Gulliver's Travels 1996 Film Review

Gulliver's Travels (1996) is a film based on a satirical view of the state of European

government, and of petty differences between religions by Jonathan Swift. Jonathan Swift was

born on November 30, 1667 in Dublin, Ireland, the son of Protestant Anglo-Irish parents: his

ancestors had been Royalists, and all his life he would be a High-Churchman. Between 1696 and

1699 Swift composed most of his first great work, A Tale of a Tub, a prose satire on the religious

extremes represented by Roman Catholicism and Calvinism, and in 1697 he wrote The Battle of

the Books, a satire defending Temple's conservative but besieged position in the contemporary

literary controversy as to whether the works of the "Ancients" -- the great authors of classical

antiquity -- were to be preferred to those of the "Moderns."

Within the film, there are many connections with regards to European history in the 18th

century. Also, there are many other examples of attributes from The Enlightenment. Reason was

primarily used to evaluate many of the problems that were apparent during this period of time.

This was found within the film on numerous occasions, primarily Lemuel's "medical

examination". His stories about the many lands, initially deemed "insane", portrayed the English

as a group of individuals. Unknowing to him, Lemuel provided a satirical view of what his

homeland really was.

Each of the four worlds that Lemuel visited on his journey was significantly different

from both his world, and the other worlds. All of Lemuel's experiences led himself to question

the customs and values he had so long been subjected too; and at one point disassociates himself

from the human race completely. The island of Lilliput is where Lemuel finds himself at first.

Lemuel was being washed on the shore and immediately tied down by the inhabitants of the

island, known as the Lilliputs. At once he is considered to be an enemy and is captured by the

residents of the island. Despite towering over the Lilliputs, the army of the island thought about

whether they should attack Lemuel or not. Lemuel's altercation with the Lilliputs can be seen as

an example of how the majority of the monarchs in Europe in the 18th century acted upon seeing

an individual differently to them. In this case the Little Enders and the Big Enders in the film.

This relationship can be viewed as portrayals of the English