Date of Award

2013

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Humanities

First Advisor

Myhill, Nova

Keywords

Shakespeare, Hamlet, Comic Book, Literature

Area of Concentration

English

Abstract

There are aspects of Shakespeare's Hamlet that resonate with the shared human experience and remain relevant across time periods and cultures. Other aspects of the play, however, will likely alienate the reader. Adaptations are made to help bridge the gap between the contemporary reader and Hamlet. They contextualize and/or redefine what Hamlet is in the playtext to appeal to a particular culture or mindset. This thesis examines how the comic book form can use visual narrative to effectively or ineffectively redefine Hamlet for an adolescent audience. The first chapter addresses the potentially misleading nature of the primacy of image over Shakespeare's playtext in comic book adaptations of Hamlet. It begins by analyzing the covers of three comic book adaptations of Hamlet. All of the comics contain the same story and art, but advertise drastically different aspects of the Hamlet story. The first chapter also looks at Will Eisner's bold subversion of Hamlet's most famous soliloquy as he seeks to redefine Hamlet with the comic image. The second chapter narrows the focus of visual narrative in comic book adaptations of Hamlet to how the character of Ophelia is redefined by image and how this affects the reader's understanding of the Hamlet story. I segment Ophelia's image into three distinct treatments: she is given either the attributes of a child, teen, or adult. Each different portrayal of Ophelia indicates what aspects of Hamlet the visual narrative is attempting to convey. The teen representation indicates an effectively engaging and informative adaptation of Hamlet for an adolescent reader.

Rights

This bibliographic record is available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. The New College of Florida Libraries, as creator of this bibliographic record, has waived all rights to it worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law.

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