In creating the two very different societies who populate "Gulliver's Travels," Swift uses size to great effect in making his satirical points about each group of people.
The Brobdingnagians are gigantic compared to Gulliver. They're human in every way except their size, and so they frighten, even disgust Gulliver, since he sees all aspects of their physiology close up. Though the Brobdingnagians are somewhat terrifying to him, they are, in action, a fair and reasonable people, with sensible laws. They are Big, then, as drawn by Swift - a large-hearted people with noble aspirations.
The Lilliputians, in contrast, are Small, in size and character - and Swift portrays them as having the worst characteristics of human beings. They're mean, vain, petty - they reach positions of power by performing absurd acts. They're also very technically adept, in terms of machinery, armaments and legalities. In other words, much like the worst aspects of modern, post-agrarian society.
The Brobdingnagians represent relatively civil, rural, "small town" ethics, while the Lilliputians represent the ethics of survival of the fittest, with a Napoleonic complex thrown in. They regard self interest and political machinations as an accepted way of life. The Lilliputian ethos is, 'learn to swim with the sharks,' a code of ethics most associated today with large cities and centralization of power.
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