In my opinion, Gulliver’s decision to return home to England showed his commitment not only for Blefuscu, but Lilliput as well. Once the emperor of Lilliput had sent an envoy to the court of Blefuscu demanding his return to Lilliput to be punished as a traitor, the monarch knew he had a tough decision to make. Even so, he decided to offer his protection to Gulliver if he stayed in his service, mainly because he felt indebted to Gulliver because he did a great job at maintaining the peace between the two nations. However, Gulliver made up his mind to venture out on the ocean. This is significant because the monarch certainly would have gave his all to assist him, as evidenced by sending hundreds of workers to prepare his boat and the royal family personally seeing him off. Regardless, he still took the riskier route. Additionally, Gulliver explained that he begged to be excused from the nation and told the emperor that he was resolved to venture once again. Although some would argue that Gulliver mostly viewed this as an opportunity to get back to England and rejoin his family, I think there was more to it than that. Firstly, there is no guarantee that he would make it back to England even with the boat. Secondly, I believe he mainly chose to leave Blefuscu because he genuinely cared about the two kingdoms and wanted to see them flourish. This emphasizes that he did not want to be the cause of a conflict between two powerful empires.
One Reply to “Gulliver’s Difficult Decision to Return Home”
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I agree that there’s more to Gulliver’s reason to return to England. In Chapter 1, we see that he did not voyage for 3 years so he could spend time with his family. I wouldn’t be surprised if the same thing happened here as well. He was gone for 2 years, it would be hard not to care about them. I didn’t really think about his commitment to Blefescu though. We see much of this voyage from the perspective of his time in Lilliput, so it’s easy for us to believe that he was only loyal to them. Staying in Blefuscu would have shown the Lilliputians that he may have “switched sides” and caused further chaos, so leaving all together could have been best.