When Gulliver finds himself in Brobdingnag, Swift first sets up the size ratio. Now the tables are turned: The Lilliputians were midgets one-twelfth Gulliver's size. Now Gulliver is a midget, and the giants who inhabit Brobdingnag are twelve times Gulliver's size. Besides the size change, notice too that Swift changes perspective in another way. When Gulliver was living among the Lilliputians, he described them as being like "little men." The Brobdingnagians who capture Gulliver, however, do not think of Gulliver as a "little man" or as a "little Brobdingnagian." Some of his first Brobdingnagian acquaintances think of him as being weasel-like or like dangerous and repulsive vermin. Thus Gulliver, in retrospect, seems more humane than we might have realized. To him, the Lilliputians were never insects or vermin, no matter how odious they acted. The Brobdingnagians are a contrast; they like him, generally speaking, but he is never a man. He is a plaything, a rare pet, but never a man.
If the Brobdingnagians do not see Gulliver as a man, however, we cannot condemn them on this one count. They are a moral people, and, again and again, Gulliver will show us instances of their moral virtue. But, at the same time, he never lets us forget that they are also aliens. He admires their laws, but he cannot abide their display of vast areas of flesh. He records his disgust at their physical selves in detail because he cannot overlook, or dismiss, magnified pores and moles and stray hairs. Our own flesh, however, would be repugnant — even to us — if we were to see it through the eyes of a doll-sized man. Yet they are flesh, and we are flesh, and it is this common bond that we, and Gulliver, share with the giant Brobdingnagians. They are a positive race of people, and even if we might not be able to attain their superior morality, we might profitably try to emulate certain of their standards.
