Exploration of the violations of the principles of faithfulness in adaptation: a case study of the lord of the rings by jrr tolkien

Abstract

Since the inception of cinema, adaptation has been a ubiquitous practice of filmmaking from such sources as novels, autobiographies, science fiction, comic books, etc. This study, using convenience sampling, investigated whether adaptation retains the message and meaning through a case study of the novel by Tolkien The Lord of the Rings’ Book VI of The Return of the King by taking advantage of the close affinity between translation and adaption and therefore approaching adaptation as a translational act. Using data from the novel and the movie, the research used the qualitative method for data analysis and the data was interpreted using the Perdikaki Adaptation Shift Model that classified the violations to faithfulness into categories falling into either mutation (with addition and excision sub-categories) or modulations (with simplification and amplification) or modification. The research was able to pinpoint the differences between the novel and the movie, to categorize the differences and to show how these affected meaning. The study found that the adapter of the movie systematically mutated, modified and modulated the movie to such a degree that the study concluded that someone who only watches the movie would not get the meaning that the author of the novel wished to pass to the reader.