Same Story, Different Narratives: A Postcolonial Reading of Literary Texts and Corresponding Film Adaptations

Abstract

The cinematic narrative and the story of its literary antecedent have nourished upon each other since the beginnings of cinema in the late 19th Century. As a result of this adaptation of film from literature, it is understandable that the film medium and the literary one should present stories using different systems of signs and symbols. This situation however, has not meant that the text and its offspring film are diametrically opposed, either with regard to meaning, or technique. As such, the two have been proven to have an intertextual relationship. This paper is a reading on intertextuality that endeavours to discuss the significant ways in which the adapted film and the antecedent literary text divert and converge in respect of meaning as each media strives to express meaning using the system of signs and techniques within its province. In essence, the paper seeks to answer the question: How does the adapted film; and the source literary text deliver the same story, or a different story, either similarly or differently? At the centre of this inquiry is an analysis of the cinematic and literary presentation of the question of colonial ism in Africa. The paper delves into this matter in respect of three films, Out of Africa (1986), The Ghost and the Darkness (1996) and Things Fall Apart (1987) and their respective literary antecedents