Discuss the oddities of flying or floating islands?

As soon as Gulliver steps onto the floating island, he is surrounded by a crowd of people. He finds them very strange even though they are of a size similar to his. Their heads are slanted to the left or right, and their clothes have pictures of either musical instruments or astronomical signs.

Gulliver learns that he is on Laputa. The people here have terribly short attention spans, so they carry around "Flappers." These are used for hitting other people during conversation in order to keep them focused. Specifically servants carried "flappers"to strike their masters before their mind wandered off during a conversation. This satirizes the disconnection between the rich and everybody else in society.

Source(s): http://www.gradesaver.com/gullivers-travels/study-guide/section5/