Miss Emma In A Lesson Before Dying

For a media adaptation of a character from the novel A Lesson Before Dying, I chose Miss Emma. Miss Emma is a strong woman that represents everything that a woman aspires to be. In this adaptation, I imagine that Miss Emma would behave just as she would in the novel; with confidence, spirituality, and toughness. When Miss Emma makes up her mind, “I don't want them to kill no hog… I want a man to go to that chair, on his own two feet" (Gaines, 13), people knew that there was no stopping her. Regardless of whether “the conversation was over” (20), Miss Emma continuously held firm to her decision, saying she’ll “be here again tomorrow…” (20). Along with her toughness, Miss Emma’s spirituality will carry on to the adaptation, which was apparent
with her instant turn to god when she first visited her god-son Jefferson in prison. She sobs “Oh Lord Jesus, stand by, stand by” (60). Some of the challenges Miss Emma would create for me in achieving this creative adaptation includes remaining true to her values as well as her beliefs. This could be a challenge as many of the things that Miss Emma values are shared with a certain demographic. For the adaptation to be successful, it needs to appeal to a wider audience. All in all, it would be a challenge to appeal to a larger audience whilst having Miss Emma remains true to her values.
The media adaptation that I selected for the novel A Lesson Before Dying is a comic book.
I feel that this is an appropriate choice as it helps readers visualize what occurs in the novel. With a comic book adaptation, we can appeal to a larger audience and allow the authors ideas to become further coherent through images that show details that the original adaptation could not. For example, in the novel many emotions are felt, or so we are told but we don’t get to see them on their face. With a comic book, the audience can reengage with the book when it gets boring. Some of the challenges that a comic book would create when being used to adapt Miss Emma from the novel includes the artist’s ability to capture the thoughts of Ernest Gaines through his art. This could become a large problem as the artist can impact the audience’s understanding of Gaines words. Another problem that is common with many comic book adaptations is loss of key words. With a comic book the number of words is limited as they are often portrayed with images. Furthermore, with a comic book, there is a large chance that many important moments and quotes can be altered or completely removed, again influencing the audience’s interpretation of Gaines words. I would meet these challenges by researching possible illustrations that Gaines previously had as well as further researching his personal life to establish what Miss Emma could be based off. I could also reduce the limit of words by creating a slightly
larger than average comic book to ensure that Gaines message can still be interpreted.
The sole purpose behind creating the adaptation I chose, is appealing to a larger audience. Many people, including me, are visual learners and learn best through seeing images and art that contain meaning. By creating an adaptation that appeals to different kinds of learners, the message of the novel can be accessed by more than one type of learners. This adaptation would also be great for students who are forced to read the book; using a comic book the novel becomes further comprehensible to read. In addition, the layout of the comic book allows the readers to see and experience the novel in a unique way that is rare when reading a continuous stream of boring words. All in all, a comic book adaptation enhances the readers experience and helps other to better understand the novel and the messages it contains.