Modes of Adaptation: Black Representation in Maurice Leblanc’s Arsène Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar and Netflix’s Lupin

Abstract

Adaptation refers to adapting literary works (short stories, novels) into another medium (play, film, television series). Adaptation elongates the survivability of the text. The primary concern of adaptation is fidelity, the degree to which a film reflects the original work, theorists suggest various approaches, perspectives and concepts to understand the original source and the adapted work. Dudley Andrew’s Modes of Adaptation is taken for the analysis/study. Dudley Andrew classifies three modes of adaptation. ‘Borrowing’ denotes the exact imitation of the work as a film. ‘Intersecting’ converges the text with the contemporary world and ‘Transformation’ treats the literary work as an outline and weaves a similar story without affecting the originality of the source work. In the novel, Arsène Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar (1907), a crime novel, Maurice Leblanc narrates a story of a thief, Arsène Lupin, who commits robbery without any traces or evidences using his wit. The Lupin series (2021), broadcasted on Netflix, is a modern-day approach of Arsène Lupin. In the Lupin series, Assane Diop, the protagonist, steals a necklace in the auction, which lets him to face various consequences. The paper focuses on racial discrimination in the series and compares Maurice Leblanc’s Arsène Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar and Netflix’s Lupin series through the lens of Dudley Andrew’s Modes of Adaptation.