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INTRODUCTION

Literature reflects society in all its aspects; it is generally called the mirror of the society.

Literature covers the major genres of poetry, drama and novel. Like literature cinema too is an

art form which not only reflects the society it is set in but also acts as a reflector to that society.

In the words of Linda Costanzo Cahir:

Like a work of literature, a film is the result of the process of

composition, the meaning of which is “to make by putting

together.” Literature and film composition, unlike a painting, for

example, both comprise a series of constantly changing images.

The compositional structure of both is created from the splicing

together of a sequence of smaller units: a paragraph (or stanza) in

literature and a shot in film. (45)

Some films leave their mark on society and society, in turn reacts to these films in a variety

of ways. Film is considered to be an important art form and a source of popular entertainment.

The origin of the name „film‟ comes from the fact that photographic film has historically been

the primary motion pictures. A common name for film in the United States is movie, while in

Europe the term film is generally preferred. Additional terms for the field generally include the

big screen, silver screen, cinema, photoplay, moving picture and flick.

There are some basic features related to literature and some basic terms related to cinema/film,

which helps us to understand both the art forms. As in literature the story/plot is an important

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aspect. In films story refers to all the audience infers about the events that occur in the diegesis

on the basis of what they are shown by the plot, the events that are directly presented in the film.

The order, duration, and setting of those events, as well as the relation between them all

constitute elements of the plot. In literature we see the work of art with the help of plot as a

whole, in films through mise-en-scene, which means all the things that are “put in the scene” the

setting, the décor, the lighting, the costumes, the performance etc.

In both film and novel story, plot, setting, theme and characters are common but

methodology of both the medium is distinct. The most important distinction between the novel

and cinema, literature and film arises from the fact that the novel is a verbal medium whereas the

film is essentially visual, but visualization is significant where both mediums are concerned. This

brings a similarity between the two arts. Visualization of a writer works out more as compared to

the visualization of a film, and visualization in the novels has made it possible to turn the novels

into movies.

In fiction the distinction between the narrator and the reader is clear. In the films, however

the viewer identifies himself with the lens and this tends to fuse with the narrator. The narration

differs in both the art forms, which effects the point of view as the camera acts as an omniscient

narrator in the film and audience is directly involved in the plot, where as in novel the reader has

to view the plot through the narrator. In Understanding Movies Louis G. Giannetti writes:

In literature the first-person and the omniscient voice are mutually

exclusive for if a first person character tells us his own thoughts

directly, he can‟t also tell us-with certainty- the thoughts of other.

But in movies, the combination of first-person and omniscient

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narration is common. Each time the director moves his camera-either

within a shot or between shots-we are offered a new point-of-view

from which to evaluate the scene. (370)

With the ground breaking invention of film in the later-nineteenth century a new and

exciting medium took the audiences by storm. Almost simultaneously with the emergence of

film, the phenomenon of adaptations came into being. Right from the early days on, filmmakers

were constantly in search of stories and narratives they could transfer to the new medium, which

eventually resulted in the production of the first film adaptations at the end of the nineteenth

century.

Film adaptation has become a prominent preoccupation of modern academics. Adaptation

is like converting something from one medium to another. In the printed medium the writer is

ever present, and is constantly communicating with the reader, as the narrator. In the audio visual

medium the director does not have the luxury of narrative and has to create the impact through

dialogues and acting with the help of the camera.

Adaptation is not a new phenomenon at all; intertextual studies show that a story always

seems to derive from other stories. Even ancient Greek playwrights, like Sophocles and

Euripides, based their plays in most cases on myths and stories that had already been told, but

adaptation proper is a relatively modern feature. When compared with the approximately five

hundred years history of printing-press culture, two hundred years history of film seems

remarkably brief. Despite the relative newness of the technology of cinema, moving images have

quickly become the central conveyors of narrative and have a greater influence as compared to

other art forms.

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The popularity of cinema not withstanding literature has its own value and significance

which has made cinema imitate it right from its birth. It is the cinematic representation of

literature or literary genres which has shown the way for film adaptation, as cinematic qualities

of the novels helped in the development of the tradition of film adaptation. The literary text

provides a vein of raw material which is already tested, stories which work and are popular, as

well as offering the respectability conferred by the notion of literature itself. Cinema is

flourishing on the basis of literature which has given box office hits to the film industry.

Adaptation of novels into film began almost immediately after the development of film.

Georges Melies film A Trip to the Moon, loosely based on Jules Verne work, appeared in 1902.

Vitagraph made one-reel adaptations of scenes from Shakespeare and Dante for play in

nickelodon as early as 1908. In Europe at the same time, feature length of Dickens and Goethe

were made. Infact the advent of the feature-length film-the narrative-as the primary mode of film

making may owe much to the adaptation of books to film.

Before films, novels were often adapted for the theatre; however, with the introduction of

film and television, adaptations were available to greater numbers therefore attracting more

critical attention. George Bluestone was one of the pioneer theorists in the field of film

adaptations and the first one to give a book-length treatise on the subject. His seminal works

Novels into Film is generally considered a corner stone in adaptation theory. Although the

treatise dates back to 1957, many of the concepts Bluestone postulates are still widely

acknowledged and arguably set the ground for contemporary adaptation theory. Bluestone begins

by creating a dichotomy:

I have assumed, and attempted to demonstrate, that the two media

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are marked by such essentially different traits that they belong to

separate artistic genera. Although novels and films of a certain kind

do reveal a number of similarities…one finds the differentia more

startling. More important, one finds the differentia infinitely more

problematic to the filmmaker. These distinguishing traits follow

primarily from the fact that the novel is a linguistic medium, the film

essentially visual. (vi)

The consequential increasing popularity of film represented an immediate threat to the

superior position of literature, which Bluestone assumedly intended to evade by stating that

literature and film constitute two completely different things that are mutually incompatible, for

each medium “is characterized by unique and specific properties” (6). Although novel and film

seem to be quite similar at the surface, they are each a separate and unique medium, whose

respective specific nature gives rise to forms of artistic expression distinct from those in other

media. While giving shape to “the medium‟s conventions and setting limitations regarding the

possible forms of representation available in that medium” (Cardwell 44), which inevitably

renders the two media incompatible. Bluestone refers to this as the “fitful relationship between

novel and film: overtly compatible, secretly hostile” (2).

For the purpose of pointing out the hidden hostility between the two media, Bluestone

opens his 1957 argumentation with juxtaposing two citations of Joseph Conrad, the novelist, and

D.W. Griffith, the filmmaker. In the preface to Nigger of the Narcissus Joseph Conrad writes,

“My task which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to

make you feel- it is before all, to make you see” (Conrad, quoted in Bluestone 1). Conrad‟s

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statement is echoed in almost the exact same words by director D.W. Griffith nearly twenty

years later, “the task I‟m trying to achieve is above all to make you see” (Griffith, quoted in

Bluestone 1). The juxtaposition of these two statements, which are cited time and again in the

discourse of adaptation theory, serves Bluestone to point out the distinction between the two

different ways of seeing prevalent in literature and film, in that he continues arguing that despite

Conrad and Griffith basically follow the same intention, they are talking about two different

ways of „seeing’: while reading a novel stimulates the imagination of the reader and, in this way,

evokes an image in his mind, the „seeing‟ Griffith is referring to is of a different kind, namely

visual, i.e. directly through the stimulation of the eye. As Bluestone claims, “between the percept

of the visual image and the concept of the mental image lies the root difference between the two

media” (1).

The root discussion in film adaptation lies in the difference between „perception‟ and

„concept‟. It is how the concept of the novelist is perceived by the filmmaker, what is the degree

of difference between the perception and concept. In a successful adaptation the perception and

concept must have a higher degree of relation to each other. The novel makes use of low iconic

and highly symbolic objects to bring about a concept, while the film make use of highly iconic

and low symbolic object to draw upon a perception. As the two mediums are different in their

representation, in novel it is done by the story narrated by the narrator and in the film it is done

by camera so, a novel uses a story to create images whereas a film uses images to create a story.

As a reader/viewer it is important to note how a filmmaker captures the story and elements of the

book, expecting items to be changed or even deleted. Brian McFarlane in his book, Novels to

Film: An Introduction to the Theory of Adaptation has tried to provide specific concepts for

discussing the nature of the transformation process. Employing what he himself terms “a

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modified structuralist approach” (201), he distinguishes between transferable and non-

transferable elements. For example while a plot can usually be kept in the adaption, such devices

as „first-person narration‟ and „omniscient narration‟ do not have a direct equivalent in cinema.

All the elements of a narration in which it is presented through any medium belong to what

McFarlane calls “enunciation” to distinguish from the elements that are not medium-specific-

these being labeled “narrative”. McFarlane talks about two points of investigation, (a) In the

transposition process, just what it is possible to transfer or adapt from novel to film; and (b) what

key factors other than the source novel have exercised an influence on the film version of the

novel? (22).

One recurring theme is that even elements lending themselves to „transfer‟ from one

medium to other undergo a degree of change in the process. For McFarlane, successful transfer

means that “visual and aural signifiers have been found to produce by the verbal signifiers of the

novel” (82), and inevitably this touches upon matters of enunciation as well. As enunciation

means to state precisely and clearly the concepts as well as percept so all the elements of

narration which bring out the meaning of concept and percept fall under “enunciation”. Novel to

Film is a firm and convincing plea for a fair comparison between novel and the film based on it,

such a comparison forgoes vague references to the „faithfulness‟ of a film (or lack of it) to its

literary source, applying instead a number of well defined concepts with suitable flexibility to

novel/film pairs. In an approach to judge a successful transfer the reader-viewer must take the

following three elements into consideration. Separate the story- „basic structure of events‟ from

the plot, look at how the filmmaker transfer the cardinal functions from the novel to film and

look to see that the main characters function in the novel and the film are portrayed in the

same way, although plot can be adapted in a different way. Dudley Andrews says there are

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different modes of adaptations:

a) Borrowing: It is the most frequent mode for adaptation. Here the artist

employs- the material, idea or form of an earlier, generally successful

text. There is no question of replication of the original but instead the

audience is expected to enjoy basking in a certain preestablished

presence and to call up new or especially powerful aspects of a

cherished work.

b) Intersecting: In this the uniqueness of the original text is preserved to

such an extent that it is intentionally left unassimilated in adaption. An

adaptation in the intersecting mode tends to present the „otherness‟

and „distinctiveness‟ of the original text, thus initiating a dialectical

interplay of literary and cinematic forms.

c) Transformation: In this it is assumed that the task of adaptation is the

reproduction in cinema of something essential about an original text.

Transformation tends to be faithful to the literary text, at the same time

it does not mean that this kind of adaptation is artistically inferior to

the other two modes of adaptation.

Geoffrey Wagner also suggests three methods of adaptation.

1. Transposition, this has the least amount of alterations from novel to

film;

2. Commentary, which has a purposeful alteration of some sort: and

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3. Analogy, in which there is significant “departure” so that an entirely

different work is created. These methods are similar to Andrew‟s forms

though Wagner terms them differently. Linda Cahir also talked about

three modes of adaptation literal, traditional, and radical which

co-relates to the parameters of Andrews and Wagner.

The most discussed and controversial issue is the question of fidelity. Every adaptation was,

and always will be, at some point compared to its original in terms of its faithfulness. However,

it is not clear what it should be faithful to. According to Dudley Andrew, cinema is a

representation of our reception of the world around us, thus adaptation is based on an original

representation. The only difference is that “adaptation acknowledges its relation to the prior

representation” (29). To what represent--- to the reception of whom--- should the adaptation be

faithful to? That is a question that adaptation theorists have been trying to answer from the very

beginning of the film-literature discourse. Andrew presents two notions of fidelity, which are

often employed in adaptation criticism--- fidelity to the „letter‟ and to the „spirit‟ of the text (31).

Fidelity to the „letter‟ includes literary structure, which it is easy to transfer into a film, such as

“the characters and their interrelation; the geographical, sociological, and cultural information

providing the fiction‟s context; and the basic narrational aspects that determine the point of view

of the narrator” (Andrew 31-32). Fidelity to the „spirit‟ can be less easily represented, because it

includes “the original‟s tone, values, imagery, and rhythm” (Andrew 32). To analyze film

adaptations of Jane Austen‟s novels, Corrigan‟s determination of fidelity will operate:

(1) To what extent are the details of the settings and plot accurately

retained or recreated? (2) To what extent do the nuance and complexity

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of the characters survive the adaptation? (3) To what extent has a

different historical or cultural context altered the original? (5) To what

extent has the change in the material or mode of communication changed

the meaning of the work for a reader or viewer? (Corrigan 20)

The study of film adaptations is important as it clearly stimulates the interest for literature,

for reading. There are numerous examples of film adaptations causing a demand for the book

they are based on. Film adaptations of Jane Austen‟s novels is the best example but little known

novels have experienced a revival too. Virginia Woolf gained a considerably enlarged circle of

readers after the adaptation of Mrs. Dalloway, and Charles Dickens‟ Great Expectation was

filmed for the last time in 1998 and lots of people wanted, as usual, to read the book on which

the film based itself. Thus, the reading of the novel is stimulated by film adaptation. Andre Bazin

suggests that the novelists have been influenced not by the specific films made in their times but

by the idea of cinema. In his book “In Defense of Mixed Cinema” What is Cinema? Bazin says:

If we maintain that the cinema influences the novel then we must

suppose that it is a question of a potential image, existing

exclusively behind the magnifying glass of the critic and seen only

from where he sits. We would then be talking about the influence of

a non-existent cinema, an ideal cinema, a cinema that the novelist

would produce if he were a filmmaker, of an imaginary art that we

are still waiting. (63)

The other theory applied to this dissertation is post colonial theory. The theorists are

Raymond Williams, Edward Said and Homi Bhabha. Raymond Williams‟ Culture and Society,

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Edward Said‟s Orientalism and Homi Bhabha‟s The Location of Culture are discussed.

In Culture and Society, Raymond Williams offers a history of the idea of culture, as it

developed in England from the last decades of the eighteenth century through to the middle of

the twentieth century. In examining the works of various writers including Burke, Coleridge,

Carlyle, Mill, Matthew Arnold, Marx, William Morris, Oscar Wilde and T.S. Eliot, Williams

identifies a tradition of thinking about culture, which develops in response to the changing social

and economic conditions brought about by the growth of industrialism. The idea of culture, in

both its conservative and radical inflections, comes to represent an alternative set of values to

those embodied in the new kind of society that is emerging.

Culture thus takes on an oppositional role and becomes, to use Williams‟ phrase, a „court

of appeal‟, by which the dominant values of industrial capitalism are judged to be deficient.

These values are associated, amongst other things, with economic reductionism, mechanistic

modes of thinking, aggressive individualism and the destruction of community. For those writing

from an idealist perspective, such as Coleridge, Shelley and Arnold, culture possesses a

humanizing and transformative power: but, for Williams, acknowledging the decisive

contribution of Marx, culture cannot perform this role, unless accompanied by a fundamental

readjustment of economic relations. The one vital lesson which the nineteenth century had to

learn, he writes, was that “the basic economic organization could not be separated from its moral

and intellectual concerns” (Culture and Society 271).

Edward Said‟s Orientalism is one of the most influential texts of the twentieth century.

Spivak calls it a “source book” and Bhabha calls it as “inaugurating the post colonial life”. In

Said‟s own terms, the term Orientalism originally referred to the works of indologists such as Sir

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William Jones and H.H. Wilson who translated and complied the Indian literacy works, laws and

codes for the use by colonial administrators.

Orientalism is a devastating critique of how through the ages but particularly in the

nineteenth century Western texts have represented the East and more specifically the Islamic

Middle East. The East referred to as Orient. Using British and French, „scholarly works of

literature, political tracts, journalistic texts, travel books, religious and philological studies‟, Said

examines how these texts construct the Orient, through imaginative representation. Together all

these forms of Western writings form a Foucauldian discourse. Such a discourse is loose system

of statements. Such discourse always establishes the relationship of power. According to Said

such representation of East by West ultimately works within the framework of conscious and

determined effort at subordination. For Said, Orientalism is that western discourse about the

Orient, which has served the hegemonic purposes. Said borrowed this concept from Antonio

Gramsci, who thought of hegemony as domination by consent.

Orientalism then has traditionally served two purposes. First it has legitimatized the

Western expansion and imperialism in the eyes of Western Governments and their electorates.

Secondly, it has convinced the natives that Western culture represented Universal civilization.

The other classes accept that, Western culture could only benefit them. For instance, they believe

that it would elevate them, from the backward and superstitious conditions in which they still

lived and would make them participants in the most advanced civilization the world had ever

seen.

Said‟s book also draw our attention to the way in which discourse of Orientalism serves to

create the West as well as East. Both West and East form binary oppositions in which the two

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poles define each other. Orientalism attributes inferiority to the East and simultaneously serves

to construct the West superiority.

Thus for Said, the Western representation of the Orient has always been a damaging affair.

Even those Orientalist who are in sympathy with the Oriental people cannot overcome their

Eurocentric perspective and have unintentionally contributed to the Western domination.

The concept of „mimicry‟ by Homi Bhabha is also applied in this dissertation. The task

here is to explore the meaning of mimicry with relation to the study of post colonial criticism and

theory in Homi Bhabha‟s interpretation in his book The Location of Culture. According to

Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary, “Mimicry is the art of mimicking somebody/something”.

And to mimic is to copy somebody‟s voice, gestures etc. in order to amuse people. In words of

Bill Ashcroft:

When colonial discourse encourages the colonial subject to „mimic‟

the colonizer, by adopting the colonizer‟s cultural habits,

assumptions, institutions and values, the result is never a simple

reproduction of those traits. Rather, the result is a „blurred

copy‟ of the colonizers that can be quite threatening. (PCSKC 139)

Homi Bhabha‟s concept of mimicry is a strategy of colonial power/knowledge which has a

desired goal for the inhabitants of approval and changed outlooks in terms of inclusion and

exclusion. Inclusion aims the acceptance of “good natives” as the colonizers programmers and

exclusion puts the goal of disavowal and denouncing the majority „bad natives‟. Bhabha further

defines mimicry in the terms of ambivalence as similar and dissimilar. Similarity defines its

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resemblance to the masters, colonized subjects to be like masters and dissimilarity: “a difference

that is almost the same, but not quite” (86).

The other concept which is discussed in this dissertation is the concept of “hybridity” given

by Bhabha. This is the most influential of Bhabha‟s contribution to the post colonial theory.

While Said‟s Orientalism keeps the spheres of colonizers or colonized rather firmly apart,

Bhabha with his interest in their interaction sees important movements going both ways. The

product of such a relationship is what Homi Bhabha names a “hybrid cultural space” (The

Location of Culture 1). Shifting his focus from the noisy command of colonial authority and the

silent repression of native traditions, to the colonial hybrid, Bhabha argue that the cultural

interaction of colonizer or colonized leads to a fusion of cultural forms that from one perspective

confirms the power of the colonial presence but, on the other hand as a form of mimicry

simultaneously unsettles the narcissistic demands of colonial power. Hybridity intervenes in the

exercise of authority not merely to indicate the impossibility of its identity but to represent the

unpredictability of its presence.

Jane Austen, daughter of Rev. George and Cassandra Austen, was born on December 16th

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1775. Their second daughter and seventh child, Rev. Austen declared the intention of raising

Jane much as they had raised their previous six children. However both parents placed a high

value on lively, entertaining company, and this would make the Austen household the perfect

environment for Jane to develop her natural affinity for creative writing. From an early age, as

young as eleven or twelve, Jane displayed a natural gift for writing elaborate, surprisingly

skilled, highly amusing comedies and satires, to the enjoyment of her family and in particular her

older sister Cassandra. This love of writing combined with her love of reading and

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encouragement from her family, particularly her older brother James who filled the role of her

unofficial tutor, acted as the perfect beginning to Jane‟s road of published authorship.

Jane wrote the first of her six great novels in 1796 at the age of twenty-one, though it was

not published until 1813 in revised form. Pride and Prejudice, originally titled First Impressions,

was rejected by the publisher Cadell, and did not find its way into the world until seventeen years

later. Though most of her novels experienced major gaps between writing and printing, Jane

completed Northanger Abbey, Mansfield Park, Emma and Persuasion all between 1797 and

1816. In her novels we can find realistic elements. Her works revolve around rural England.

She represents the eighteenth century and nineteenth century realism in her works. Even Sir

Walter Scott, the leading novelist of his times praised Austen‟s realism. The plot of her novels

highlights the dependence of a woman on marriage to secure her social status as well as gain

economic security. Her novels brought her little personal fame as all her efforts remained

unknown to the public during her lifetime. But with the publication of A Memoir of Jane Austen

in 1869 by her nephew introduced her to a wider public and by the 1940s she became widely

accepted as a great English writer.

Austen had many admiring readers in the nineteenth century. Henry James, the well known

novelist referred to Austen several times with approval and on one occasion ranked her with

Shakespeare, Cervantes and Henry Fielding as among „the fine painters of life‟. Several

important critical studies have been done on Austen‟s novels and have become the focus of

academic study. The first important work was in 1911 an essay by Oxford Shakespearean scholar

A.C. Bradley, which is regarded as the starting point for the serious academic approach to Jane

Austen. In it, he established the grouping of Austen‟s „early‟ and „late‟ novels, which are still

used by scholars today. The second was R.W. Chapman‟s 1923 edition of Austen‟s collected

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works. Jane died at the age of forty-one, on December 17, 1817. Jane‟s death was a great loss to

the reading world. Over the course of a life that lasted only forty-one, through her astonishingly

complex writing, Jane Austen changed the face of the novel forever and gave the world

characters that remain alive to millions of readers today.

There is no escaping Jane Austen. As William F. Buckley, Jr. states that “one doesn‟t read

Jane Austen; one re-reads Jane Austen”. Though it has been nearly two hundred years since her

death, Austen and her works continues to capture the minds and hearts of readers worldwide.

Our fascination with her novels continues to grow, finding new expression in literature,

television and film each year. What makes this phenomenon so interesting is the reality that

Austen‟s novels are so firmly „dated‟-that is, so rigorously cemented and relevant to the age in

which they were written. Why do readers and viewers continue to find Austen‟s works so

relevant, given that it is so bound to this particular late eighteenth and early nineteenth century

period and its social and cultural structures and values? This question is best explained through

the examination of contemporary film that has so determinedly adapted her works over the past

fifteen years. While these films labour to interpret Austen‟s novels to film, at the same time they

communicate through various departures how our perspective, both culturally and about

Austen‟s work- and period of history has changed. Yet even in these departures, the films

resonate dynamically with values which, over the course of two hundred years, remain

unchanged. Despite the numerous and apparent shifts in culture, values and structures that have

occurred in our world over the past two centuries, the core of what we value- what we hold to be

most true and important remains timeless.

The boom of film or television adaptations of Jane Austen‟s novels makes one wonder why

the turn- of- the- nineteenth century writer is still so popular today. Sue Parrill answers the

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question by listing a few reasons like the novels being “good stories” (3), also they are highbrow,

therefore valuable literature and their adaptations are likely to win important awards. “Name

recognition is another selling point” (3) in Sue Parrill‟s view, furthermore, production is

relatively easy since the novels are in the public domain and they do not require “expensive

special effects” (3). In words of Suzanne R. Pucci:

Austen adaptations have been popular among filmmaker and

moviegoers, in great part because Austen‟s novels provide

scenarios addressing contemporary post feminist concerns. With

their complex tales of romance, their diverse cast of male and

female characters, they offer scripts that can be used to capture

the anxieties, fantasies, and contradictions many men and women

experience in the domain of gender and gender relations. (229)

Although adapting any of Jane Austen‟s novels may seem easy, filmmakers may not find

the task effortless. The difficulty of adapting Austen‟s novels to film is first and foremost due to

the place she holds in the literary canon. Audiences are believed to have higher expectations as

to fidelity in Austen‟s novels because she is a classic. In Linda Hutcheon‟s wording film

adaptation theorists believe that “audiences are more demanding of fidelity when dealing with

classics” (29).

Despite the high expectations of the audiences many filmmakers choose to adapt her novels

to film. Adaptation theorists account this to various reasons ranging from the purely commercial

to intellectual ones. In her book, A Theory of Adaptation, Linda Hutcheon mentions some

reasons, among which the first is the “economic lure” (86). Adaptation of classics proves to be

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an extremely profitable business since it can be used in schools and university courses as well so

they target a larger audience than adaptations of less widely known books. Another reason

mentioned is the “cultural capital” (91). Adapting Shakespeare, Austen, Dickens or any other

great classics, increases one‟s reputation. Brian McFarlane mentions that the previous success of

the novel to be adapted also lures filmmakers. If a novel has been successful, as is the case of

Pride and Prejudice, then its adaptation is likely to be successful as well. As a further reason to

adapt, both theorists mention what Hutcheon terms as the “double pleasure of the palimpsest”

(116). Upon seeing the film one feels pleasure of having read the novel, thus being familiar with

the story. Familiarity with story and curiosity of seeing how someone else imagines what the

reader/viewer has imagined may be part of this pleasure.

It is beyond any doubt that Jane Austen represents one of the most popular respected and

beloved authors in the English language. Her novels are literary classics that have been translated

into numerous languages and are cherished by all generations throughout the world. According

to Linda Troost:

The qualities that make Austen‟s novels appealing material for

the large and small screen include values that, if not immutable,

have been continually appreciated over the last two hundred years.

Austen‟s characters strike a perfect balance between recognizable

types and individuals with complex motivations and idiosyncratic

personalities. Readers and viewers identify with them and yet

cannot fully predict their behaviour. (3)

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For decades, she has been an unfailing inspiration for filmmakers, who, without restrain continue

to adapt her books for the silver screen. IMDb records that between 1900 to 1975, there were

more than sixty radio, television and stage productions of Austen‟s novels. The first film

adaptation was made in 1940s. Since then, almost another forty movies and television versions

were made. Some of them more faithful to the original, some of them less, some of them highly

successful and some of them under the fire of critics, some of them will be remembered forever;

some of them are easily forgotten. But before we look closer at the possible reason for success of

Jane Austen‟s work, we must understand that film adaptations of literary classic novels, have

become in recent years increasingly popular with the audience. Timothy Corrigan mentions

three possible reasons for such a return:

(1) a reaction against contemporary filmmaking trends to diminish

traditional plot and character; (2) a conservative or at least

therapeutic turn from cultural complexity; and (3) a reflection of

contemporary film audiences and their increasing concern with

manner over matter. (72)

Austen‟s novels have been remarkably sought after during the 1990s. Before that, until the 90s

when a big boom of adaptations of her work was monitored, the 1940 feature film was the only

theatrical release. Such Austen‟s revival Christine Geraghty explains as a “combination of the

classic adaptation‟s traditional emphasis on costume, landscape, and a familiar plot with a new

exploration of a more modern sensibility” (33). If the success of an adaptation is really massive,

it may clearly increase the general demand for the book. As Brian McFarlane points out, “the

notion of a potentially lucrative „property‟ has clearly been at least one major influence in the

filming of novels” (7). For his statement, it can be understood that although it is not a rule,

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movies might raise an interest in public, who may be attracted to buy and subsequently read the

book. Although authors like Jane Austen, whose novels have never been out of print since they

were first published, do not actually need to support their readership circle, this subject leads us

to a positive aspect about making film adaptations. It definitely contributes to the fact that the

author does not disappear, as Sue Parrill observes, “it keeps a novelist alive” (8). Teachers have

also testified that the films provide „semi-literate‟ students a bridge to the novel. As Parrill

indicates, “it is a „gateway‟ to the novel and students are able to grasp the plot more fully, to

engage on a deeper level with characters, and to remember a greater amount of detail” (8). Of

course, this polemic is deceptive and such opinions misleading, not only because students might

assume that if there is a film, there is no need to read the novel, and as Parrill points out, “if the

teacher uses a film only as a gloss on the novel, the student may not have an appreciation of the

film as an independent work of art” (8). Such an uncertainty applies to the fact that not everyone

who enjoyed the film will automatically read the book. Jane Austen remains one of the chief

inspirations for filmmakers. George Bluestone states that Jane Austen‟s novels are particularly

well suited for adaptations. The attributes of her style are especially conducive to adaptation. “A

lack of particularity, an absence of metaphorical language, an omniscient point of view, a

dependency on dialogue to reveal character, an insistence on absolute clarity” (118). In terms of

subject matter, Bluestone also notes the remarkable „modernity‟ of Austen‟s novels.

This „modernity‟ leads us to another point of view, and that is the perspective of film

studios and Hollywood production. As Sue Parrill writes, “adaptation of these novels can make

sense. They tell good stories, which are still appealing” (1). Andrew Davies, the screenwriter of

the 1995 BBC version of Pride and Prejudice answer the question, why is Jane Austen almost

perfect to adapt? He says “Everything works. And not only just the plot, but if she said the apple

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trees were in blossom, you would be bang in the right month, all those kind of things work

perfectly”. Harriet Margolis continues: “One reason Austen can deliver so many members of her

potential audience is that the ideological worldview that she offers can be presented, however

modified, in our own terms” (39). Therefore, it can be suggested that however the film industry

might change in the next, couple of years or even decades, the potential spectators will always be

interested in peeping into Jane Austen‟s world- in a special way charming and engrossing, with

memorable characters and most importantly, a happy ending. And it is good to know that there

are still those, who will get back to the classic like Jane Austen.

The dissertation applies the adaptation theory as well as post colonial theory to the films

made on Jane Austen‟s novels. In the dissertation two novels of Jane Austen namely Pride and

Prejudice and Emma along with two Hollywood and two Bollywood films made on the above

mentioned novels. The two Hollywood films which are taken for the analysis are Pride and

Prejudice produced in the year 2005 and Emma produced in 1996. The two Bollywood films

which are taken include Bride and Prejudice produced in 2004 and Aisha which appeared in

2010.

Pride and Prejudice produced in 2005 is the second major film made on Jane Austen‟s

novel. This film is directed by Joe Wright and screenplay by Deborah Moggach. It is a British

romance film. This film was produced by Working Title Films in association with Studio Canal.

The film was released on 16th

Sept. 2005 in United Kingdom and Ireland and on 11th

Nov. 2005

in United States. The star cast of the film is as follows:

Star Character

Kiera Knightley Elizabeth Bennet

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Mathew Macfayden Mr. Darcy

Rosamund Pike Jane Bennet

Simon Woods Charles Bingley

Carey Mulligan Kitty Bennet

Tululah Riley Mary Bennet

Jena Malone Lydia Bennet

Donald Sutherland Mr. Bennet

Brenda Blethym Mrs. Bennet

Rupert Friend Mr. Wickham

Judi Dench Lady Catherine de Bourgh

Tom Hollander Mr. Collins

Kelly Reilly Miss Bingley

Claudie Blakley Charlotte Lucas

Tamzin Merchant Georgiana Darcy

Peter Wight Mr. Gardiner

Penelope Wilton Mrs. Gardiner

Cornelius Booth Colonel Fitzwilliam

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This film was nominated in four categories in the Academy Awards in 2006, for Best Actress,

Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design and Best Original Score.

The next Hollywood film taken is Emma produced in the year 1996, directed by Douglas

McGrath. This film is based on the story of Jane Austen‟s novel Emma. The star cast of the film

goes in this way:

Star Character

Gwyneth Paltrow Emma

Jeremy Northam Mr. Knightley

Toni Collette Harriet

Alan Cumming Mr. Elton

Greta Scacchi Mrs. Weston

James Cosmo Mr. Weston

Sophie Thompson Miss Bates

Phyllida Law Mrs. Bates

Ewan McGregor Frank Churchill

Polly Walker Jane Fairfax

Kathleen Byron Mrs. Goddard

Juliet Stevenson Mrs. Elton

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Edward Woodall Robert Martin

Brian Capron John Knightley

Karen Westwood Isabella

John Franklyn Mr. Cole

Angela Down Mrs. Cole

This film won Oscar in 1997 for Best Music and was nominated in Oscar same year for Best

Costume Design. For Best Costume Design it was nominated in Chlotrudis Awards. Even actress

Gwyneth Paltrow won Golden Satellite Awards for Best Actress.

Bride and Prejudice is the Bollywood film which is taken for analysis. This film is the

Indian version of Jane Austen‟s novel Pride and Prejudice. This film was produced in the year

2004 and directed by Gurinder Chadha. The star cast of the film is shown under:

Star Character

Aishwariya Rai Bachchan Lalita/Elizabeth

Martin Henderson Mr. Darcy

Nadira Babbar Mrs. Bakshi/Mrs. Bennet

Anupam Kher Mr. Baksi/Mr. Bennet

Naveen Andrews Balraj/ Bingley

Namrat Shirodkar Jaya/Jane

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Daniel Gillies Johnny Wichkam

Indira Verma Kiran/Miss Bingley

Sonali Kulkarni Chandra/ Charlotte

Nitin Ganatra Mr. Kohli/ Mr. Collins

Meghna Kathari Maya/ Mary

Peeya Rai Chowdhary Lakhi/Lydia

Alexis Bledel Georgina Darcy

Marsha Mason Catherine/Lady Catherine

This film was nominated in British Independent Film Award for Best Technical Achievement,

Actress Aishwariya was nominated in WAFCA Award for Best breakthrough performance.

On a similar note Aisha produced in 2010 is effectively the Bollywood interpretation of

Jane Austen‟s Emma. This film was directed by Rajshree Ohja. The star cast of the film is as

under:

Star Character

Sonam Kapoor Aisha Kapoor/ Emma

Abhay Deol Arjun/ Mr. Knightley

Amrita Puri Shefali/ Harriet

Ira Dubey Pniky/ Mrs. Elton

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Cyrus Sahukar Randhir/ Mr. Elton

Arunoday Singh Dhruv/ Frank

Lisa Haydon Arti/ Jane

Anand Tiwari Sourabh/ Mr. Martin

Yuri Suri Col. Singh/ Mr. Weston

Amrita Puri was nominated for Best Actress in a supporting role in Film fare Awards and

Awards of the International Indian Film Academy in 2011.

The dissertation is divided into five chapters, excluding the Introduction. Introduction

defines Literature and Film, and similarities and distinctions between the two mediums. The

adaptation theory is discussed along with its features. Adaptation theory and Post Colonial theory

form an integral part of the methodology of this dissertation.

The first chapter discusses the conditions of England during the time when Jane Austen

was writing her novels. This chapter also highlights the social and economic conditions as

well as fashion and mannerism of the Georgian society. Even the laws practiced during that

period are discussed with relation to the novels of Jane Austen. Even the filmmakers of Pride

and Prejudice 2005 and Emma 1996 have very nicely depicted this society in their films. These

films were produced in twentieth and twenty-first century but the filmmakers tried to portray the

society of the Regency period in their films. While watching these films one is able to

understand the society of the Regency period in a much better way. Along with the study of

Regency period this chapter also analyzes how this society is depicted in the two Hollywood

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films undertaken for study and what were the changes the filmmakers made while portraying this

society on screen.

The second chapter analyzes all the adaptations of six novels of Jane Austen. All the

adaptations of her novels from 1940 to 2014 are discussed in detail. These adaptations includes

both television and film adaptations of all her novels, with changes made in each and every

adaptation and also highlighting whether they are the part of Transposition, Commentary and

Analogy adaptations, the terms coined by Geoffrey Wagner.

The third chapter draws the cultural difference between the Hollywood and Bollywood

version of Jane Austen‟s film adaptation of her novel Pride and Prejudice. This chapter throws

light on how a text undergoes a transformation when adapted in a different culture. The plot

remains the same but cultural difference between both can be traced. It also highlights the

omissions and additions made to both the adaptations of the novel with the application of

adaptation theory of the theorists discussed earlier.

Similar to the third chapter, the fourth chapter too discusses the cultural difference between

Emma the Hollywood film made on Jane Austen‟s novel and Aisha the Bollywood film

adaptation of Jane Austen‟s novel.

The fifth chapter discusses how a text undergoes a transformation with the change of

context as well. The Hollywood films of both the novels are not taken in this chapter as the

Hollywood film versions of novels are already depicting the English culture. This chapter

analyzes how Jane Austen wrote her novels according to the culture of Georgian society and

Raymond Williams‟ concept of „culture‟, in Culture and Society is applied to the two novels of

Jane Austen namely Pride and Prejudice and Emma. On the other hand, while discussing the

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Bollywood version of films made on Jane Austen‟s novels, the elements of post colonial theory

and the concepts of theorists Edwards Said and Homi Bhabha can be traced. The Post Colonial

theory is applied to the two Bollywood films made on Jane Austen‟s novels.

After the analyses of the fifth chapter, then comes the conclusion, which sums up the main

findings of the five chapters. This is followed by works cited and consulted.