Shipwrecked off the coast of Lilliput, Gulliver is exhibited before the Lilliputians, instructed in their language and brought to the chief city and into the court, where he discusses politics with a leading official. He is informed that a controversy over which end of an egg is to be broken has led to the formation of two political parties, the Big-Endians and the Little-Endians, with a result that Lilliput has been at war for thirty-six moons with the neighbouring land of Blefescu.

Of such petty differences are major conflicts waged.