A text can be considered from many points of view and in many different ways. Appropriation is one of the ways of doing this.

Essay by elise16High School, 12th gradeA, October 2006

download word file, 10 pages 5.0

The statement a text can be considered from many points of view and in many different ways can be proved through the study of the novel "Catcher in the Rye" by J D Salinger and the film "Igby Goes Down "directed by Burr Sterrs. The novel "Catcher in the Rye" relates, in first person, the experiences of a seventeen year old boy Holden Caulfield in the days following his expulsion from his preparatory school. The appropriation of this novel is a film Igby Goes Down which follows the life of Igby Slocumb, who is a dissatisfied son of a wealthy family who after a serious of expulsions from schools and military camps seeks solace in New York. The two texts can be measured or viewed in three different ways. The most prominent method is appropriation, which due to the different time periods allows for new insights into the original text and emphasises contextual differences between the two.

It can also be viewed as a rites of passage genre text linked to ideas of idealism and realism and conformity and non- conformity or from a psychoanalysis view referring to the Freudian theory.

An appropriated text is a text which has been taken from one context and translated into another. "Catcher in the Rye" was written in 1951, whilst the appropriated text of Igby Goes Down was produced in 2002. Both texts have parallel plots dealing with alienation, insanity and dysfunctional relationships whilst following a teenage boy through New York after his expulsion from a private school. They also both have similar circulatory narrating, meaning the plot starts at the end of the story. However different methods are used to emphasise meaning and influence the reader/ viewer. As the original text is a novel, opinions of Holden are portrayed through his...