Literary Adaptation, Its Reasons And Effects
Literary Adaptation is a term used to describe the process of changing books, short stories and other written materials into some form of visual arts. Nowadays, various works of fiction, often book series, were becoming the foundation of major movies and TV shows at an alarming rate. Dashiell Hammett’s Fly Paper is also adapted into a television episode in American TV show - Fallen Angels. There are various reasons due to which a text might be selected for its adaptation like its ubiquity and popularity. But the alteration in the medium or any other key element of the text will influence the audience's relationship with it in both positive and negative ways. In subsequent paragraphs, this essay will outline the major reasons (like popularity and many more) behind the selection of a text for its adaptation and its affect on the audience in the light of the short story ‘Fly Paper’ by Dashiell Hammett (1929) and its TV adaptation.
Reasons for the adaptation of a text
There are numerous reasons for which a certain text can be picked for adaptation, ubiquity and popularity being the most significant ones. For example, Fly Paper being famous had already pulled in a great deal of heed by the audience and hence, its popularity will serve the audience to its adaptation. Moreover, there are many cases wherein the motion picture or TV shows adapted from the celebrated books or novels have been a gigantic box office success. For instance, movies like sense and sensibility, Lord of the Rings, The Godfather and Gone with the Wind are one of the most well known and effective films ever among the group of spectators and they all are based on some previously composed works. Similarly, different prominent works composed by Dashiell Hammett like Roadhouse nights, City streets, Mister Dynamite and The Maltese Falcon were adjusted into movies and TV shows earlier also and they all were pretty well-received. Hence, adapting his works like ‘Fly Paper' would be a decent choice because their adaptation would kind of pre-sold due to their existing popularity. Moreover, some stories are more vulnerable to their adaptation. Detective and thriller stories such as Fly Paper, for instance, are more likely to be chosen for their adaptation because they have a confusing plot due to which readers can’t totally envision what's happening in a book/story when they read it and hence, a movie or a TV show adaptation will enable those readers to appreciate the story more.
Another convincing reason for literary adaptation can be that motion pictures are more appealing to the audience than books. In today's time, with the advent of technology, movies and TV shows rule and people are less attracted to books or written stories. Having a movie adaptation of a book will spread the writer’s work and thoughts much further. Moreover, sometimes a text is selected for its adaptation because one of its characters may be already very famous among people. For instance, the plot of Fly Paper revolves around a well-known socialite, who used to hang out at clubs at nights and associated with Babe McClure (a very famous gambler), is missing. Then the renowned private detective, The Continental Op, is appointed by the family to keep the track of their lost child. According to Gelten, The Continental Op is a fictional, detective, mysterious and savage man created by Dashiell Hammett whose real name is never mentioned. As Continental Op was already a very famous character among the audience and a part of several other popular crime detective stories, hence adapting some story having him again as one of the protagonists would attract the audience in a greater number.
Effects of adaptation on the audience
At the point when any short story or novel is adapted into a film or a TV show, several things change, for example, the organization or medium of the source changes and different other critical components of the text also. Now, these changes will unquestionably influence the group of spectators in the two different ways- positive as well as negative, however, the positive effects might overshadow the negative ones. There are different factors on which it depends that whether the audience will like that adaptation of a book or any other short story and will acknowledge it or not. Those factors include creative and innovative additions and alterations made in the adaptations such as music, actors, setting, cinematography, editing, camera orientation, dialogues, costumes and makeup and the constancy to the original story i. e. fidelity. It must be understood that the fidelity to the primary source doesn't just mean protecting the story while converting it from one medium to another as it does not involve any remarkable achievement, whereas preserving the theme of the original story does. Thus, a film might be called as faithful to its source if it will protect both story and theme.
