Strange Case of the Spin-off and the Classic: An Intertextual Analysis of Valerie Martin’s Mary Reilly

Abstract

This article aims to analyze Valerie Martin’s novel Mary Reilly (1990) in the context of intertextuality and claims that her work creates a dialogue with its pre-text. Before the analysis, this paper presents a short historical overview of intertextual theories, from the ancient ideas regarding this matter, through the theories that contributed to the coining of the term, to the three directions in which the notion of intertextuality developed – structuralist, poststructuralist, and socio-political. Martin’s text is analyzed in regard to Gerard Genette’s notion of transtextuality, concentrating mainly on one of its categories, hypertextuality; however, the study employs also the theory of spin-offs, arguing that Martin’s text very directly leads the reader towards its one intertextual source. Mary Reilly initiates a dialogue with its main pre-text, Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) by redirecting the focus of the already familiar to the reader story and presenting aspects previously omitted in the classic. This text introduces a very specific dynamic between the figures of a father and a daughter. Their relationship is present on the level of the story, but also on the level of authorship, discussing the situation of a female writer. Moreover, this spin-off creates a space for once silenced characters, such as members of the working class, to be finally heard.