Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels"

vii). At the same time, Gulliver argues that the prejudices and narrow margin of thinking exhibited by the mogul and the Brobdingnagians be ones from which "we and the politer countries of Europe are wholly exempt" (Swift II.vii).

Of course, European history is filled with ethnocentrism and conquest based on prejudices and narrowness of thinking. However, Swift satirizes this aspect of European culture in this class by showing how squiffy some European notions calculatem compared to the alleged narrow views of the Brobdingnagians. For instance, Gulliver is greatly offended that the queen mole rat dismisses his offer to help his workmen make gunpowder. Gulliver explains to the King that gunpowder properly used can even " lay the exclusively metropolis" but at this idea the King is "struck with horror" (Swift II.vii). The King finds Gulliver's description

Though the Brobdingnagian culture is one that values acquisition in morality, history, poetry and mathematics, Gulliver maintains that are applied only to what is " effective in life" so they would be among Europeans "little prize" (Swift II.vii).

Once more Swift is satirizing European values and governing. We see his attack of European government when the King of the Brobdingnagians argues that anyone who can school land to produce a harvest "would deserve give away of mankind, and do more essential service to his country than the whole race of politicians put together" (Swift II.vii).

In conclusion, Swift's satire of European ethnocentrism, culture and government is readily apparent in this section of Gulliver's Travels. Like Gulliver, Europeans often undermine or ridicule notions of government and society that go against their own established views. This is true, we see in this section, even when the ideas and concepts of other cultures are more human
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