John Houston’s Adaptation of James Joyce´s “The Dead”: the Interrelationship between Description and Focalization

Ano: 2001 | Volume: 1 | Número: 7

Autores: Anelise Reich Corseuil

Palavras-chave: John Houston, Adaptation, James Joyce, The Dead, Translation

Resumo Inglês:

John Huston’s The Dead, produced in 1987, was based on James Joyce’s homonymous short-story. Compared to Ulysses and Finnegans Wake, Dubliners, the collection of short-stories in which “The Dead” is included, can be seen within a more realistic literary tradition since the short-stories do not present the radical formal and linguistic innovations which characterize Joyce’s later works. In spite of its realist descriptions, however, “The Dead” already reveals Joyce’s use of certain modernist narrative devices, such as the thorough exploration of the protagonist’s consciousness, the inclusion of nonlinear time at certain points of the short-story, and the use of an elaborated stream-ofconsciousness in Gabriel’s monologue. Joyce’s use of a subjective tone, through Gabriel’s focalization, allows the reader to comprehend the fictional universe without the obtrusive voice of the narrator. In the exploration of the subjectivity of the protagonist, the short story presents a unity of space and time since most of the detailed descriptions are integrated with Gabriel’s acquiring consciousness of his life and affections. In this way, the story achieves a rapid narrative pace since Gabriel’s consciousness, which is the recipient for changes and expectancies, integrates the descriptive sequences and the unfolding of narrative action.