Of Steinbeck and Dautremer: Analyzing the visual expansion in Des souris et des hommes

Details

Supervisors

Bragard, Véronique

Faculty

Faculté de philosophie, arts et lettres

Degree label

Master [120] en langues et lettres modernes, orientation générale, à finalité spécialisée: sciences et métiers du livre

Abstract

enRébecca Dautremer’s 2020 graphic novel Des souris et des hommes presents itself as an adaptation of the classic 1937 American novel Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, with the particularity that it features the original text completely unaltered, spread over 420 illustrated pages realized in a wide range of graphic styles, creating a unique case of “visual expansion” rather than the usual “condensation” expected in adaptations from one medium to another. Although Steinbeck’s original Of Mice and Men has already been adapted since its publication for theater and film, and despite the growing academic recognition of graphic novel adaptations, there is to this day no in-depth study that has examined Dautremer’s work as a standalone visual rewriting. The present dissertation argues that Dautremer’s adaptation could be considered as an independent literary object, a visual rewriting (or even “re-drawing”) that honors to the letter Steinbeck’s original novel while building upon it new layers of meaning through the visual dimension permitted by the graphic novel medium. To investigate this hypothesis, I conducted a qualitative, interpretive close-reading of a selection of pages from Dautremer’s Des souris et des hommes, focusing on the visual storytelling and the stylistic shifts impacting it. My analysis of the present dissertation draws on adaptation studies (Baetens, Pointner, Boschenhoff), comics theory (Chute, McCloud, Cohn, Eisner), and additional theoretical framework drawn from feminist theory (Mulvey, Sobchack), studies on the representation of disability and bodies (Garland-Thomson, Szép), and references to art history (Outsider Art). The findings reveal how Dautremer reinterprets Steinbeck’s story as a stage director on paper, using stylistic variations to engage with political and social concerns of capitalism and marginalization, to give visibility to previously invisible female characters, and to reframe Lennie’s difference by visualizing his neurodivergent perspective. By shifting the focus from sole fidelity to expansion, this study contributes to adaptation theory and offers a model for reading graphic narratives as sites of ideological critique and feminist re-narration.