Bull's-eye agency in audiovisual adaptations of Oliver Twist (1838), by Charles Dickens
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21814/diacritica.5973Keywords:
Oliver Twist, Dog, Animal agency, Audiovisual adaptation, Intersemiotic translationAbstract
Arguing for the hypothesis of a blurring of cultural boundaries between the economically disadvantaged Victorian population and non-human animals operated by Dickensian rhetoric in Oliver Twist, this study seeks to demonstrate how audiovisual adaptations of the novel increasingly exponentiate the agency, subjectivity and protagonism of the character Bull's-eye, the dog of the villain Bill Sikes, in an attempt to satisfy the ever less speciesism culture of their audiences. Since the episodes introduced and suppressed by the adaptations are based on the way Dickens sketches the canine, the adaptive solutions are considered successful, in the sense of a translative domestication of the source text. It is also observed how some adaptive solutions end up making a name for themselves, creating an audiovisual canon of representation of the novel that becomes part of the public's horizon of expectations and is consequently assimilated by the Dickensian narrative.
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