감성, 섹슈얼러티, 몸: 『오만과 편견』 원작과 각색 작품 비교

Abstract

The keywords to distinguish Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice from its two adaptations (the 1995 BBC mini-series and the 2005 film) are sensibility, sexuality, and body. In contrast to Austen’s Pride and Prejudice which is a reaction against the cult of sensibility and a reassertion of a rational rather than emotional construction of both character and reader, its two adaptations show masculine emotional display and sexuality. The 1995 BBC mini-series adds many invented scenes through which Darcy’s struggle with his passion is depicted. The 2005 feature film extends the concentration on sexuality of the 1995 mini-series. It shows the sexual attraction between Darcy and Elizabeth and the process of Elizabeth's sexual awakening in the dimension of ‘body’. These changes to Austen’s text are made for the differing tastes of the modern audience. The 1995 BBC version is attuned to the sensibilities of a 1995 audience and fulfills its viewers’ desire to see male hero suffer from his passion. The 2005 film version is influenced by the twenty-first century assumption that the needs and desires of the individual take precedence over other values. It focuses primarily on Elizabeth’s own emotional journey and her maturation plot, deploying sexuality as a mainspring of narrative action. These two adaptations offer the creative reinterpretation of the original text. While Austen has a narrator mock the excessive sentimentality of characters to condone a restraint of emotion and the balance between sense and sensibility, its two adaptations make an effective use of cinematography, visual symbolism, and other filming techniques to focus on sensibility, sexuality, and body. The comparison between the original text and its adaptations enables us to read cultural code of the times when they are written and produced. It leads us to appreciate the various new interpretations of the original text and to understand the new way in which the director appropriates the hidden sub-text for his/her own ends.