Masters Thesis

Here it is. The biggie. This represents a large chunk of my life, and I’m quite happy with how it turned out. It’s over 150 pages, so there’s no way that I would even think about adapting it for a web version. Instead, I’m going to give you a link to the pdf. Yes, it might take you a bit to load, but such is life. It’s only about 1.5 MB, so it’s not killer. Below the link is the abstract, to give you an idea what it’s about before you decide to click over to the pdf. If you’re interested in adaptation, film, young adult literature, Mark Twain, or Huckleberry Finn, this will be right up your alley.

Translating Huck: Difficulties in Adapting
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
to Film

Abstract

Filmmakers have had four main difficulties adapting The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to film: point of view, structure, audience and the novel’s ending. By studying the different approaches of various directors to each obstacle, certain facts emerge about both the films and the novel. While literary scholars have studied Huck from practically every angle, none have sufficiently viewed the book through the lens of adaptation, despite the fact that it has been adapted to film and television over twenty times. The few critics who have studied the adaptations have done so using dated methodologies that boil down to little more than a question of how faithfully the films recreate the novel. By judging a movie solely on the basis of the book’s merits, critics ignore the fact that a change in medium necessitates a change in material. With each adaptation, a new opportunity arises to study the novel from a fresh standpoint.