Gulliver's Travels- The Movie

After watching Gulliver’s Travels in class, I would say I prefer the book over the movie. The movie wasn’t terrible, but it came off a little cheesy. My mental depiction of Gulliver was much different than his portrayal in the movie. I imagined him more as more composed from what I read in the book. However, in the movie he seemed scatter-brained and came off as kind of an insane character. I think that was the main difference between the movie and the book. They showed Gulliver on his travels and would show Gulliver at the present time either telling his stories to others or show him locked up.

It was also weird to see so much of Gulliver’s family in the movie. In the book Gulliver’s family was rarely mentioned, but they played a significant role in the movie. His family thought he had gone mad and Mr. Bates seemed to be a replacement of Gulliver. The relationship between Gulliver and his wife was also much stronger in the movie than in the book. In the book, their relationship was not talked about often. But as seen in the movie, they really missed each other and Gulliver was even desperate to see his wife.

Overall I would say the book is much better than the movie. Hopefully Jack Black’s version will do more justice to Gulliver.

The "Noble Savage"

The passage I chose this week came from the debate of whether or not Gulliver could stay among the Houyhnhnms. It’s starts with the last sentence on page 156 and continues into the entire first paragraph on page 157.

I’m currently in an Intro to American Indian & Native Studies class and I saw many parallels between what I read in the last section of the book and their relations with the English. In this quote, Gulliver’s master talks about his transformation in Houyhnhnm; he essentially describes a “noble savage”. He said Gulliver was rid of his dispositions as far as his inferior nature would allow. This situation is much similar to when the English arrived in America. They saw the natives as naturally inferior, incapable of change. They categorized the Indians just like the distinction of “Yahoos” and Gulliver. There were “savages” and “noble savages”. The “noble savages” were obedient and even showed some interest in learning their culture and religion. However, just like what happened to Gulliver, they weren’t accepted into the European culture. The irony here is the role reversal with the Houyhnhnms. The horses seem like the American Indian culture, they are very in tune with nature and they are peaceful creatures. However, unlike the natives of America, the Houyhnhnms are in charge. This leaves the English to be the barbarians. Yet, I believe this is how they should be truly described. Their ways of dealing with the natives were extremely barbaric and it makes sense why Gulliver detests the Yahoo culture after his many voyages.

Gulliver's Boastfulness

For this week’s significant passage, I’ve chosen something that highlights Gulliver’s character. In class on Tuesday we talked about the many accounts of Gulliver’s boastfulness, this passage eludes to that particular idea. The passage is paragraph one of Chapter IV on page 162.

In this paragraph, Gulliver talks about how he wants to leave Laputa. He claims that he wasn’t given enough attention. He was upset when they weren’t vastly interested in his journeys, but rather his knowledge of math and science. This adds to Gulliver’s conceited character; just because they weren’t infatuated with him like those in Brobdingnag he got upset. With each journey, I believe Gulliver’s head is getting bigger and bigger. It’s almost to the point that when he arrives to a new location he expects to be worshiped or in high regard among the people. You can see this increasing throughout his travels. In Lilliput he wasn’t boastful. However as his time passed in Brobdingnag, his head got much bigger. An example is when he tried to jump over cow dung in the road. His arrogance peaks at Laputa when he and his travels aren’t marveled at and he gets extremely upset. It’ll be interesting to see if this trend continues.

Role Reversal

The significant passage I chose for this week came from Gulliver’s travels to Brobdingnag. It occurred when Gulliver was found by the Farmer-Giant, “For I apprehended every Moment that he would dash me against the Ground, as we usually do any little harmful Animal which we have a mind to destroy.” (p. 83)

I chose this passage because there is a total role reversal upon this point in the story. We talked a lot about perspectives in class on Tuesday and this is a complete 180 for Gulliver. I found the passage amusing because Gulliver had the exact same thoughts when the Lilliputians were crawling on his body. At that point in his journey, Gulliver held some control, but was still a “prisoner” in some respects. He could easily squash the Lilliputians with a single finger. However, on Brobdingnag, Gulliver is out of luck. He is now in the Lilliputian’s position, an ant compared to this huge monster. He even wished how he could be back in Liliput, where he had some control over his life. Perhaps he can now fully understand why the Lilliputians had tied him up, they were extremely fearful. Now he lies in the hands of Giants, and is still a prisoner. The perspective has totally changed.