Doris Hambuch (United Arab Emirates University)
Wide Sargasso Sea, first published by Jean Rhys in 1966, is now considered a classic in Caribbean Literature. Not only has it become the object of numerous academic inquiries, it has also inspired at least two very different cinematic adaptations, John Duigan’s in 1993 and Brendan Maher’s in 2006. Duigan’s Australian adaptation, described as a “seriously exotic Gothic romance” in a New York Times review (http://www.nytimes.com/1993/04/16/movies/review-film-mrs-rochester-no-1-long-before-jane-eyre.html), emphasizes the sensual aspect of the story. Maher’s rendering, produced for British television more than a decade later, seems more interested in the importance of the Rhys text for the British literary tradition. In Literature Through Film: Realism, Magic, and the Art of Adaptation Robert Stam demonstrates the very intriguing approach to reading related written and audiovisual texts without the central question about ‘fidelity’. Following Stam’s “broad intertextual as opposed to narrow judgmental approach” (Stam 5) I will analyze the two cinematic adaptations of Wide Sargasso Sea as independent entities before I move on to identify constructive connections with their hypotext.
