The Adaptation Of The Novel: A Migration With Shackles

The Color Purple is a canonical novel written by the famous African-American woman writer Alice Walker and has been well acclaimed since its publication. The novel is an epistolary novel and it consists of 90 letters. In these letters,61 letters are written by Celie to God,14 letters to Nettie, and Nettie writes 15 to Celie. The story centers on Celie, a black common girl who finally transforms into a brave and independent woman through her own fights. The novel fully denotes Walker's "womanism" to show all women are equal no matter what kind of races they belong to.The novel has been studied by many researchers from different perspectives. For example, some researchers have studied the transformation of black women from feminism point view, and some focus on the particular form of the novel to probe into the changes of black women's spiritual growth and so on.These studies pay attention to the novel itself to explore different kinds of issues concerning race, gender and family. However, the thesis not only concentrates on the novel itself, but combines the novel and its novelistic adaptation in 1985 to probe into some problems in terms of novelistic adaptation into film. For at present, novelistic adaptation is more and more popular in entertainment industry, and the adaptation of novels into films lead to many changes both in literary field and in the film industry. Through the study of the adaptation of The Color Purple, some questions can be found, which hopefully can provide some suggestions for the practice.For a long time there is a voice that a novel's adaptation into a film should abide by the theory of "fidelity" and "faithfulness". But during the process of the adaptation, there are so many limitations that the theory of "fidelity" and "faithfulness" is hardly achieved, which is the center of the thesis. Through this study, on one hand, the adaptation of the novel can not be copied completely, which can provide some suggestions for the practice of adaptations of novels; on the other hand, the adaptation, in a sense, is influencing the direction of literary creation which can be helpful for some researches in the literary field. Besides the introduction and the conclusion, the thesis is divided into four chapters.Chapter one concentrates on the historical context of the adaptation of the novel. In this chapter, there are three parts:the first part is the present social ideology which is a general social atmosphere for the adaptation. The novel is about black women's spiritual growth. However, in the specific social conditions, whether a theme about black women independence can be accepted or not at that time is the first and foremost factor to be considered. The second part is about the cultural atmosphere at that time. When The Color Purple is transformed into the film, the temporal culture is an inevitable factor to be calculated. The third part is about the adaptation yardstick in 1980s which definitely exerted a deep influence on the adaptors.Chapter two discusses the adapter's personal or subjective elements which also tamper with the process of the adaptation. In this chapter, Steven Spielberg, the director, his race and gender will be thought first as the confining factors to adapt a black woman writer's novel. Then the director's and the writer's different cognitive differences also influence the process of the adaptation. Just owing to the cognitive differences, there are some changes in the adaptation of the novel.Chapter three discusses the limitations led by a born gap between the novel and the film. In this chapter, the shaping of the characters and the particular ways of presentation of the film will be discussed. In the first part, the change of the clothes properly indicates the transformation of the character's process of spiritual growth. And apart from it, the selection of the actors and actresses is also an apt embodiment of the theme of the novel. Moreover, particular ways of the presentation of a film are powerful additions to the adaptation especially montage. And many symbols in the movie are used to make the film more vivid and more significant.In the final chapter, the confining factors from another point-the economical and critical benefits are explained. In this chapter, the Pulitzer's prize winning book is an absolute "pre-sold" property for an intangible propaganda. And two women's kiss on the screen is also a big stir among the public. Finally some funny materials are employed to make audiences laugh to get more benefits.From the four chapters, the adaptation is a combining undertaking. During the process of the adaptation, not only one factor determines the final product. The limiting points are diverse. The historical context gives the adaptation an ideological prerequisite to discard those contents which are opposite to the mainstream ideology in the contemporary society. And the director's personal characteristics, including his race, gender, and cognitive dimension all set the keynote of the adaptation. Furthermore, the novel, as a written form for readers to imagine in more spacious room, is transformed into a visual form in which everything is settled. Finally, the film is made for fun and meanwhile for mercenary profits. In order to attract the audiences'eyes, some funny ways are employed on the basis of the novel. All in all, the adaptation of the novel can not be a copied one, while it is and must be a process of reproduction and recreation.So due to the confining factors, the so-called "fidelity" and "faithfulness" can not be fulfilled during the process of the adaptation. On one hand, the adaptation is a process of reproduction and recreation with shackles. Even the shackles are indispensable and formidable, for its great benefits behind it, the adaptation is moving on and becomes more and more popular. On the other hand, with the driving of the benefits, more and more novels are adapted into films to entertain people, to some extent, this kind of trend is influencing the writing ways and directions of literature. So the adaptation is bidirectional. It transforms the novel into a visual form which destroys some idiosyncrasies of the novel itself, and moreover, from the other aspect, it is influencing the ways of writers'creations.