Narratological approach of the film adaptation of Thérèse Desqueyroux by François Mauriac

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to examine translation as a phenomenon from literature into movies through isotopies. In particular, the research concen-trates on the intertextual phenomenon between the original classic version in literature and the two film versions (1962 and 2012). In Gideon Toury’s work, translation is seen as an intertextual phenomenon. The three “texts” form an intertextual triangle. Mauriac’s classic novel is at the top of the triangle as a significant guide, and at the same time the two films rest on the triangle’s base. In 1927, the French writer, François Mauriac wrote his iconic work, Thérèse Desqueyroux. In his novel, the writer describes the tragic story of a poisoner. This is a woman who hovers between the romantic of the past and the realism of the present. The young heroine lets herself go psychically into her dreams, and she does not see reality in its logical dimension. Her marriage is not a romantic, happy and ideal union taken from the romantic works of the 19th century. It is a cold, cruel and indifferent marriage. In a way, Thérèse is a victim of herself. Unveiling the psychographic image of this fatal woman called Thérèse D, the application of Greimas’s narratological method offers a fertile field of research, and the examination of the transformation into a double cinematographic portrait. Thérèse is a woman prisoner in her name: Desqueyroux. The narrative structure of the work turns on the fragile psyche of the heroine. Is she real-ly a fragile female figure or, a cruel poisoner in a search of mental freedom?