Sweetening Jane: Equivalence through Genre, and the Problem of Class in Austen Adaptations

This article argues that an approach to understanding adaptations in terms of genre offers a perspective at least as productive as considerations of the verbal and visual languages of prose and cinema. Examining three recent Austen adaptations Sense and Sensibility (Lee 1995), Emma (McGrath 1996), and Pride and Prejudice (Wright 2005), but also addressing other film and television versions it demonstrates that efforts to make the new texts conform to prevailing expectations for romantic comedy, explain key changes. In tandem with these alterations, and also a component of the adaptive sweetening process, various interventions allow the derived texts to present an altered ideological temperament to their originals. This encompasses the films' handling of class and issues of sexual politics, and is manifested in the systematic excision and reduction of original elements, as well as in schemes of addition and amplification.