The rewrite as a mode to denunciate and aspirate to a revival. (3)

So now we've discussed the rewrite as being a process which allows the author to give a personal and actual vision of the studied work, we can talk about the rewrite as being a way to denounce and to aspirate to a revival. In this second part, we will first talk about the ethnic discriminations as being a phenomenon of society. 

          The first source as I said previously is a remake of the Girl with a Pearl Earring originally made in 1665. During the 17^th century, there was the slave trade and black people were used to work for free, like for example the chore, working in farms, harvest the cotton etc. They were seen as bad people and as inferior to white people. So, all the artistic works during this time focused on the magnificence of white people, for example in painting and books. That's why, a white young woman is represented in the original work of Vermeer. The fact that the author chose a painting of the 17th century, at the time of the slavery, and remade it with a black woman is audacious. People who are interested by artistic works and attached to tradition can be shocked and can disagree with the choices of the author. But, I think that most of the people can be intrigued by this new version of a work. They will want to understand what the author wanted to say or to denounce. Here, by modernizing his work, the author denounced the society he is living in. He may wants to convey a message. Directly, the eye is appeal to her face. She looks sad and may represents the black people, being their representative. Her sadness symbolises the reality of in what conditions Black people live every days in USA. The presence of the headscarf can also represent the muslim population, also discriminate in USA. The colors are dark compared to the original work.I think he wanted to change how black people are seen and stereotyped nowadays because there is no more slavery in USA but black people are often victims of discriminations. The author wanted to prove that we are not in the 17th century anymore and that with time, people are changing. Nowadays, the black population is important in USA and does not have to be disregarded. Finally, some people considered his work as being urban because he takes photographs of black people but they are not, it is a way to denounce.

           The second source is a portrait of the Pope Innocent X as I said before the original painting was made in 1650 and Francis Bacon remade it in 1953. Indeed, he did this painting just after the World War II, which began in 1939 and ended in 1945. This war was a huge and a very violent war which caused a lot of dead and injured people, not only soldiers but also civil people. The war was so horrible and bloody that, people loss faith towards humanity. People also loss faith towards God because they believe that God just do good things but here the war lasted six years and nobody came to save the population. Maybe that's why Francis Bacon took this painting of a Pope who is normally the representative of God on earth. He changed the colours by putting dark ones to show the darkness and the horrors. He makes the Pope scream which shows again the atrocities made by the humanity during the war and that the pope may have seen. Moreover, he is grasping the chair which means that he saw something terrible and that is why he is contracted. So, we can say that through his painting Francis Bacon shows the horrors of the war. We can see some shapes which can be flams :the pope is burning, maybe in hell. All the sacred elements of the pope disappear : the red mitre and the ring. The pope is maybe dying and being the representative of God, it can show the vulnerability of the humanity, as being mortal. (and here, the representative of God, the pope, is mortal too). We can notice that he added bars in front of the Pope, it makes us think like he is in prison. Indeed, during the war soldiers could not explain what happened in the front, even by letters because the letters were ban. Maybe that's why the letter was not present in Bacon's version. Even after the war some people were afraid of talking about what happened because they were traumatized. So, the author, by adding bars, wanted to convey a message: people wanted to speak but they could not : the bars are the obstacles which forbad them to speak. Moreover, the Pope Innocent X built nine prisons at the time so Francis Bacon may have taken this Pope in particular which explains the link between the history, the prisons and the context of 1953.

          The third source is a rewriting of the Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. As I said previously, the original work is about the Bennet family who wanted their five daughters to be married to a rich and beautiful man so they go to balls. It was written in 1813, at that time the woman had not the same social position as nowadays. In fact, there was an evolution of the position of women since 1813. At that time, women were seen as inferior to men. Men had to work, they got money, they can smoke, drank what they want but women had just to stay at home, educated their children, cooked and did the housework. For me, they were treated as slaves but they had better condition than black people because they had a house, children and a husband. Women could not say anything to their husband, all the decisions were taken by men. Now, women have the same rights as men. In the novel of Jane Austen, we find these inequalities between men and women and I think the author Seth Graham-Smith wanted to change the story to make the characters equals because this is a famous novel and maybe readers of our time can think that the story is outmoded because of the inequalities. We can see in the rewriting work that women are equals to men. Indeed, Elizabeth practices martial art, we can read “Katana” (L7), “struck” (L35). At that time, women could not do men’s activities whereas here she practices martial arts and she hits Mr. Darcy, she dominates him which was not a possibility in 1813. Men did not admit that they have sentiments for women. All the new elements, as the Katana, can be seen as anachronism for the reader. Reading a story of the 17th century with the presence of zombies or martial arts can be strange. Here what is really notable is the evolution of women's position towards men. It can represent the fact that today, women can live their life without being married or without the help of a man. They are independant and self-sufficient. Furthermore, the fact that Elizabeth is practicing martial art epitomizes the ability of women to survive in a world of danger.

          So, we can conclude that artists and authors make rewriting works to denounce a subject that touchs themselves : discrimination, the horrors of the war or the inequalities between women and men. They opposed their works to the original one to show the evolution and so to change the situation, aspiring to a revival. In the next part, we will discuss the process of both rewriting and of intertextuality.