Heckerling’s film has transformed Emma into a dramatic twentieth century teen flick that both exemplifies and undercuts the contemporary culture of 1990s Los Angeles defined by consumption and appearance while still maintaining aspects of Emma’s narrative and characterisation. The juxtaposition of the two texts allows the audience to identify the tension between continuity and change through the use of the female protagonist who portrays the flaws of human nature. Jane Austen’s novel begins with, “Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever and rich.” This highlights the attributes that were most desired at the time of 19th century Highbury, England. However, Jane Austen’s context had a class hierarchy with males that had inherited wealth at the top. This patriarchal society represented in Emma portrays the importance of marriage for women as it was their only means of financial security as well as the advancement of their position in society.
“Studying a pair of texts provides insights into the values of different contexts.” To what extent is this true of the two texts you have studied? Amy Heckerling has managed to creatively transform her 1995 teen film ‘Clueless’ into one of Jane Austen’s classic novels, ‘Emma’ (1815) by sustaining the same significant and important values and elements despite living in different contexts. This is depicted through the contrasting of cinematic techniques and narrative structure. The progress of the importance of social hierarchies and the revolution of self-realization is produced to be invariable. ‘Emma’ exposes the impacts of social hierarchies in the way people interact and behave with each other.
Amy Heckerling has transformed Jane Austen’s novel Emma to create Clueless, a film set in 90s America thatx appeals and is more relatable to a contemporary audience. Both stories are essentially about the personal development of their protagonists Emma and Cher as they reach self-realisation however there is a slight difference of values that relate to the different contexts in which the stories are set. Through different techniques, we see how Heckerling has retained the story of Emma as well as the way she has adapted it to suit more modern values and concepts. Social order is a prominent idea in both texts Clueless and Emma. Jane Austen presents the importance of family wealth in Regency England, as it is the defining factor of one’s position in the social hierarchy.
And although both stories have a strong resemblance in theme, both authors present it very differently especially when using symbolism. As stated in our text, “A symbol is something that has a literal identity but also stands for something else”. (Clugston, 2010) Also, symbolism was a “19 century movement in art and literature which made extensive use of symbols to indicate or evoke emotions or ideas” (Credo Reference, 2010) Within this paper, I will discuss on how both narratives utilize symbolism to convey the essence of their theme. As stated, “story writers want you to understand and learn from the imaginary world they are creating, they find ways to make the theme stand out clearly, and they use symbols to convey feelings, describe settings, present characters, heighten conflict, and create various moods”. (Clugston, 2010) Also, I will explain the difference between the poem “The Road Less Taken” and the short story, “I Used to Live Here Once”.
Clueless is the modern adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma. Both focus and satirise human follies and foibles. While Emma is set in the nineteenth century gentry of Highbury and Clueless is set in 20th Century Beverley Hills they focus on the same general concepts of matchmaking, romance and social status. While there are many differences due to the rigidity of time barriers Heckerling has proven Austen’s Emma to a malleable and flexible text making Clueless into a rather effective film in portraying the weaknesses of humans. Clueless is a modern teenpic and hence follows the typical conventions of focusing on teen issues such as boys, drugs, high school relationships and others.
The transformation of the Jane Austen’s novel Emma into the Amy Heckerling’s ‘teen-pic’ Clueless, involves changing the original text in to another medium set in a different context to allow a re-assessment of the values present in the text thus enabling the audience to gain a greater insight and appreciation of the ideals and concerns outlined by Austin in Emma. The themes presented by Austin in Emma are universal and timeless which enables Heckerling to adapt them to a context a modern audience can reflect and relate to, thus generating a greater understanding of the social commentary made by Austen on social class, marriage and education of the 19th century. Heckerling does not devalue Emma and the essence of what is said is not changed however Heckerling goes further than just a transformation and comments on modern issues such as sexuality, education and social equality relevant to her time. This allows the texts to resonate with each other with the known reflecting upon the new and the new reflecting on the known. Both Emma and Clueless deal with a society in which social structure and values are criteria for assessing people.
Antigone's Everlasting Conflict A Comparison between a Legendary Tragedy and a Modern Drama Before 445 B.C Sophocles wrote a now historically famous tragedy entitled Antigone. In 2010 director Debra Granik released a drama adapted from Daniel Woodrell’s novel of the same name “Winter’s Bone”; this movie was praised by A.O Scott who is a prominent leader of film critique as “the modern day Antigone”. Overall the comparison made is extremely accurate; this comparison is drawn based on the movie and tragedy’s similar conflict and the reaction of the female protagonist throughout the respective stories. These observations can be taken directly from each narrative’s text and are important to recognize these conflicts from Antigone being used as we can as readers we can see that people in seemingly powerless positions taking control of their life and challenging the status qua in society, which are timeless conflicts. Now, the character Antigone is a woman in a very patriarchal society, ancient Greece was not a place where women could easily undermine a man's authority.
‘Literary approaches to the contestation of hegemonic masculinity continue to possess agency, despite the fact that literature no longer occupies a dominant position in the cultural sphere’ (West, 2000). Discuss how two core texts challenge hegemonic constructions of masculinity? The concept of hegemonic masculinity was first proposed during a field study of social inequality, the project provided empirical evidence of the existence of multiple hierarchies in gender construction. It was understood as a pattern of practice and not just a set of role expectations. It became distinguished from other masculinities, more so the subordinate masculinities of previous studies.
To what extent has your comparative study of Frankenstein and Blade Runner revealed a change in values over time? It is the comparative study of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) and Ridley Scott’s 20th century film Blade Runner (Directors Cut 1992) that reveals that issues at the core of humanity remain universal and relevant despite time, however, the values remain the same. Shelley’s novel critiques the Enlightenment philosophy that progress is inherently good and reflects the Romantic elements of her context, whereas Blade Runner questions and challenges mass industrialisation of the 20th century. Each text acts as a cautionary tale in relation to scientific endeavour being unchecked by morals and ethics. The film is, is in fact a response to societies failure to heed Mary Shelley’s original warnings about scientific pursuit.
The novel contains elements of social criticism, with a strong sense of morality at its core, but is nonetheless a novel many consider ahead of its time given the individualistic character of Jane and the novel's exploration of classicism, sexuality, religion, and proto-feminism. In Jane Eyre the setting is used to trace the main characters' development and highlight milestones in their journey towards independence. By Brontë’s detailed way of describing the setting, she does not only manage to create different atmospheres but she also gives an insight into the characters’ feelings and moods. In Jane Eyre it is used clearly to measure Jane's growth and to break up the novel into volumes more clearly. The setting of the story is carefully divided into five distinct locations, each of which has its particular significance in Jane's history.