Part Two: Chapter 2, by Laura, Catherine, & Kira

1. “A Description of the Farmer’s Daughter. The Author, carried to a Market-Town, and then to the Metropolis. The Particulars of his Journey.”

2. The farmer’s 9-year-old daughter adopts Gulliver as her pet and teaches him the language, sews him clothes, and provides him with a bed. She calls him Grildrig, and he calls us Glumdalclitch (Little Nurse). Word gets around about Gulliver, and so he is brought to the market to amuse the town. He travels to various cities where his master makes him perform in front of crowds. The daughter thinks that her parents are going to let her keep Grildrig for a while, but that then they are going to see him like all her other pets.

3. “As to the ignominy of being carried about for a monster, I considered myself to be a perfect stranger in the country; and that such a misfortune could never be charged upon me as a reproach if ever I should return to England; since the king of Great Britain himself, in my condition, must have undergone the same distress” (64).

Gulliver feels humiliated by being carried around to perform diversions for the natives and by being treated like an animeal. At the same time, however, Gulliver reasons that even the King of England--the person with the highest social standing possible--would be just as powerless if placed in Gulliver's situation. Furthermore, Gulliver is comforted by the knowledge that if he returns to England, no one will know about this humiliation. He longs for the day when he can put his experiences in Brobdingnag behind him, revealing his growing desire to go home.

4. Gulliver's desire to return to England and his overall sentimentality mark a stark change in Gulliver in this new voyage. During his time in Brobdingnag and in this chapter in particular, Gulliver is humbled. The natives listen to him talk about England but disregard his supposed world because they can not imagine how any world of little people could have any importance. Gulliver repeatedly relates his experiences to those in Littleput, where the situation was reversed. He realizes that everything is relative, making him long even more for home, where he is appreciated and recognized as important.