First of all, in part one, Gulliver goes to Lilliput, which is the land of tiny little people, the so called Lilliputians, who are only six inches tall, which is approximately fifteen centimetres. Even though they are small people, they are very arrogant and pretentious. They are small-minded, greedy, hypocritical, jealous and always showing off. This can be seen through the fact that, even though Gulliver helped the Lilliputians in their war against a neighbour tribe, instead of being very grateful, they were planning to blind, to starve and to kill Gulliver, in very bloody and cruel ways. To conclude we can say that the Lilliputians have all the bad characters man can have.
In part two, Gulliver visits Brobdingnag, where the giants live. They are approximately 70 feet tall, which is approximately 21 metres. As Gulliver sees them expanded, he can see all their warts and imperfections. Therefore the Brobdingnagians are seen as physically unattractive, dirty and ugly, but on the inside, however, they are very nice, calm and virtuous. Gulliver offers the Brobdingnagians the recipe for gunpowder. However, once they heard what it is and what it is used for, they turn the offer down and never want to hear about this evil thing never again. They do have an army but it is more to insure the peace and it certainly does not need weapons. This world learns us that we cannot judge a book by its cover. In comparison to the giants, we find out that Gulliver is very proud and superficial. Nevertheless, the Brobdingnagians are not perfect. They still argue and try to gain profit out of everything. Gulliver saw the Lilliputians as little men, but the Brobdingnagians do not see Gulliver as a little man. He is seen as a toy, and so is he treated. However, they do not do that out of bad will, but for amusement.
Those are the only two worlds present in the latest version of the movie Gulliver’s Travels, released in 2010, whereas in the book there are two more worlds to discover. In the movie, half of the storyline of the written work is omitted, which results in the fact that we cannot see the process Gulliver goes through and the effect the two other worlds have on his character.
In the book however, as mentioned above, there are two more parts, with two additional worlds Gulliver will discover. The first one is Laputa. It is a floating island, where music and mathematics are very important and very developed. As we said in class, Laputa is the composition of "la" and “puta”, when translated into Spanish is “the whore". This world stands for theoretical wisdom and science, but which has never been tested, experimented or applied, so without practical results. With this part Jonathan Swift criticizes the rational ideas of the Enlightenment and the bureaucracy. He portrays the Laputans as wise but asocial people, or as autistic rational people.
The last world Gulliver discovers is the land of the Houyhnhnms. They are a race of horses, whom are very reasonable, peaceful, rational and serene. They live in a perfect society, without lies, and what is more, they do not even have a word to express the concept of evil, which makes them pure of heart. Swift's definition of the Houyhnhnms is “perfection of nature” (Swift, 1726), however he never said that they represent the perfection of human nature. They may be related to mankind, but they are definitely not the same. The Houyhnhnms are very ignorant and innocent, for example, they do not understand the concept of lying or the need for it. They seem harmonious and happy, however, they are quite boring and absolutely not vigorous. This is a plausible explanation to why Swift presented them as horses and not as humans, because they should not be seen as ideal creatures.
After every journey Gulliver returns home to England, to his wife and family. However, not a lot of details are given about England, it is just mentioned as the beginning of every story and neither does he speak a lot about his home on his journeys. It is conspicuous that Gulliver leaves England behind very easily, which means that he does not have a lot of reasons to stay for. Swift could have chosen to send Gulliver on one long trip from world to world, but he did not do that. The result is that England is constantly in the picture. When the fourth journey ends, Gulliver returns home and then more details are given. In the end Gulliver turns mad and starts confusing the horses and the other tribes with the English, as a result of which we may start thinking that all the tribes he met are just a reflection of the different types of English people and that, through his journeys, Gulliver is now able to understand the various aspects of human nature more.
In conclusion I would like to say that the movie Gulliver's Travels from 2010 is not worth it to be associated with Jonathan Swift’s masterpiece. It shares the same title, but it is very loosely based on the written work and they did not adapt it properly. My search for the other movie, the one from 1996, will go on and after doing the research for this paper I will definitely read the book. In my opinion it is extraordinary how Jonathan Swift wrote Gulliver’s Travels for that specific time, and how it still can be related to today´s society.
References
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