ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses a significant element in the adaptation of narrative content from one medium to another, namely the reproduction of subjective thought processes, along with the conventions that have developed around it, and why. Representing thought as, for example, through the novelistic convention of interior monologue, is a job that prose is often said to do particularly well, while film has developed other means of visualising and communicating characters’ thoughts, such as the classic voice-over. In what follows, I will delve into this aspect of adaptation, taking Dickens as my source-oriented study, and focusing on various means that he and other artists have experimented with over time for the representation of interiority, from illustrations, to magic lantern shows, and film. In doing so, I am attempting to go beyond the parameters of the single text-to-film case study by looking at various modes of adaptation and how they have attempted to represent the inner musings of both Dickens and his fictional characters. Thus, rather than taking a singular case-study approach, in this chapter the emphasis will be placed on the history of adaptation in this one key area.
