Editing Brobdingnag (section)

== Symbolism ==
The mismatch between body sizes of Brobdingnag giants and Gulliver is the main feature of the plot: as [[Dr Johnson]] stated with some derision in 1775, "once you have thought of big and little men, it  is very  easy to do all the rest". However, Swift investigates deeper: the mismatch between the world of Brobdingnag and Gulliver's size creates an environment akin to the one experienced by real-life babies, "Every child begins life in Brobdingnag"{{sfn | Lee | 1998 | p=116}} (cf. [[John Locke]]'s children that "are Travellers newly arrived in a strange Country, of which they know nothing"{{sfn | Lee | 1998 | p=119}}). Brobdingnagians are nice to Gulliver, trying to teach him, providing with toys, while he yearns for comfort and approval, proudly demonstrating his achievements. The enlarged world diminishes adulthood.{{sfn | Lee | 1998 | p=116}} Child analogy is reinforced by a contrast between a bad parent (the farmer) and a good one (the King). The scene of being found in Brobdingnag: emergence from the safe confines of the ship into the world of giants - screaming - being picked up and looked upon - reception by the family - is an [[allusion]] to birth.{{sfn | Lee | 1998 | p=119}}

In each of the Gulliver journeys, Swift dismisses a particular aspect of high opinion that humanity holds about itself. The travel to Brobdingnag exposes the lack of maturity: Gulliver has to be saved by Brobdingnagians  not just from the danger of the oversized world around him, but from his own follies: quarreling with a "dwarf", suggesting the King to use gunpowder on his subjects, seeing his own smallness, but overlooking narrowmindedness.{{sfn | Lee | 1998 | p=117}}

Brobdingnag can be interpreted as an outsider's view of England (the farther he goes away, the closer he comes to the own country, seen from a different perspective{{sfn | Lee | 1998 | p=119}}), while Gulliver's travel is similar to a life story of an English gentlemen of the time.{{sfn | Lee | 1998 | p=118}} 

While traveling to and staying at Brobdingnag, he is always confined (aboard a ship, on a boat in a water tank, in a box); to go anywhere, he needs an adult to carry him. The box might symbolize the restriction of freedom, a prison, or a coffin.{{sfn | Lee | 1998 | pp=118, 120}} In the end, the box becomes a vehicle for freedom (symbolized by sea, possibly, the final freedom granted by death).{{sfn | Lee | 1998 | pp=120-121}}