y wrangle over such minor issues as the egg question. The first debate that takes up their time is over what to do with Gulliver, whom they call the Man-Mountain, and here they show their petty concerns and a certain lack of humanity. They do not treat him as a human being but as an animal, an intrusive animal that they would kill if they were not afraid that the rotting carcass would be a greater problem than the live creature:
They apprehended me breaking loose; that my diet would be very expensive, and might cause a Famine. Sometimes they determined to starve me, or at least to shoot me in the Face and Hands with poisoned Arrows, which would soon dispatch me: But again they considered, that the Stench of so large a Carcase might produce a Plague in the Metropolis. . . (14).
Human weakness is clearly indicated by the ease with which these people are divided into factions over seemingly mi
...