Uncovering The Dead: A study of adaptation
1993; Salisbury University; Volume: 21; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0090-4260
Autores Tópico(s)Law in Society and Culture
ResumoJohn Huston's last film, is a very faithful rendering of Joyce's turn-of-the-century Irish dinner party. A careful reading of The Dead, paying close attention to Tony Huston's adaptation, will find added detail which may enhance the film for those in the audience not readily familiar with Joyce's original.1 most intriguing invention of this adaptation is Mr. Grace and his recitation. Mr. Grace is a character made out of whole cloth. He is introduced for the express purpose of initiating Gretta's gradual preoccupation with her long-buried thoughts and emotions for a lost love. character so aptly named for his recitation is fluid and forceful. While Mr. Grace himself is a complete fabrication, the poem he recites is not. Mr. Grace's recitation for the evening is a poem titled Broken Vows, which he says was translated by Lady Gregory, a prominent folklorist and dramatist of the day. In actuality the poem is called The Grief of a Girl's Heart.2 poem in its original form as translated by Lady Gregory has fourteen stanzas; however, the piece recited by Mr. Grace contains only six. To include the entire poem as a part of the recitation would have added a more than subtle reminder to Gretta of her young love and a certain amount of incongruity with Joyce's original plot. As the first whisper of old memories and emotions, the poem obviously captivates Gretta. While Gretta seems momentarily reclaimed by the past, Miss Daly's breathless comment, Imagine being in love like that, offers us verbal affirmation that Gretta is recalling such a love. A more tangible account of Gretta's as yet unspoken experience lies in the poem itself. first recited stanza immediately establishes the grief of a girl's lost love: It is late last night the dog was speaking of you; snipe was speaking of you in her deep marsh. It is you are the lonely bird through the woods; And that you may be without a mate until you find me. (5-8)3 sudden and unexpected nature of the poem does not allow Gretta to escape the memory of a winter night years ago when she pleaded with a sick and shivering Michael Furey to return home, only to hear a week later that he was dead. Gabriel will soon face the fact that Gretta locked in her heart for so many years that image of her lover's when he had told her that he did not wish to live.4 This statement is actually expressed as the last line of the tenth stanza of the original poem which is not recited by Mr. Grace: And my two giving love to you for ever. Although the eyes mentioned here are those of a woman, the sentiment was Michael Furey's. Courting as they did in the country, going out walking together, it is easy to imagine that promises might have been made: You promised me a thing that was hard for you, A ship of gold under a silver mast; Twelve towns with a market in all of them. And a fine white court by the side of the sea. You promised me a thing that is not possible, That you would give me gloves of the skin of a fish; That you would give me shoes of the skin of a bird; And a suit of the dearest silk in Ireland. (13-20)5 Gretta describes Michael as a gentle and delicate boy who worked in the gasworks, a dirty and unhealthy profession. …
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