Death and the Maiden_ C. Collins

After reading Death and the Maiden as well as watching the Polanski adaptation it became very apparent that the text was much more willing to stay ambiguous unlike the film. One reason for the lack of ambiguity is due to what type of person is viewing the film, as well as what type of person would be reading the text version, the reason for each format also serves a purpose. The idea of functionality of film vs. text also can be discussed when comparing the film and text version of The Reluctant Fundamentalist. Films seem to all follow a formula (this is talking about Hollywood style films) that 1. you can't completely hate the main character, and 2. the film shouldn't crush the viewer's spirit in the end. Both text versions vary from the film guidelines in some way. The text Death and the Maiden encounters great ambiguity in the end, there is no relief for the reader. The reader does not know if the female protagonist truly found the person who did wrong to her.  The film however makes it so there is almost no doubt that Paulina was going to enact her revenge on a man who raped and tortured her. In the play, if Paulina is wrong then she is a crazed woman who just destroyed the life on an innocent-- which seems to be too much for a film watcher to handle. The Reluctant Fundamentalist  also varies greatly from text to film due to the constructs that most films seem abide by. If the film followed the text completly, the male protagonist would be utterly hated by most people. If the film followed the text completely, people may have even left the theatre before the film was over, due to disgust over the manipulation of Erica by Changez. The text also leaves the ending very ambigious, the film however sees no reason to do so since most watchers are not used to such ambiguity at the end of a film.