The intent of this study is twofold: (1) To present a reading of The Tin Drum, both novel and film, with the objective of discovering whether the same basic theme and tone are present in both. (2) To evaluate how the novel and film compare in terms of modernist and popular art. / In evaluating the faithfulness of Volker Schlondorff's film adaptation of the Gunter Grass novel The Tin Drum, one must measure the extent to which film theme and tone are consistent with those of the novel. Wolfgang Iser's phenomenological approach to the act of reading offers a useful methodology. According to Iser, the reading of a text, whether filmic or literary, involves the interrelationship between text and reader and is viewed as an open-ended process by which the reader attempts to make sense of the work. Texts which leave numerous gaps in perspective for the reader to fill or which contradict reader expectations (negations) are considered modernist, whereas texts which require little active involvement from the reader are classified as popular or light literature or film. / The tone of The Tin Drum, both novel and film, centers around loss, insecurity, and the tension of being between "faith and disillusionment." The novel produces an intellectually based insecurity for the reader whereas the film operates on the basis of emotional response, mostly through audience identification with the loss and insecurity experienced by Oskar, the main character. / The novel and film have vastly different themes. The novel deals with issues such as war guilt, sanity and insanity, and rationality and irrationality, especially with reference to Germany during World War II. The film reconstructs a story of a small boy who, for the most part, remains distant from the events of the war, and what we experience concerns his search for security mostly from women, and his inability to find it. / As a straightforward chronological presentation of events and characters described in the novel, the film is less demanding and consequently less modernist than the book. The filmic sequence of events is much more accessible than those in the book: A little boy decides to remain three years old and three feet tall. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 43-04, Section: A, page: 1158. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1982.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_74814 |
| Contributors | ROOKS, SHARON ELAINE., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 251 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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