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Adrian Shergold’s Persuasion: Contemporary Rewriting of Austen’s novel

This article examines how Adrian Shergold adapted Jane Austen’s Persuasion for film to communicate with contemporary readers. First, Shergold has transformed the original narrative of Austen’s work and recreated it into a melodrama. In the original work, the traditional class values and changes in the early 19th British society were the important historical backdrop of the novel. In contrast, in the movie, the narrative has been adapted into a more sensationalized and feel good story focusing more on personal achievements rather than the historical backdrop. Shergold centralizes his work on the main characters, their choices and the simple, but beautiful love story than that of the social and cultural background. This has been realized through a rapid progression of retelling the novel with omissions and changes of crucial scenes. Therefore, the audience is left with a more dramatic and perhaps more accessible version by today’s standards instead of a faithful reflection of the original work. Furthermore, as a result of Shergold’s own interpretation of each character he was able to rebirth a more simplified, approachable story in which the public could relate to. One of the most notable differences in Shergold’s movie is the way he depicts the character of Anne Elliot. In the scene of the reunion between Anne and Captain Wentworth, much focus is on Anne, broken hearted and living in pain and anguish. Anne has been recreated as a more realistic and relatable character than that of Austen’s. Anne’s detailed inner world is expressed vividly through nonverbal ways, such as her gestures and body language in the movie. She doesn’t hide her inner voice, and allows the audience to know her thoughts and feelings clearly through her diary and narration. This contributes to reproduce the meaning of the original work in a way viewers can digest more soundly. While Shergold does foll ow much of Austen’s original plot, he also keeps a distance. He transforms the n arrative through re interpreting characters and events and rewriting. The original work can now be seen from a new perspective through rapid development and intensified close-up images of characters in the movie. Overall, Shergold has drawn positive and favourable reviews from critics and audiences alike, thus achieving his goal of reinterpreting and retelling Austen’s story for the 21st century.