A narrativa emoldurada: Heart of Darkness em graphic novel

Abstract

This thesis analyzes the work published by Catherine Anyango and David Zane Mairowitz in 2010, which adapts Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness (2007) into a graphic novel. The analysis of the transition of the narrative focus, characters and space from the literary narrative’s “telling mode” to graphic novel’s “telling” and “showing” modes. This research project addresses adaptation as an independent work, a recreation, as suggested by Hutcheon (2013). In order to explore the similarities between the literary narrative and the graphic novel and to verify the transformations taking place in the adaptation process, Groensteen’s (2013/ 2015) and other authors’ contributions to both literary and graphic novel theories were taken into account. The analysis shows that the work by Anyango and Mairowitz recreates through the use of both verbal and non-verbal resources the core aspects of Conrad’s novel, emphasizing the history of Congo’s colonial period by adding fragments of the autobiographical account found in The Congo Diary as well as cartographic elements such as maps of the Congo River and Belgian Congo.