Long Life in Luggnagg
When Gulliver’s embarks upon his third adventure, he becomes shipwrecked yet again and eventually finds himself in the country of Luggnagg. Among the strange features of this country, Gulliver discovers the Struldbruggs, or Immortals, inhabitants of Luggnagg who possess the apparent wonderful fortune of living forever. They are marked at birth by a red circular spot on the forehead, a mere effect of chance. Gulliver exclaims, as any of us would, “Happiest beyond all comparison are these excellent Struldbruggs… without the continual apprehension of death!” It seems an appropriate enough view of the Strildbruggs’ good luck, but Gulliver soon discovers that he is mistaken.
For, as the Luggnaggians explain to him, the Struldbruggs “had not only all the follies and infirmities of other old men, but many more… they were not only opinionative, peevish, covetous, morose, vain, talkative; but incapable of friendship…” Gulliver’s companion goes on to explain in detail the misery of these seemingly fortunate Immortals, recounting their bad memories, wickedness, death in the eyes of the law at eighty and subsequent poverty, and generally wretched way of life. Gulliver meets a few of these individuals for himself and is quickly convinced to change his opinion – “my keen appetite,” he writes, “for perpetuity of life was much abated. I grew heartily ashamed of the pleasing visions I had formed”…
This sad tale of the Struldbruggs is wonderfully allegorized to the futility of mankind’s material desires. Our visions of things we can’t have, such as perpetual life, vast wealth, and fulfillment of all our wants are things we believe will make us truly happy, but in reality, none of it is important compared to eternal life in the world to come. The example of the unhappy Struldbruggs shows us that even if we did live forever, we might come to despise life, much less live eternally grateful with our lot. This same lesson is taught by the Preacher in the Bible when he exclaims that everything on this earth – riches wisdom, power – is “meaningless and grasping for the wind.”
On another level, the Struldbruggs’ story shows us another kind of human futility – that of wanting what we can’t have. Then, when we have it, it seems so much less wonderful and glittering than it did from afar. When a desire is within our grasp, many times we find we’ve been disillusioned. “I thought,” observes Gulliver after realizing the true misery of the Struldbruggs, “that no tyrant could invent a death into which I would not run with pleasure from such a life.” And yet before he was disappointed, he tells us he had “frequently run over the whole system of how I should employ myself if I were sure to live forever.” Perpetual life on this earth, however, is not as wonderful as it seems to us mortals, and having what we cannot is never a sure guarantor of happiness.
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