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28 LITERARY ADAPTATION's EFFECTS on PLOT and CHARACTER in DR. ZHIVAGO: an INTERTEXTUAL STUDY Movi Riana Rahmawanti English

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28 LITERARY ADAPTATION's EFFECTS on PLOT and CHARACTER in DR. ZHIVAGO: an INTERTEXTUAL STUDY Movi Riana Rahmawanti English English Journal Vol. 19, No. 2; September, 2016, pp. 28-38 LITERARY ADAPTATION’S EFFECTS ON PLOT AND CHARACTER IN DR. ZHIVAGO: AN INTERTEXTUAL STUDY Movi Riana Rahmawanti English Education Program Faculty of Teacher Training and Education Bogor Ibn Khaldun University [email protected] ABSTRACT This research try to reveal what are the elements of plot and characters that are retained, exaggerated and glossed over along with literary adaptation process. This research is an inter textual studies with Qualitative Descriptive analysis. Dr. Zhivago is a story with Russian revolution background about the struggle of a doctor in finding his lost love, identity, and the essence of life. This study will specifically compare the novel and film in terms of plot and character. The writer wants to reveal which elements that retained and whether there is any distortion or exaggeration in plot and character as a result of the process of literary adaptation. The writer will analyze the novel and the film as source of data. Through the analysis, it can be concluded that most of the elements are retained, but there are a number of distortions and exaggerations in the plot and character as a result of the process of literary adaptation from novel to film. Obvious distortions described in the plot is the elimination of political background plots at that time. This is because, at that moment, most of political films were strongly opposed and banned. Intertextuality emphasizes the distortion compensated in the film through some other elements such as pictures, music, and others. Similar things happen to the characters where some of the characters are exaggerated when they are potrayed in the film. For example General Yevgarf Zhivago is potrayed as a true hero in the film, but as a minor character in the novel. The distortion is the compensation of the elimination of several political characters. The purpose of the distortions of some characters in the film, which are the minority during the revolution, is to avoid political incorrectness. The distortions and exaggerations of the plot and character turn to affect the overall plot and theme of the story. When the novel is adapted into a film, Dr Zhivago turns to be a romance with the background of the Russian revolution, whereas in the novel, the main concern of the author is on the impact of the revolution to oppressed minority. Keywords: Intertextual studies, Dr. Zhivago, Literary Adaptation INTRODUCTION author. It is an expression of life which Our daily life cannot be separated from is combined with imagination and literary works, we love excitement; we expression of the author; it is also love to be entertained by literary works, supported by her/his experiences about and one kind of literary work is novel. the life. The author freely moves the plot According to E.M.Forster (1927:129), that makes novel is included as a fiction. ―novel is one of fiction prose which tells Plot and character in a novel are very a way to reveal explicitly, or explain important because they are related each anything directly‖. Novel is a text that other and the main function of plot is to can be influenced by society and culture. represent a character in action. According Although novel is a fiction it doesn‘t to Forster (1927:131) ―some characters mean that it is only imagination of the are the driving forces behind some plots, 28 Literary Adaptation’s Effects on Plot and Character in Dr. Zhivago: An Intertextual Study (Movi Riana Rahmawanti) and the plots would simply collapse or story takes places in the Russia become non-existent without them‖. In revolution and the civil wars. other words, he stresses that conceiving In the film there were some changes plots without characters is impossible. which lead another conception about the Plot is very important in fiction, although story. This film was rejected because of not often noted, characters are also Pasternak's political incorrectness: the crucial to the plot. author more concerned with the welfare Jacob and Saini K.M (1980:24) of the state than the welfare of the stated that ―A novel is a story with individual person. The film version of various measurements‖. What meant by Doctor Zhivago is faithful to the novel in measurement here is that a story with general; the basic plot remains the same. complex plot, theme, various character, However, many of the subplots (the and various setting. However, the variety novel's historical/political settings) were may be specific to one aspect of the eliminated. Many reviewers have novel. One of famous novel with various criticized the film in particular for measurements with complex characters reducing the scene of World War I to a and plot is Dr Zhivago. five-minute narration, and edited Although the story was written in the Zhivago's service with the Partisans part, 1910s and 1920s, Doctor Zhivago was which took up seventy pages of the not completed until 1956. The novel was novel. rejected because of Pasternak's political Having discussed the novel, the viewpoint (incorrect in the eyes of the writer wants to conduct a study to reveal Soviet authorities: they think he potrays what aspects of plot and characters in Dr the cruelty of communism regime). Then Zhivago the novel retained in the film. If the novel firstly published in Italy, there are any distortions or exaggeration, quietly in Russia, then later translated how these two things may affect the other Into English and published in England. aspects of the fiction, since plot and Later, Dr Zhivago the novel has been characters are important to the story. translated into 18 Languages, and spread Using Intertextuality, the writer tries throughout the world. He was awarded to reveal what aspects of plot and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1958 for character that are retained to the film. his novel, Dr. Zhivago. Pasternak refuses Intertextuality is a theory in which a the award under intense pressure from literary work is created based on previous Uni Soviet‘s authorities, but later in 1989 literary text. This theory believes that the noble medal, formally awarded to his there are some aspects in one literary son. He was so depressed after his works works similar to another text. When we was abandoned and finally died in May coined about intertextuality, it cannot be 30, 1960 because of natural causes. separated from the literary adaptation. Following its success, Dr Zhivago During the process of adaptation there are the novel was adapted into film in 1965. some exaggerations and distortions that Doctor Zhivago the film is a 1965 might affect the theme of each literary drama-romance-film directed by David text. The writer is going to check if there Lean and based on the famous novel of are any aspects of fiction glossed over the same name by Boris Pasternak. David and it will focus on plot and characters. Lean is a maestro in creating box office film and nominated as best directors THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK many times. Dr Zhivago talks about Intertextual human‘s life and destiny, though the Intertextuality is a theory that claims that a literary work is not only the product of 29 English Journal Vol. 19, No. 2; September, 2016, pp. 28-38 a single author but also its relationship to without having any context for ‗house‘, other texts and to the structures of the story will have no meaning for me. language itself. According to Fowler Related to this matter, in literary works (2000:127), Intertextuality is closely this view also happened. What is told by related to reading practice, meaning the a story is possibly already told by reception and what said as intertext previous works to give a description depends on the readers. A single about a thing. The only thing that may character, for example, might be read as differentiate them only exaggerations and the product of multiple intertextualities distortions. If literary text is exaggerated, with other characters from previous it means the aspect of it is blown over, works. and the text has a distortion while it has When Julia Kristeva invented the many reductions in some aspects of term ‗intertextuality,' she noted that there fiction. Exaggeration and distortion are are three aspects involved beside the text deviations from expected and normal under consideration; the author, the proportions. reader, and the other exterior texts. Kristeva writes: Literary Adaptation Horizontal axis (subject-addressee) Adaptation is not a new phenomenon at and vertical axis (text-context) all. Intertextual studies show that most coincide, bringing to light an stories are derived from other stories. important factor: each word (text) is According to Julia Sanders (2006:20) the an intersection of word (texts) adaptation is proper when a specific work where at least one other word (text) of literature is retold in a multimodal can be read. In Bakhtin′s work, medium – a film. Deborah Cartmell these two axes, which he calls proposes three broad categories of dialogue and ambivalence, are not adaptation: clearly distinguished. Yet, what (i) Transposition appears as a lack of rigour is in fact (ii) Commentary an insight first introduced into (iii) Analoguep literary theory by Bakhtin:. Any (Cartmell and Whelehan 1999: 24) text is constructed as a mosaic of Intertextual studies have showed us quotation; any text is the absorption that even the seemingly original story has and transformation of another. The its precursors, a fact that somehow notion of intertextuality replaces reduces the absolute authority of the that of intersubjectivity, and poetic source text in an adaptation process, language is read as at least double which in this case specify into (1986: 66).
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