Adaptation as Reader-Response to The Sound and the Fury

by Linn, Rachel E.

In order to understand the complex relationship between original and the adaptation, the paper uses the influential novel, William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, and adaptations of that work in different media to explore the creation of an adaptation and some reasons why an artist creates an adaptation as well as what is altered in a work by removing it from its original context. A general investigation process that leads to adaptation will allow for a further exploration of two adaptations for the stage: Erik Ehn's The Sound and the Fury and the Elevator Repair Service's The Sound and the Fury (April Seventh, 1928); and a look into Martin Ritt's The Sound and the Fury as adapted for film will stand as a possible unsuccessful adaptation in order to allow the reader to question what makes an adaptation successful.