History Literature / GulliversTravels

''Gulliver's Travels'' has [[TheFilmOfTheBook been filmed]] several times, but most of the adaptations omit the last two voyages. Often, a {{bowdlerise}}d version of the voyage is printed as a children's book. Go [[WesternAnimation/GulliversTravels here]] for the [[UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfAnimation 1939]] animated film version, and [[Film/GulliversTravels2010 here]] for the 2010 film starring Jack Black. In 1968 Creator/HannaBarbera produced a loosely-inspired animated adaptation ''The Adventures of Gulliver'' about teenaged Gary Gulliver.

There also a TV mini-series starring Creator/TedDanson and Creator/MarySteenburgen. In this version Dr. Gulliver has returned to his family from a long absence. The action shifts back and forth between flashbacks of his travels and the present where he is telling the story of his travels and has been committed to an asylum. It is notable for being one of the very few adaptations to feature all four voyages, and is considered the closest adaptation to the book despite taking several liberties, such as Gulliver not returning home between each part.

And in 2011 Creator/TheBBC produced a SettingUpdate for Radio 4 called ''Brian Gulliver's Travels'', which abandoned the original locations entirely in favour of ones that made satirical points about ''modern'' Britain. Interestingly, it duplicates the FramingStory above of Gulliver describing his stories from a mental institution.

* PlanetOfHats: All the countries Gulliver visits tend to embody a single mind-set or habit of thought, in order to satirise it.
** In Lilliput, everyone is a petty-minded, minuscule war-monger who believes in cracking boiled eggs on the little end. Blefuscu is the same, except they believe eggs should be cracked on the ''big'' end.

** In Houyhnhnm-Land, all Houyhnhnms are [[IntellectualAnimal Intellectual Animals]] (even the servant race), and the Yahoos are AlwaysChaoticEvil ([[FieryRedhead redheads even more so]]).

* RecursiveReality: The first part features Gulliver going to an island of tiny people and the second part features him going to an island of giant people just as bigger than him in proportion as he was from the Lilliputians.

** Swift's description of the Conversational Machine in the third book hints that it is actually a complex cryptogram, which some people since claim they have cracked. This was apparently the reason Swift was so upset when a few letters in his made up words were altered for the original printing.

* ToiletHumor: In addition to all the high-minded satire, the book has plenty of this as well, Gulliver putting out the Lilliputian castle fire by pissing on it, [[FanDisservice the lengthy descriptions of]] [[GagBoobs Brobdingnagian breasts]], Gulliver getting covered in Yahoo feces; Swift likely would have gotten along well with Creator/TreyParkerAndMattStone.

* AdaptationalVillainy: Dr Bates gets only a cursorial mention in the book; in the mini-series he has Gulliver committed to an insane asylum so that he can marry Gulliver's wife.

* NoPronounciationGuide: The Houyhnhnm. The most common guess is "HWIN-im".

%%* BlackHumor: Along with BlackComedy, a specialty of Swift's.

* CannotTellALie: Gulliver prides himself on his honesty, especially in the face of "dishonest" traveler's tales.

* ColonyDrop: A proto-example; the rulers of Laputa quash resistance in rebellious surface cities by landing their FloatingContinent on top of them. Actually [[DeconstructedTrope deconstructed,]] since such measures are almost never used, because they are able to seriously harm or even destroy Laputa; in one case, Laputians had to agree with demands of a rebellious city whose inhabitants turned out to have a way of turning the landing into a crash.

** When the Empress's apartment is on fire, Gulliver saves her [[ToiletHumor by urinating on it.]] The Empress, in return, refuses to live there again.

* FloatingContinent: Laputa is probably the TropeMaker. It utilizes a giant magnet which pushes towards\against the earth depending on which pole is pointing downwards. Strangely enough, it's the only one of their inventions that works.
* ForScience:
** Seems to be the main motivation in the Academy of Lagado, whose half-baked ideas range from extracting sunbeams from cucumbers to [[BodyHorror turning a dog inside out]] to cure its diarrhea.
** Plants use sunlight to split carbon from carbon dioxide, and excrete the dioxide (02, aka breathable oxygen). Applying heat catalyzes the release of the stored solar energy as light and heat, leaving the carbon as ash. So, technically, even if it's hard to ignite, you ''can'' extract sunbeams from cucumbers.

* GulliverTieDown: The TropeNamer.

%%* IntellectualAnimal: The Houyhnhnms again.

* ItRunsOnNonsensoleum: The inventions in the academy of Balnibarbi are so ridiculous they fall under this category, satirizing the "scientific advancements" in Swift's time.
* KnowNothingKnowItAll: The Laputans from ''Literature/GulliversTravels'' are [[PlanetOfHats an entire flying country of]] Know-Nothing-Know-It-Alls. They devote their entire lives to math, music, philosophy, astronomy, and politics, failing at each one spectacularly.

%%* PlanetOfHats: All the countries Gulliver visits:
%%** In Lilliput, everyone is a minuscule war-monger that believes in cracking boiled eggs on the little-end. Blefuscu is the same, except they believe eggs should be cracked on the ''big''-end.
%%** In Brobdingnag, everyone is a giant, as well as poor and judgmental.
%%** In Laputa, everyone is a KnowNothingKnowItAll; in Brobdingnag everyone is a crackpot inventor; and in Glubdubdrib everyone is a necromancer.
%%** In Houyhnhnm-Land, all Houyhnhnms are [[IntellectualAnimal Intellectual Animals]] (even the servant race), and the Yahoos are AlwaysChaoticEvil ([[FieryRedhead redheads even more so]]).

* RecursiveReality: The first part features Gulliver going to an island of tiny people and the second part features him going to an island of giant people just as bigger than him as he was from the Lilliputians.

* {{Satire}}: Considered by many people the greatest work of Juvenalian satire in the English language.

* DownerEnding: Gulliver loses hope with the human race. He even hates his own family.

* ColonyDrop: A proto-example; the rulers of Laputa quash resistance in rebellious surface cities by landing their FloatingContinent on top of them.
** Actually [[DeconstructedTrope deconstructed,]] since such measures are almost never used, because they are able to seriously harm or even destroy Laputa; in one case, Laputians had to agree with demands of a rebellious city whose inhabitants turned out to have a way of turning the landing into a crash.

* ForScience: Seems to be the main motivation in the Academy of Lagado, whose half-baked ideas range from extracting sunbeams from cucumbers to [[BodyHorror turning a dog inside out]] to cure its diarrhea.

* YouAreACreditToYourRace: Gulliver considers the Portuguese captain who rescued him as this, as well as an English queen Swift was fond of.

* CompositeCharacter: All of Gulliver's children are replaced a single son named Tom.

* PlayingGertrude: Creator/PeterOToole plays the Emperor, whose sons are played by John Standing and Edward Fox. He was only slightly older than them both.

* OutsideContextProblem: Gulliver, in Lilliput and Houyhnhnm-Land. Not so much in Brobdingnag (they had dwarves there,

* YouHaveToBelieveMe: Gulliver tries to convince people his experiences were real, but comes off quite deranged since they're incredibly bizarre and he suffers from very frequent traumatic flashbacks which make him seem like he's just hallucinating it all.

* YouHaveToBelieveMe: Gulliver tries to convince people his experiences were real, but comes off quite deranged since they're incredibly bizarre and he suffers from very frequent traumatic flashbacks which make him seem like he's just imagining it all.

* YouHaveToBelieveMe: Gulliver tries to convince people his experiences were real, but comes off quite deranged since they're incredibly bizarre and he suffers from very frequent traumatic flashbacks which make him seem like he's hallucinating.

* ScienceIsBad: Balnibarbi. Mostly because none of their inventions are practical or even make sense and end just ruining the environment.

* PlayingGertrude: Creator/PeterOToole plays the Emperor, whose sons are played by John Standing and Edward Fox. He was only slightly older than them both.

* HappilyMarried: Gulliver and his wife Mary, as opposed to the novel.

* HufflepuffHouse: To anyone only familiar with adaptations or abridgements, the countries Gulliver visits beyond Liliput are this, which is somewhat odd, given that the book is called ''Gulliver's '''Travels'''''.

* GoingNative: By the end of his journey, Gulliver considers the Houyhnhnms superior and starts calling himself a Yahoo.

* AdaptationalVillainy: Dr Bates gets only a cursorial mention in the book; in the mini-series he has Gulliver committed to an insane asylum so that he can marry Gulliver's wife.

** In Brobdingnag, Gulliver mentions many women liked undressing him and undressing in front of him, as well as doing other things which he hardly describes, but found unpleasant due to CloseUpGrossUp.