EDUARDA DE CARLI THE ROLE OF ADAPTATIONS IN THE RECONFIGURATION OF DR. JOHN WATSON WITHIN THE SHERLOCK HOLMES CANON PORTO ALEGRE 2017 UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO RIO GRANDE DO SUL INSTITUTO DE LETRAS PROGRAMA DE PÓS-GRADUAÇÃO EM LETRAS ÁREA: ESTUDOS DE LITERATURA ESPECIALIDADE: LITERATURAS DE LÍNGUA INGLESA LINHA DE PESQUISA: SOCIEDADE, (INTER)TEXTOS LITERÁRIOS E TRADUÇÃO NAS LITERATURAS ESTRANGEIRAS MODERNAS THE ROLE OF ADAPTATIONS IN THE RECONFIGURATION OF DR. JOHN WATSON WITHIN THE SHERLOCK HOLMES CANON EDUARDA DE CARLI ORIENTADORA: PROFa. DRa. ELAINE BARROS INDRUSIAK Dissertação de Mestrado em Literaturas de Língua Inglesa, apresentada como requisito parcial para a obtenção do título de Mestre pelo Programa de Pós-Graduação em Letras da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul. PORTO ALEGRE 2017 CIP - Catalogação na Publicação De Carli, Eduarda The role of adaptations in the reconfiguration of Dr. John Watson within the Sherlock Holmes canon / EDUARDA DE CARLI. -- 2017. 182 f. Orientadora: Elaine Barros Indrusiak. Dissertação (Mestrado) -- Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Instituto de Letras, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Letras, Porto Alegre, BR-RS, 2017. 1. Literatura Inglesa. 2. Sherlock Holmes. 3. Dr. Watson. 4. Adaptação televisiva. 5. Personagem. I. Indrusiak, Elaine Barros, orient. II. Título. Elaborada pelo Sistema de Geração Automática de Ficha Catalográfica da UFRGS com os dados fornecidos pelo(a) autor(a). ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to begin by thanking my mom, dad, and brother, for having supported me through every step I have taken so far. Without your unwavering support and strength, I would be nobody. Mom and dad, you are my heroes; you inspire me every day with your love, professionalism, and strive to always be a better person. I am forever grateful to all of you. I would also like to thank my great-aunt Vera and my great-grandfather João, for being my second home. It was also she that bought me my first Sherlock Holmes short story collection when I was a child, and maybe, if I had not run out of books that summer and had not asked for one more, this project would have never been born. I would also like to thank my dog, appropriately named John Watson, for the companionship for these past 7 years, for reminding me to take breaks, play, be joyful, and carefree every now and again. I would like to thank my advisor, Professor Elaine, for being an inspiration in the academia, a professional role model, for accepting my sometimes too-big and unshaped ideas for the past four years, and also for embracing different and refreshing projects in our field of study. I have learned incredible things from and with you. Simone, you have been here for 12 years now, dealing with all my freak outs, sharing of ideas, growing up, facing the challenges of the undergrad and also the Master’s. Your apartment, caring, and support have been home away from home to me, figuratively and literally. Thank you is certainly not enough. Lúcia, without the reading marathons, writing sprints, teas, chats, crazy ideas and projects, bullet journaling, and all the fun that needs to counterweight the studying, the Master’s Degree would have been much harder; your strength and incredible mind truly inspire me. I would also like to thank Ana Iris, Deborah, and Gabi, for the support group and the awesomeness that are female friendships. Rogério, you have been here through these past two years, dealing with all the self-doubting, crying, sharing ideas in the middle of the night and asking if they make any sense; thank you for believing in me and, in turn, helping me believe in myself more. I would also like to thank CAPES, for the incredible scholarship that allowed me to do my favorite things for the past couple of years in order to write this thesis: marathon television series, read literature, and do research. And last, but not the least, I need to thank Doyle. You, Sir, shared incredible stories and characters with the world that are still alive to this day. And to think you tried to get rid of Holmes… RESUMO As histórias de Sherlock Holmes cativam inúmeros leitores desde que o primeiro romance foi publicado em 1887 pelo autor escocês Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. As aventuras vividas pelo grande detetive Sherlock Holmes e seu companheiro Dr. John Watson têm sido adaptadas para outras mídias desde 1890, e épocas diferentes apresentam diferentes interpretações das personagens. Duas das mais recentes adaptações televisivas, Sherlock (2010 –), da BBC, e Elementary (2012 –), da CBS, se passam na contemporaneidade, inspirando uma reconfiguração das personagens, principalmente a de John Watson, considerando o fato de que ele não é mais o principal narrador das histórias na mídia audiovisual – o narrador fílmico é quem cumpre esse papel –, abrindo novas possibilidades para os papéis da personagem. Tais possibilidades motivam esta dissertação, que propõe um estudo da caracterização da personagem literária nos romances Um estudo em vermelho (1887) e O cão dos Baskerville (1902), para então considerar sua nova caracterização nas duas séries televisivas mencionadas acima. O trabalho, portanto, está dividido em quatro capítulos. O primeiro apresenta uma introdução ao autor e a relação com sua própria obra, além de um panorama histórico das adaptações fílmicas e televisivas, enfatizando as caracterizações de Watson nelas. O segundo apresenta as teorias que alicerçam a análise, particularmente a narratologia literária de Mieke Bal (2009), a narratologia fílmica de Peter Verstraten (2009), e as considerações de Jason Mittell (2015) acerca da personagem televisiva. Os capítulos três e quatro trazem as análises dos romances e séries de televisão respectivamente, focando nas (re)configurações da personagem Watson. Ao final deste trabalho, esperamos ter contribuído para um aprofundamento e diversificação dos estudos de personagem a partir de referenciais narratológicos, linha de estudos pouco desenvolvida, especialmente no Brasil. Da mesma forma, pretendemos demonstrar como adaptações televisivas exploram e amplificam o papel de personagens-narradoras, dando a elas e a outras personagens mais autonomia na obra audiovisual. PALAVRAS-CHAVE: 1. Literatura Inglesa. 2. Sherlock Holmes. 3. Dr. Watson. 4. Adaptação. 5. Personagem. 6. Televisão. ABSTRACT The Sherlock Holmes stories have captivated innumerous readers since the first novel was published in 1887 by Scottish author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The adventures lived by the Great Detective Sherlock Holmes and his companion Dr. John Watson have been adapted to other media from as early as 1890, and different times present different portrayals of the characters. Two of the latest television adaptations, BBC’s Sherlock (2010 –) and CBS’s Elementary (2012 –), are set in contemporary times, inspiring a reconfiguration of the characters, especially John Watson, considering the fact that he is not the main narrator of the stories in the audiovisual medium – the filmic narrator fulfills that function –, opening new possibilities for the character’s roles. These possibilities motivate this thesis, and we propose a study of the characterization of the literary character in the novels A Study in Scarlet (1887) and The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902), so that we can consider the new Watson’s characterization in the two television series aforementioned. Therefore, the thesis is divided into four chapters. The first presents an introduction to the author and his relation to his own work, along with a historical overview of film and television adaptations, emphasizing Watson’s characterization. The second presents the theoretical framework of the analyses, particularly the literary narratology as proposed by Mieke Bal (2009), film narratology as proposed by Peter Verstraten (2009), and Jason Mittell’s (2015) considerations about television characters. Chapters three and four are dedicated to the analyses of the novels and television series respectively, focusing on Watson’s (re)configurations. By the end of this work, we hope to have contributed to the further development and diversification of character studies with the use of narratological references, an undeveloped line of studies, especially in Brazil. In addition, we hope to demonstrate how television adaptations explore and amplify the role of character-narrators, giving them and other characters more autonomy in the audiovisual work. KEYWORDS: 1. English Literature. 2. Sherlock Holmes. 3. Dr. Watson. 4. Adaptation. 5. Character. 6. Television. TABLE OF CONTENTS THE INTRODUCTION RITUAL ............................................................................................. 9 1. THE ILLUSTRIOUS AUTHOR AND ADAPTATIONS ................................................. 17 1.1 Adapting to Cinema ......................................................................................................... 23 1.2 Adapting to Television ..................................................................................................... 29 1.3 Adapting to Animation .................................................................................................... 44 2. THE VALLEY OF THEORY ........................................................................................... 46 2.1. About Textual Narratives ................................................................................................ 46 2.2. On the Matter of Adaptation ........................................................................................... 55 2.3. About Television (and Genre)