\u3cem\u3eGulliver’s Travels\u3c/em\u3e to the Screen, Giant and Tiny

Gulliver\u27s Travels, by Jonathan Swift, has captured readers\u27 imaginations for almost three hundred years, spawning countless adaptations over several different mediums. As different means of communicating and transforming art have been invented, these adaptations have grown to fill the new mediums and make use of the various possibilities each form has created. Film in particular has created an enormous opportunity to re-imagine Gulliver\u27s Travels, since it can directly show the audience the fictional foreign locations in which Gulliver finds himself. In this study, I examine seven screen adaptations of Swift\u27s novel to determine what our current culture views as the core of the work, or what we see as the important pieces to pass on to current and future audiences. The seven chosen adaptations were selected based on how well they have survived over the last century; adaptations which are no longer available for commercial purchase and/or viewing were excluded from the study. I have also only included works which maintain a resemblance to the original story in structure, even if merely loosely, and have excluded works which bear only a thematic tie; I based my choices on the works which make an overt claim to be interpretations of the original text. This study examines only the works which seek to directly represent the original novel. By looking at Swift\u27s work through the lens of adaptation, this study will show how Swift\u27s work is currently perceived, and examines what that may mean for the future of Swift\u27s legacy. As cultural views and connotations of language have changed, the directors of the adaptations have used different means to achieve sometimes similar, sometimes different messages. Gulliver\u27s Travels was originally a satiric work that addressed social problems of eighteenth-century England. Popular views on society have changed, however, as have the politicians holding office. Certain events in Gulliver\u27s Travels, such as the reading of Gulliver\u27s offences in Lilliput, no longer have nearly the same relevance. Therefore, it is important to examine how the directors address these changes to determine what will retain relevance over time