ABSTRACT
This chapter uses diasporic theory to better understand the text's journey of migration from one space to another, from page to screen and back again. It considers the novels and screen adaptations to offer multiple research opportunities, in relation to romance and crime in particular. The chapter looks at the way James's mash-up and its screen adaptation have engaged with social change, women's status, class rigidity, and symbolic social spaces, and have been influenced by the author's own political identity. Identities are shaped by departures and arrivals, emigration and immigration, and in-between experiences, and the chapter borrows from the arsenal of diasporic theory concepts such as alienation–adaptation, journey–capital, multiplicity–hybridity, change, place polygamy, symbolic geography, homeness, trauma, and memory. These concepts expand on already existing theories in adaptation studies who examine hybridity and transtextuality through authors from Bakhtin to Kristeva, and Deleuze to Genette.
