When Roger Corman Meets Edgar Allan Poe: Gothicism in “The
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
PEOPLE’S DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF ALGERIA Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research University of Tlemcen Faculty of Letters and Foreign Languages Department of English Section of English When Roger Corman Meets Edgar Allan Poe: Gothicism in “The Masque of the Red Death”, from the Book into the Screen An Extended Essay Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for a Master’s Degree in Anglo-Saxon Literature and Civilisation Presented by Supervised by Mss. Ouahiba Charef Dr. Wassila Mouro Co-supervised by Mr. Omar Rahmoun 2015/2016 Dedication I dedicate this work to my dearest parents Aboubaker and Karima Mebrek for their support. I thank my sister and her little family, as well as my brother and my little sister and all my friends. I Acknowledgements To start with, I would like to express my deep and sincere gratitude to my research supervisor,Dr Wassila Mouro, for providing me with invaluable guidance throughout this research. Her dynamism, vision, sincerity and motivation have deeply inspired me. She has taught me the methodology to carry out the research and to present the research works as clearly as possible. It was a great privilege and honor to work and study under her guidance. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my co-supervisor Mr. Rahmoun Omar for the continuous support, for his patience, motivation, and immense knowledge. His guidance helped me in all the time of research and writing of this dissertation. His support and inspiring suggestions have been precious for the development of this work. Thanks should also be bestowed upon Dr Frid Daoudi, the chairman and for having devoted some of his time and accepted reading and commenting on this work. My sincerest acknowledgements to all my dearest teachers who helped, taught and gave me all the necessary knowledge and guidance throughout the whole five years. II Abstract This research work deals with “The Masque of the Red Death” (1842) written by Edgar Allan Poe and its film adaptation (1964) directed by Roger Corman. It highlights the main differences and similarities between them focusing on several hints of Gothic features in an attempt to see how Roger Corman succeeded in creating the gothic mood. In order to conduct such a research, this dissertation is divided into two chapters. The first chapter will shed light on the American Gothic literature in the nineteenth century. Then, it will revolve around the link between literature and film adaptation. Besides, it will tackle the issue of fidelity and adaptation. The second chapter is concerned with analyzing the gothic characteristics in both short story and its movie adaptation with a comparison between the two. Besides, it will provide an evaluation about the movie speaking about the factors behind the success of the film adaptation. III Table of Contents Dedication…………………………………………………..................…I Acknowledgement………………………………………….…………....II Abstract………………………………………………………….……...III Table of Contents……………………………………….…..................IV General Introduction…………………………………….…………..…..1 Chapter One: An Overview of Gothic Literature and Film Adaptation 1.1 . Introduction…………………………………………………….….....5 1.2 19th Century American Literature....................................................5 1.3 American Gothic Literature...............................................................8 1.4 Features of Gothic Literature.............................................................11 1.4.1 Setting in a Castle...........................................................................11 1.4.2 Supernatural .................................................................................12 1.4.3 Madness............................................................................................13 1.4.4 Fear................................................................................................14 1.5 The Issue of Adaptation......................................................................15 1.5.1 Movie Adaptations Defined.........................................................15 1.5.2 Comparison between Adaptation and Written Stories................16 1.5.2.1 Main Differences between Adaptation and Literature...............17 1.5.2.2 Main Similarities between Adaptation and Literature..............19 IV 1.6 Fidelity and Adaptation .................................................................20 1.7 Conclusion......................................................................................25 Chapter two: “The Masque of the Red Death”, an Analogy between Short Story and the Adaptation 2.1 Introduction....................................................................................28 2.2 The Short Story Overview..............................................................28 2.3 The Masque of the Red Death; the Movie.......................................30 2.4 The Gothic Features.........................................................................31 2.4.1 Setting in a Castle........................................................................31 2.4.2 Supernatural................................................................................33 2.4.3 Madness.......................................................................................34 2.4.4 Fear..............................................................................................37 2.5 Comparison between the Movie and the Short Story ....................41 2.5.1 Main Differences..........................................................................42 2.5.2 Main Similarities..........................................................................46 2.6 Synthesis.........................................................................................48 2.7 Conclusion......................................................................................50 General Conclusion.............................................................................52 Bibliography..........................................................................................55 V General Introduction General Introduction Literature is a vast ocean and a broad term that reflects the cultural events and provides pleasure to the readers. In the modern age particularly, the nineteenth century America witnessed a new kind of literature which is called Gothicism. This latter is characterized by mysterious, scary, terrifying and gloomy events. This genre also gave the opportunity to writers to expand their faculty of imagination and created suspense to attract the reader’s attention. Gothicism is adapted by many great authors, among them Edgar Allan Poe who is considered as the best mysterious American author in the nineteenth century, and he is also known as the father of the detective story. In this era particularly, literature had a close relationship with many fields among them cinema. The action of transforming a literary source (novel, short story, novella and so one) to a movie is called adaptation. The process of adaptation is a derivative act that has a big number of fans nowadays. This research work is about the transition of “The Masque of the Red Death”;the 1842short story to the movie that was made in 1964. The short story is an American tale written by Edgar Allan Poe and adapted by the American producer Roger Corman. This story is a classic horror story that speaks about a common theme which is the plague and Satan-worshipers. The main question of this research work is: to what extent does Roger Corman succeed in preserving the Gothic atmosphere of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death” through his camera? Besides the main question, this extended essay targets other issues and attempts at answering the following questions: 2 General Introduction What are the major differences and similarities between literature and movie adaptations? What are the main gothic characteristics used by Roger in creating the dark atmosphere in the movie as compared to the original story? In order to give a credible answer to those questions, this research work is a comparative study based on critical analysis. This research work is divided into two chapters; the first chapter provides an overview about the American Gothic literature including some characteristics of this genre of literature. Besides, it will supply a broad vision about the concept of adaptation and the main differences and similarities between literature and film adaptations relying on some scholars. The second chapter stands on the practical part of this research work. It begins with the short story overview with a broad description about the movie including the main persons who participated in the film in order to provide a clear vision about them. Furthermore, this chapter examines the gothic features in “The Masque of the Red Death” short story and its adaptation that play a great role in creating the dark mood. Moreover, it studies the comparison between short story and movie in order to notice if Roger Corman succeeded through his work in preserving the gothic mood. 3 Chapter one An Overview of Gothic Literature and Film Adaptation Chapter One: An Overview of Gothic Literature and Film Adaptation 1.1. Introduction Cinematic adaptation has been studied for many years by manifold scholars. It has been debated that literature impacted on movie industry by transferring texts into the visual art. Besides, adaptation gives a new shape for the original text by transferring page to stage. There are various genres of cinematic adaptations, among them Gothicism.