The Poetics of Select Cast Away Novels and their Movie: An Insight

Abstract

In order to critically examine the minute aspects involved in the process of adaptation, it is inevitable and necessary to consider the aspects of transposition. This is essential for two main reasons. First, the process of creating a movie can give a better insight into the steps involved rather than considering the existing movie, which is the end product of the process and hence is at its best. A movie for that matter can be analyses as a finished work. Secondly, even if the movie signifies the necessary process involved, the major and minute aspects that are at the backdrop may go unnoticed and hence will not be valid to understand the exact process and challenges posed. The question identified here in this paper is not about the movie that is dependent on the written text but to identify and appreciate the process of making it. The focus of this paper is to examine the potentials of the movies in comparison with literary text. An attempt will be made to understand and examine the process rather than the end product of the adaptation process. The rational for this paper would be reading and understanding of the text to analyze the connection that it has with the movie. It would be highly impossible to examine the by-product of adaptation without considering the original or the source text. If the sources are not considered or missing, the link to connect the different mediums will pose a challenge and hence the analysis will be weak at the end. On the other hand, an extensive and rigorous reading would be quite confusing which is in fact not necessary. Hence, the aim of this paper, as mentioned earlier, is not to identify movie with its source text but to understand the concept of projection of the source text or the original text on the movie. The novels and their movie forms considered for this paper are, Daniel Defoe’s ‘Robinson Crusoe’, Yann Martel’s ‘Life of Pi, William Golding’s ‘Lord of the Flies’ and Johann David Wyss’s ‘The Swiss Family Robinson’.