FREE ESSAY ON GULLIVER'S TRAVELS: COMPARISON BETWEEN BOOK AND MOVIE

GULLIVER'S TRAVELS: COMPARISON BETWEEN BOOK AND MOVIE

It is common in today's media-driven society to reach into the past for inspiration and
ideas. A trend has developed where original works are transformed into other mediums. For
example: books are turned into movies and/or plays, movies are turned into weekly
sitcoms, and cartoons will spawn empires (Disney). These things happen so often that an
audience rarely stops to question the level of authenticity that remains after these
conversions. Perhaps it is only when a project is not well received that people begin to
think of the difficulties involved with changing a work's genre. Using Gulliver's Travels
as an example, discrepancies and additions in the movie can be contrasted with Jonathan
Swift's original text.
It can be assumed that one of the biggest challenges in making a movie from a book lies
in the time constraints that movies have, especially those that are intended for TV, as
was Gulliver's Travels. Swift talks about Gulliver's time in Laputa for almost forty
pages, where as the movie only spends a small portion of its three hours focusing on this
kingdom. One of the largest additions to Swift's tale occurs during the movie's portrayal
of this third part of the book. At the start of Chapter V, Gulliver travels to the
Academy of Lagado so that he may examine and learn more about the society. He properly
describes to the reader their inventions, experiments, and the scientists. In the movie,
however, Gulliver goes to the Academy in a frantic search for someone who has heard of
England. His interest is clearly not in the happenings of the building; rather he is
there for purely selfish reasons. 
During this search, Gulliver accosts a man who instructs him to go to the Room of Answers
to find out how to get back to England. After going into various other rooms, Gulliver
finally stumbles upon a door that is barred with planks of wood. Cobwebs and dust obscure
the sign at first, but Gulliver breaks down the barrier and wipes the sign to reveal that
he has found the Room of Answers. He enters the room and asks if the man there can tell
him the way back to England. The man turns around and Gulliver is looking at an exact
replica of himself. This second Gulliver states You know the way home, but you'll never
find it because deep in you heart, you don't want to to which the original Gulliver
replies That's not true! 
The scene described above appears to be quite critical to the plot development in the
movie. However, this appears nowhere in the original text. The viewer must ask
him/herself why this was added and the consequences of the change. 
The movie version of this story portrays Gulliver as a travel that has been gone for
eight consecutive years and had been searching for his way home the entire time. He
merely falls into unfortunate circumstances that prevent this return. In the book,
however, it is less clear that Gulliver desires to be home at all. He very rarely speaks
of his family and seems to have little emotion at being reunited with them after each
journey or when he leaves them again. The movie's alternate portrayal of Gulliver seems
incongruent with the added scene. Instead, this extra scene would appear to make more
sense if the character of Gulliver was depicted as he was in the book. Gulliver's
apparent true self is speaking to the character in the book, not the movie. 
It appears as though this scene was added to depict an inner struggle that Gulliver is
having. He purports to want to go home, but yet hates the society that he supposedly
desires to rejoin. This is a challenging depiction, since much of Gulliver/Swift's
cutting satire about English society is lost (perhaps purposely) in the transformation
into a movie. The television audience (assuming they haven't read the book) is then left
to wonder why, if Gulliver knows how to get home, he does not. They are not given the
opportunity to experience the satire that Swift uses to call English society into
question and are, therefore, not able to realize the authentic character of Gulliver.
To contrast one medium to another is quite challenging. What works well for authors and
readers in print will probably need to be modified in television. The television movie of
Gulliver's Travels is no exception. It is useful however, to compare the two versions and
identify and analyze the differences between them because the changes are simply one
person's interpretation of a story.