Swift takes another slash at the Dutch by having Gulliver imprisoned merely because the Luggnaggians think that he is Dutch. He then unmasks the vanity of kings and the subservience of courtiers, using his usual technique of making abstractions concrete. He illustrates the subservience that the King demands and courtiers render by the ceremony of crawling and licking the floor. The moral — and physical — dangers of such subservience is shown by the poison on the floor. The King's mercy also falls under Swift's attack; the pages go "mercifully" unpunished for their occasional carelessness.
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