Comparison of the values associated with Jane Austins Emma and Amy Hecklings Clueless
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The film Clueless created by scriptwriter and director Amy Heckling is a modern transformation of Jane Austin's near 200-year-old novel Emma. Both texts are products of their time and despite the change of contexts cyclic themes are developed that illustrate the values and paradigms of the texts disparate societies. Throughout my studies of this module it has been the comparison of these values that has been above all, the most interesting aspects of transformations. Through understanding the changes in social, cultural and historical contexts it is possible to understand how and why the values established in Clueless are incongruent to those in Emma.
The values of both texts are reflected in changing contexts this is because over time they too change. Heckling had to adjust the values to suit the twentieth century so that she could use the film clueless to encourage the themes developed in Austin's Emma. The themes and plot remain closely comparable however the values and thoughts within the society of what is regarded as acceptable and what is not has been altered.
Emma and Clueless both present views that see a prevailing patriarchal assumption of each society in which women are defined through their relationship to men. Austin lived in a society yet to experience the liberated feminist movements. Women where customarily submissive, men where well educated and generally held in higher social significance then women...