Once upon a time, with the arrival of a strange visitor in a small town , Gulliver absolutely got his freedom.

Submitted into Contest #96 in response to: Start your story with the arrival of a strange visitor in a small town.... view prompt

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Adventure Creative Nonfiction Mystery

Once upon a time, with the arrival of a strange visitor in a small town , Gulliver absolutely got his freedom.

In this story Gulliver , the sailor and a strange visitor in a small town had his ship spoilt , then he found himself in the strange country of Lilliput where the people were normally the size of 1/12th the height of all normal human beings.

The entire Lilliputians were also terrified of him. T

They then tied him down while he slept and then later they kept him chained up like some sort of dangerous animal. It was the first voyage was where, Gulliver was washed ashore after a shipwreck and finds himself a prisoner of a race of tiny people, less than 6 inches (15 cm) tall, who are inhabitants of the island country of Lilliput. After giving assurances of his good behaviour, he is given a residence in Lilliput and becomes a favourite of the Lilliput Royal Court.

He was also given permission by the King of Lilliput to go around the city on condition that he must not hurt their subjects.

At first, the Lilliputians are hospitable to Gulliver then, but they are also wary of the threat that his size poses to them. The Lilliputians reveal themselves to be a people who put great emphasis on trivial matters. For example, which end of an egg a person cracks becomes the basis of a deep political rift within that nation. They are a people who revel in displays of authority and performances of power. Gulliver assists the Lilliputians to subdue their neighbours the Blefuscudians by stealing their fleet. However, he refuses to reduce the island nation of Blefuscu to a province of Lilliput, displeasing the King and the royal court. Gulliver is charged with treason for, among other crimes, urinating in the capital though he was putting out a fire. He was then convicted and sentenced to be blinded. With the assistance of a kind friend, "a considerable person at court", he escaped to Blefuscu.

Where, he spots and retrieves an abandoned boat and sails out to be rescued by a passing ship, which safely takes him back home with some Lilliputian animals he carries with him. Gulliver soon sets out again. When the sailing ship Adventure is blown off course by storms and forced to sail for land in search of fresh water, Gulliver was then abandoned by his companions and left on a peninsula on the western coast of the North American continent. The grass of Brobdingnag is as tall as a tree. He is then found by a farmer who is about 72 ft (22 m) tall, judging from Gulliver estimating the man's step being 10 yards (9 m).

The giant farmer brought Gulliver home, and his daughter Glumdalclitch cares for Gulliver. The farmer treats him with curiosity and exhibits him for money. After a while the constant display makes Gulliver sick, and the farmer sells him to the Queen of the realm. Glumdalclitch (who accompanied her father while exhibiting Gulliver) is taken into the Queen's service to take care of the tiny man. Since Gulliver is too small to use their huge chairs, beds, knives and forks, the Queen commissions a small house to be built for him so that he can be carried around in it; this is referred to as his "travelling box".

Also between small adventures such as fighting giant wasps and being carried to the roof by a monkey, he discusses the state of Europe with the King of Brobdingnag. The King is not happy with Gulliver's accounts of Europe, especially upon learning of the use of guns and cannon. On a trip to the seaside, his traveling box is seized by a giant eagle which drops Gulliver and his box into the sea where he is picked up by sailors who returned him to England. Setting out again, Gulliver's ship is attacked by some sort of Pirates, and he was then marooned close to a desolate rocky island near the country India. He is rescued by the flying island then of Laputa, a kingdom devoted to the arts of music, mathematics, and astronomy but unable to use them for practical ends. Rather than using armies, Laputa has a custom of throwing rocks down at rebellious cities on the ground.

Gulliver tours Balnibarbi, the kingdom ruled from Laputa, as the guest of a low-ranking courtier and sees the ruin brought about by the blind pursuit of science without practical results, in a satire on bureaucracy and on the Royal Society and its experiments. At the Grand Academy of Lagado in Balnibarbi, great resources and manpower are employed on researching preposterous schemes such as extracting sunbeams from cucumbers, softening marble for use in pillows, learning how to mix paint by smell, and uncovering political conspiracies by examining the excrement of suspicious persons. He is then taken to Maldonada, the main port of Balnibarbi, to await a trader who can take him on to Japan.

While waiting for a passage, Gulliver takes a short side-trip to the island of  Glubbdubdrib which is southwest of Balnibarbi. On Glubbdubdrib, he visits a magician's dwelling and discusses history with the ghosts of historical figures, the most obvious restatement of the "ancients versus moderns" theme in the book. The ghosts include Julius Caesar, Brutus,Homer, Aristotle, Rene Descartes, and Pierre Gassendi. On the island of Luggnagg, he encounters the stuldbrugs, people who were known to be immortal. They do not have the gift of eternal youth, but suffer the infirmities of old age and are considered legally dead at the age of eighty as was noted. After reaching Japan, Gulliver asks the Emperor "to excuse him by performing the ceremony imposed upon his countrymen of trampling upon the crucifix, which the Emperor does.

Gulliver returns home, determined to stay there for the rest of his days.

Despite his earlier intention of remaining at home, Gulliver returns to sea as the captain of a merchantman, as he was bored with his employment as a surgeon. On this voyage, he is forced to find new additions to his crew who, he believes, have turned against him. His crew then commits mutiny. After keeping him contained for some time, they then resolved to leave him on the first piece of land they came across, and continue as pirates. He is abandoned in a landing boat and came upon a race of deformed savage humanoid creatures to which he conceives a violent antipathy. Shortly afterwards, he meets the Houyhnhnms, a race of talking horses. They are the rulers while the deformed creatures that resemble human beings are called Yahoos. Gulliver becomes a member of a horse's household and comes to both admire and emulate the Houyhnhnms and their way of life, rejecting his fellow humans as merely Yahoos endowed with some semblance of reason which they only use to exacerbate and add to the vices Nature given them.

However, an Assembly of the Houyhnhnms rules that Gulliver, a Yahoo with some resemblance of reason, is a danger to their civilization and commands him to swim back to the land that he came from. Gulliver's "Master," the Houyhnhnm who took him into his household, buys him time to create a canoe to make his departure easier. After another disastrous voyage, he is rescued against his will by a Portuguese ship. He is disgusted to see that Captain Pedro de Mendez, whom he considers a Yahoo, is a wise, courteous, and generous person.

The Lilliputians also gradually became sure that he was not an enemy of some sort.

Again the good behavior of Gulliver pleased the Emperor and the entire Army and the people so much that I began to hope for my freedom in a short time.

Gulliver also sent so many requests for his freedom, that the Emperor at last mentioned the matter to his ministers. Also there was only one who did not agree to it entirely. It can be noted that the vote was carried against him , he was allowed to make the conditions upon which Gulliver should be set free from captivity.

Among the conditions set by the Lilliputians to Gulliver before he will be set free includes as follows:

1.     The man –mountain shall not leave our lands without any special permission whatsoever.

2.     Also the man mountain shall not come into our city without our permission. It should be kept in mind that two hours notice shall be given to the citizens so that they may stay in their various houses.

3.     |Again the man mountain shall walk only on high roads and shall not then lie down on growing crops.

4.     As the man mountain walks on these roads he shall take care not to step on any of our people , their horses or carriages or take them up in his hands without their permission.

5.     The man mountain shall then carry urgent messages to some distant places.

6.     In addition , the man mountain noted that Gulliver shall carry urgent messages to distant places.

7.     The man mountain shall also help us against our enemies in the island of Blefuscu and also try to do his best to destroy their ships during war which they are now preparing to attack us.

8.     The man mountain, Gulliver shall help our work men to lift heavy stones for building the wall of the park and other buildings for the Emperor.

9.     Within two months time, the man mountain shall measure exactly the distance round our kingdom by walking round the coast and then counting his own footsteps.

As promised by the man mountain, Gulliver to keep and then obey the above conditions, he was to be allowed a daily allowance of food enough in feeding about a thousand of our subjects. And other community folks.

It is also noted by Scientist that the man mountain Gulliver was twelve times as tall and mascular as one of them. Gulliver was outspoken and he spoke fluent English language.

In addition, since the man mountain, Gulliver was huge and mascular, he was made to fight and defeat during wars.

Lastly it was Gulliver who helped in building another Castle for the Lilliputians. He also sailed on his ship to his home country for greener pastures , because he was an American, he travelled on his ship to America a land of opportunity and plenty where he experienced pleasure excitement and then lived happily ever after with his American family.

Finally he also returned to his other home in England, but was unable to reconcile himself to living among "Yahoos" and becomes a recluse, remaining in his house, avoiding his family and his wife, and spending several hours a day speaking with the horses in his stables.

June 04, 2021 20:11

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