One of my projects currently underway is a verse adaptation of Franz Kafka's In the Penal Colony. I am interested in seeing what emerges from this transformation. On top of this, I am swapping the gender of the major character, The Traveler, substituting a female into this role. I'm interest in how that changes the narrative.
This is proving to be a somewhat difficult endeavor, even (maybe especially) to think about. I am considering just plunging ahead, adapting intuitively, rather than analytically. This would make it a work of imagination, rather than of applied research. I am unsure there is any research to apply, in this case. I am looking and I have asked my modernist, women's studies professor for texts that might help me think about this.
I don't know, I guess I should prevail upon my advisor for advice.
Some deeper concerns with my project are with Kafka. It is a given for me that this is the text I want to adapt. Kafka's seemingly affectless prose is a challenge to adhere to in an adaptation without spilling my own biases and personality into it. The story is incredibly relevant and has been so over the eras that have passed since it was written.
Again, I think the only way to proceed is to intuitively process Kafka and the tale and render it in my words, through Kafka's characters (one of whom I have given a sex change). This, I hope will shine light on the difference of poetry to prose and gender on narrative and meaning.
The tale (as noted by Frank Zappa) reflects integrally on the, 60s in the US, as well as other eras, like the fall of the Soviet Union, the current American period and other periods. In short, it is a powerful essential rendering of a universal situation. It describes a failing political structure in terms of human costs.
Anyway, I could use some basic models of adaptation of this nature and gender substitution of this nature, but I'm not sure they exist.
So, my Modernist Lit / Gender Studies professor, Prof Davidson from Rutgers gave me some more thoughts on this. 1) Am I just substituting a female character into the Kafka situation or adapting Kafka from a feminist / female perspective. Hm. 2) Kafka, existentialists are very phallocentric - they really weren't focused on women (outside Simone de Beauvoir). That's a lot of thought to crunch in those two bullets. I'm processing all of that and may be leaning toward a full female takeover of In the Penal Colony. I'm guessing this will make it pretty unrecognizable.
ReplyDelete