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"Books and movies are like apples and oranges. They both are fruit, but taste completely different." (Stephen King). Books and movies are two main tools for creating stories in different arrangements of events-narrative structures. Each has its way of drawing your attention and transporting you into different worlds in a unique way. Whether you are under a warm blanket or watching a film at the cinema, both aim to evoke some emotions and impressions that you will never forget.
The transformation of a novel into a screenplay has been a growing trend for many decades. Every great show, movie, or series came into existence based on an idea that is written in the script or the book. While comparing the book with the adapted film, each has many critical distinctions, such as structure, dialogue, resolution, narrative choices, style, writing length, etc.
One of the critical differences is the narrative structure, which includes the essence of a story and the way the story is told to the audience and readers. Narrative structure is a combination of story and plot, as the story is the action of the movie, and the plot is how the story is told. Narrative in literature is the retelling of past events or experiences, whether real, imaginary, or somewhere in between. Narrative structure includes how incidents are organized or arranged.
The actuality of the research and the degree of research. Comparisons of books and their adaptations have always been done throughout the years. Whenever it is adapted to the screen, the analysis of comparison with the original story always comes along. As the book that is chosen is a recent novel with a unique and extraordinary narrative structure with a lot of flashbacks, the analysis of the narrative structure of this kind of story hasn't been extensively studied yet. Certainly, there are a lot of analyses separately, but the comparison of storytelling in this recently published book and its two adaptations together, more broadly and differently, will present a significant contribution to the field of literature. This research can also develop our understanding of bookfilm comparison by shedding light on how the narrative structure in the book and its adapted film are constructed. It can enhance our knowledge of narrative elements such as plot, setting, themes, and character analysis in literature by drawing attention to the narrative structure formats, styles, and types that are found in literary works and movies. Maybe there are some alterations in terms of story structure in modern novels when it is compared with classic novels and their adapted film, and the study could uncover subtle connections between books and films.
The object of the thesis. The object which is used in this research is the novel called A Man Called Ove (2013) by Fredrik Backman, and its film adaptations A Man Called Ove (2015) by Hannes Holm, and A Man Called Otto by Marc Forster (2022). It also encompasses theories and concepts regarding narrative structure. It will also cover the supporting data that is taken from journals, articles, and books that have a relationship to the main data.
The subject of the thesis. The subject of research focuses on the narrative structure utilized by most authors, writers, and filmmakers. The research will be a great supplement to the literary and cinematic world for providing larger-scale research on the difference between filmic and literary narratives.
The aim and objectives of the research. This research aims to find out the type of narrative structure and elements that occur in the novel A Man Called Ove (2013) by Fredrik Backman and its film adaptations A Man Called Ove (2015) and A Man Called Otto (2022) film adaptations. The research will also carry out an analysis of comparisons of the narrative structures based on both literary works and their film versions in order to classify the narrative structures and make a contrast with classic novels while finding the differences and similarities based on setting, characters, conflict, climax, and resolution aspects of narrative structure.