Reading comprehension from Gulliver’s Travels

Frank

“I had sent to many memorials and petitionsfor my liberty, that his Majesty at length mentioned the matter first in thecabinet, and then in a full council; where it was opposed by none, exceptSkyresh Bolgolam, who was pleased, without any provocation, to be my mortalenemy.”

Questions:

A.    Identifythe author and the work.

B.    Who isthis “Skyresh Bolgolam”?

C.    Whydoes the author make Skyresh Bolgolam a mortal enemy of the narrator?

A     Jonathan Swift; Gulliver’s Travels

B.    SkyreshBolgolam is the High Admiral of Lilliput.

C.    Gulliverespecially mentions that Skyresh Bolgolam, the High Admiral of Lilliput, aloneopposed when the king and the cabinet agreed to give him liberty. When Swiftwrote about this detail, he had the earl Nottingham in mind as the butt ofsatire, as they were political enemies to each other. To the modern readerhowever, who knows little about the political situation of Swift’s time, thisdetail provides a good case for understanding the evilness in human nature,that is, some people will choose to be doing harm to others without anyprovocation, for no good reason, out of no reasonable motive. This phenomenonmust have trouble many people, for many writes have written about this in theirworks.

Frank

Shakespeare, for example, in his Othello, created a character Lago who chose to be Othello’s mortal enemy for no good reason and brought him to destruction.