In
Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish Satire, satirist, author, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for the Whig (British political party), Whigs, then for the Tories (British political party), Tories), poe ...
's 1726 satirical novel ''
Gulliver's Travels
''Gulliver's Travels'', or ''Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships'' is a 1726 prose satire by the Anglo-Irish writer and clergyman Jonathan ...
'', the name struldbrugg (sometimes spelled struldbrug)
[''The Living Age'']
fifth series volume LVIII (from the beginning, volume CLXXIII) (April/May/June 1887)[The Index ...: A Weekly Paper, Volume 3; Volume 14]
by Benjamin Franklin Underwood, 1883
by Jeremy Warner, in ''The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...
'', published July 3, 2003; retrieved August 6, 2018[The Struldbrugs of Luggnagg and an age-old problem foretold]
by Ian Cowie, in ''The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally.
It was fo ...
''; published April 24, 2004; retrieved August 6, 2018 is given to those humans in the nation of
Luggnagg
Luggnagg is an island kingdom, one of the imaginary countries visited by Lemuel Gulliver in the 1726 satirical novel '' Gulliver's Travels'' by Anglo-Irish author Jonathan Swift.
Location
The location of Luggnagg is illustrated in both the text ...
who are born seemingly normal, but are in fact
immortal
Immortality is the ability to live forever, or eternal life.
Immortal or Immortality may also refer to:
Film
* ''The Immortals'' (1995 film), an American crime film
* ''Immortality'', an alternate title for the 1998 British film '' The Wisdom of ...
. Although struldbruggs do not die, they do continue
aging
Ageing ( BE) or aging ( AE) is the process of becoming older. The term refers mainly to humans, many other animals, and fungi, whereas for example, bacteria, perennial plants and some simple animals are potentially biologically immortal. In ...
. Swift's work depicts the evil of immortality without eternal youth.
They are easily recognized by a red dot above their left eyebrow. They are normal human beings until they reach the age of eighty, at which time they become dejected. Upon reaching the age of eighty they become legally dead, and suffer from many ailments including the loss of eyesight and the loss of hair.
Struldbruggs were forbidden to own property:
As soon as they have completed the term of eighty years, they are looked on as dead in law; their heirs immediately succeed to their estates; only a small pittance is reserved for their support; and the poor ones are maintained at the public charge. After that period, they are held incapable of any employment of trust or profit; they cannot purchase lands, or take leases; neither are they allowed to be witnesses in any cause, either civil or criminal or economic, not even for the decision of meers (metes) and bounds.
Because:
Otherwise, as avarice is the necessary consequence of old age, those immortals would in time become proprietors of the whole nation, and engross the civil power, which, for want of abilities to manage, must end in the ruin of the
public.
Related myths
Chinese
Taoism
Taoism (, ) or Daoism () refers to either a school of Philosophy, philosophical thought (道家; ''daojia'') or to a religion (道教; ''daojiao''), both of which share ideas and concepts of China, Chinese origin and emphasize living in harmo ...
placed the
Island of the Immortals eastward from China, while Swift places the struldbruggs near Japan.
The term ''struldbrug'' has been used in
science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...
, most prolifically by
Larry Niven
Laurence van Cott Niven (; born April 30, 1938) is an American science fiction writer. His best-known works are ''Ringworld'' (1970), which received Hugo, Locus, Ditmar, and Nebula awards, and, with Jerry Pournelle, ''The Mote in God's Eye'' ...
,
['']World of Ptavvs
''World of Ptavvs'' is a science fiction novel by American writer Larry Niven, first published in 1966 and set in his ''Known Space'' universe. It was Niven's first published novel and is based on a 1965 magazine story of the same name.
Plot sum ...
'', 1966; "the Struldbrugs Club" Robert Silverberg
Robert Silverberg (born January 15, 1935) is an American author and editor, best known for writing science fiction. He is a multiple winner of both Hugo and Nebula Awards, a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame, and a Grand ...
, and
Pohl & Kornbluth to describe
supercentenarian
A supercentenarian (sometimes hyphenated as super-centenarian) is a person who has reached the age of 110 years. This age is achieved by about one in 1,000 centenarians. Supercentenarians typically live a life free of major age-related diseases u ...
s.
See also
*
Brobdingnag
Brobdingnag is a fictional land, which is occupied by giants, in Jonathan Swift's 1726 satirical novel ''Gulliver's Travels.'' The story's main character, Lemuel Gulliver, visits the land after the ship on which he is travelling is blown off cou ...
*
Tithonus
In Greek mythology, Tithonus ( or ; grc, Τιθωνός, Tithonos) was the lover of Eos, Goddess of the Dawn. He was a prince of Troy, the son of King Laomedon by the Naiad Strymo (Στρυμώ). The mythology reflected by the fifth-century vas ...
References
{{Gulliver's Travels
Gulliver's Travels
Fiction about immortality