“We Have Never Been What We Seemed”: A Two-Layered Adaptation of the Life of the Fitzgeralds

Abstract

This paper attempts to explore the way in which the life of American famous couple F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald has been portrayed in Therese Anne Fowler’s biographical novel titled Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald (2013) and its counterpart adaptation: brand new Amazon Prime series Z: The Beginning of Everything (season 1, 2017). In order to achieve my purpose, I will apply Chatman’s narratological approach (1978, 1990) to the analysis of the narrative elements of the story and the discourse of both the novel and the series, and I will also focus on how these elements are adapted through the contextual and intertextual filters studied by Stam (2000a, 2000b, 2005). Before analyzing Fowler’s novel and the Amazon series, I will firstly explore the different theories of adaptation that have been developed throughout the years, then, I will provide an account on all the major adaptations of both the lives and works of the Fitzgeralds, which will serve as useful information for the contextual background of the two cases in point: the biographical novel and the series. On the basis that there is neither fidelity nor correctness in anybody’s truth, this Master Thesis will try to analyze the particular recreation that the novel and the series offer of Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald to unveil the cultural, historical, aesthetics and other filters that make this portrayal more appealing for a 21st century audience.