He concludes that England is pretty lousy.
Gulliver tells the reader to forgive the King his ignorance about the true greatness of England
(definitely some sarcasm going on here, considering the content of the Lilliputian satire). He
adds the following story as proof of his foolishness: Gulliver offers the king a recipe for
gunpowder. The King, hearing what gunpowder is for and what it can do, demands that
Gulliver never mention it again, ever. The Brobdingnagians do have an army, because they
occasionally fight civil wars, but that army is held in common as a peacekeeping force (kind of
like the United Nations), and doesn't need a full-scale artillery or anything.
So, the Brobdingnagians are pretty great: fewer wars, clearer writing, straightforward laws, and
so on. But they are still human they still fight and seek profit. Their humanity becomes
disgustingly, enormously apparent in Gulliver's descriptions of Brobdingnagian bodies. Because
he can see them so magnified, he can see their moles sprouting giant hairs, their skin looking
awful. Honestly, there's a description of a cancer in there that we simply can't bring ourselves to
repeat.
Gulliver's revulsion focuses a lot on women: he sees the farmer's wife breast feeding, and thinks,
"no object ever disgusted me so much as the sight of her monstrous breast" (2.1.6). He comments
on the nipple, as large as his head, and the coarseness of her skin when seen so close. This total

disgust with the sight of things that are supposed to excite Gulliver breasts foreshadows his
final rejection of his wife and her smell after his stay in the country of the Houyhnhnms.
THE LAPUTIANS
Character Analysis
The Laputians are a race of weirdos whose heads are always leaning to the right or left and
whose eyes never focus on the world around them. They live on a floating island controlled by a
central magnet. The fact that they float through the air without direct ties to the Earth is pretty
symbolic. These guys love two things: math and music. In both of these, they are very far
advanced, but you know what they stink at? Anything practical. They can't build houses with
right angles, and they can't sew clothes that fit. The reason all of their designs fall apart is
because they refuse to take measurements from real life, preferring instead to use equations to
prove what has to be true.
Still, despite the fact that Laputa floats, it does have political connections to the continent below
it, Balnibarbi. All of the Laputian King's ministers have their estates on the continent, so the
King can't just enslave the people living under their island. But the King does maintain a strict
tribute policy. If the people below Laputa do not send their tributes, well, there will be hell to
pay. The King will float his island right over their heads, blocking the sun and rain and
dropping stones on them until they pay up. So you can see, even though the only thing these
people really know is music and math, they still like to dabble in world domination just
human nature coming through, yet again.
The Flapper
Laputians are so distracted with their internal world of Deep Thoughts that they need to be
reminded of what they are doing at any given time. That's why all the Laputian nobility must be
accompanied by a servant at all times. These servants carry a kind of rattle at the end of a long
stick that they use to touch the mouth of a Laputian who is supposed to be speaking, the ear of
a Laputian who is supposed to be listening, and the eye of a Laputian who is supposed to be
looking at something.
The Laputian Ladies
Because Laputian men spend so much time wrapped up in their own heads, they don't have
much time for their bodies, if you know what we mean, and we imagine that you do. They're
not big in the love department. So when men from the continent come to visit Laputa on
business, Laputian women are totally willing to have affairs left, right, and center they love

strangers. And their husbands never notice, after all. They're too busy with their math and
music to notice their wives stepping out on them. This is one possible explanation for the origin
of the name "Laputa," from the Italian la puta, "whore." (For more on Swift and women, check
out our theme on "Gender.")
The Lagado Royal Academy
The Lagado Royal Academy is a lampoon of the Royal Academy in London in Swift's day
(Lagado being the main city of Balnibarbi). The experiments Gulliver records men trying to
turn poo back into food, extract sunbeams from cucumbers and so on were real things that
eighteenth century scientists tried to do (source: Robert Greenberg, Editor, Gulliver's Travels.
New York: Norton, 1961, 133). It sounds like there were some pretty ripe candidates for the Ig
Nobel awards hanging around back then.