Author Date

2020-08-03

Degree Name

Department

English

College

Humanities

Defense Date

2020-07-29

Publication Date

2020-08-03

First Faculty Advisor

Spencer Hyde

First Faculty Reader

Stephen Tuttle

Honors Coordinator

John Talbot

Keywords

Creative, Imaginary Space, Adaptation Theory, Film and Literature

Abstract

A foundational premise of adaptation theory is that novels, films, theater, and any other storytelling medium can tell the same story but must do so differently. That is, each medium has its own distinct “language” with varying strengths and weaknesses inherent to its form. However, adaptation theorists have recently started pushing back on the idea that a film “can’t” do the same things as a novel, for example, arguing instead that the language of film and literature is more a result of “habits that are grounded in the history of fashion, taste, and analysis rather than in any specific technical properties of novels and films” (Leitch 152). The idea is basically that an adaptation is different from a transcription, and consequently films and novels can do anything that novels and films can do. Be that as it may, even the differentiation of the words “adaptation” and “transcription” postulates that there is at least some basic formal difference between novels and film, however small. Because literature is read, as opposed to seen, action and characterization exist principally in the reader’s mind. Moreover, because everyone’s experience with language and certain words is different, each reader’s experience will be similarly unique. The first three chapters of my novel, Pickle Green, take advantage of iv this by characterizing each of the three protagonists in distinct and indispensably literary ways, meaning that the methods exist primarily on the page and in the reader’s mind, thus creating a unique relationship between character and reader