Gulliver essays

Gulliver essays The screen adaptation of Jonathan Swifts novel, Gullivers Travels, tells of what happened to Dr. Lemuel Gulliver, portrayed by Ted Danson, nine years after he set sail from England and returns home bedraggled and disoriented. His faithful wife, portrayed by Mary Steenburgen, is delighted to see him, but also troubled, for in Gulliver's absence the conniving Dr. Bates, portrayed by James Fox, has taken over Gulliver's home and practice and is also trying to force Gulliver's wife to marry him. During his recovery, Gulliver raves and acts out his fantastic adventures at sea wherein he encountered the diminutive but contentious Lilliputians, the gigantic Brobdingnag's and their egalitarian society, the Laputas, who live upon a flying island, and the Houyhnhnm land, intelligent talking horses living in a land populated by wild humans called yahoos. Scenes of his adventures are deftly interspersed with Gulliver's present predicament in which Dr. Bates, wanting Lemuel's wife and son, has pl aced the traveler in Bethlehem, London's famous insane asylum where he awaits a hearing to determine his sanity. During this trial, the doctors judging him believe him to be insane and question his stories as he states that a race of horses was superior over that of mans. Only when Gulliver's young son, Tom, shows up with proof of the existence of Lilliput do they believe him and Gulliver is then released. At first I was a little confused at the way the movie was unfolding because the scenes were shifting to the shipwreck of Gullivers boat and his voyage to Lilliput to that of his familys discovery of his return home in the stables. I then realized that the story was a flashback as Lemuel recounts his story to his son, his wife and the doctors holding him in the insane asylum. I was also a little confused with the storyline itself since I know that in the novel, Gulliver returns home after each voyage to these unknown lands...