Omori's Film Adaptation Of Yamamoto's Short Stories example essay topic

Often, in cases in which a literary text is adapted to film, certain elements and techniques in the literary text are lost. Hisaye Yamamoto's Seventeen Syllables and Yoneko's Earthquake, written in the mid 1900's, portray the lives of two Japanese American families. Approximately half a century later, Emiko Omori produced a film adaptation of the two stories melded into one, titled Hot Summer Winds. In her short stories, Hisaye Yamamoto employs an interesting strategy of running two plots parallel in a singular story line; the existence of a latent plot within a manifest plot. This tactic of "double telling" as described by King Kok Cheung, requires the reader to take an active part in reading the story; the reader must investigate beyond the text itself in order to understand the intricacies of the latent plot. The tactic of "double telling" is lost in Emiko Omori's Hot Summer Winds; however her adaptation still remains true in that it succeeds to represent the Asian American family.

However one must take note that the depiction of the Asian American family differ between Yamamoto and Omori, primarily due to the social content of their respective times. Both of Yamamoto's short stories employ the use of "double telling" throughout the story line; that is, in the short stories Seventeen Syllables and Yoneko's Earthquake, the readers are presented with both a manifest plot and a latent plot. The manifest plot is the storyline that is being directly told by that of that of the speaker in the text, therefore in Seventeen Syllables and Yoneko's Earthquake, the speaker assumes the views of Rosie and Yoneko, and thus presents to the readers the manifest plot. Therefore, the manifest plot can be simply defined as the story that is presented in the foreground; all that is presented openly before the reader and told by the speaker attributes to the manifest plot. In Seventeen Syllables Rosie's growing love interest with Jesus and her excitement in these new found emotions consist of the majority of the manifest plot; it is important to point out that the speaker is not Rosie herself, but rather a third person that takes the point of view of Rosie throughout the short story.

The same technique is applied again in Yoneko's Earthquake, where the speaker subjects herself to the child-like scrutiny of Yoneko. The opposite component of the manifest plot is the latent plot. If the manifest plot is defined as the storyline that is directly presented in the foreground, then the latent plot is the story that lies hidden in the background; 'hidden' meaning that it is masked behind the story told by the speaker. In Seventeen Syllables, the latent storyline consists of the hidden emotions and tensions of Rosie's parents. The process and events in which the parents engage in are, for the most part, veiled into the backdrop of Rosie's story. However, it becomes evidently clear in Seventeen Syllables that there indeed lies a plot underneath Rosie's limited point of view; Rosie's childhood observations hint at certain events regarding her mother and father that are of greater significance than what they appear to be.

Only by piecing together the hints dropped by Rosie and Yoneko are the readers able to recognize that there exists an entirely different element to the speaker's story; only by taking the clues given in the manifest text and piecing them together can the reader truly understand the existence of a latent plot. As discussed earlier, the latent plot is shrouded behind the story presented in the foreground and runs parallel to the manifest plot, and thus Hisaye Yamamoto's Seventeen Syllables and Yoneko's Earthquake, excellently hide the parental story by taking advantage of the Rosie and Yoneko's child-like point of view. Yamamoto's use of a child's point of view in her stories, further melds the latent plot into the background in that the narrator herself assumes the view of the child and thus is unable fully understand the complexities of the adult world. With the awakening of the poetess, Ume Hanazano, a conflict arises between Rosie's parents. The readers learn that "The new interest had some repercussions on the household routines" (23). As Rosie's mother becomes interested in writing haiku's, Rosie becomes aware that the household practices between her parents have changed; her father who used to play cards with her mother every night, finds himself sitting alone and playing solitaire (23).

Thus, the readers understand that Rosie comprehends the changes in the physical aspects of her parent's relationship. Rosie reports that her father now plays solitaire alone and on their visit to the Hayano residence, her father is left alone looking at picture magazines while her mother discussed poetry with Mr. Hayano. Rosie can see the changing physical aspects of her parent's relationship; however she is unaware of the rising emotional tension between her mother and father. It is only through careful observation and inference that one is able to see that there exists a feeling of apprehension between Rosie's parents. Again in Yoneko's Earthquake, Yamamoto employs the same dualistic plot; the story is told from the perspective of a child who is unable to fully understand the complex dynamics of the adult world. Thus, the story revolves around Yoneko and her childhood emotions and thus conceals the latent emotions between her parents.

The inferiority complex of Mr. Hosoume to Marpo, the sexual affair between Yoneko's mother and Marpo, and the abortion of the illegitimate child all lay buried underneath Yoneko's inability to comprehend adulthood. The dietetic text does not mention such words as "inferiority complex,"affair", and "abortion", rather the readers are left to infer these feelings and actions from the little evidence given by Yamamoto to infer these feelings and actions. Indeed, as a literary technique, the duality of the manifest and latent plot draws the reader to look beyond mere words and texts themselves, and induces contemplation and hypothesi zation in an attempt to understand the designs in the background. The "double telling" method in Hisaye Yamamoto's Seventeen Syllables and Yoneko's Earthquake are effective on a literary level, however Emiko Omori's film adaptation of Yamamoto's short stories omit the usage of a dual manifest and latent plot. Although the film adaptation is interestingly enjoyable, Hot Summer Winds differs greatly from the literary texts in several ways. One must take into account that in producing the film adaptation, Omori melded two stories together and thus, in a sense, created an entirely new story.

Hot Summer Winds, deals with many of the issues and events covered in Yamamoto's short stories, however in the process of merging the two short stories, the film adaptation becomes a completely different story in itself. A noticeable difference between Hot Summer Winds and Yamamoto's short stories is Omori's choice in employing an older Yoneko to narrate. Yamamoto's choice in selecting a young character to act as the center of her story was for the purpose of limiting the exposure of the latent plot. By utilizing an older Yoneko to narrate the film, Omori sets up a different atmosphere in that the audience believes that the recollection is from a mature adult, and thus the story being told becomes objective. With Yamamoto's short stories, the audience must take into account the young ages of both Rosie and Yoneko and must view the stories subjectively in order to understand the latent plot. Thus, in the film, many of the events that were hidden underneath Yamamoto's text appear candidly before the audience's eyes; the sexual affair of Yoneko's mother and the abortion of the illegitimate pregnancy are explicitly portrayed in the film.

Therefore the participation and discovery needed by the readers in reading Yamamto's short stories is lost in Omori's Hot Summer Winds. Another interesting aspect that Omori includes in her film adaptation is the awakening of the mother's sexual agency; whereas the readers are left uncertain as to how the love affair came to be in Yoneko's Earthquake, Omori's film confidently shows a sexually secure woman engaging in an extramarital affair on her on will. Due to the concealed nature of the latent plot, the readers are left to speculate on the events leading up to Yoneko's mother's affair with Marpo. However, in Hot Summer Winds there is a series of cut scenes in which the mother fantasizes about Marpo, and in the following scene we see that the mother acts out her fantasies.

Thus in some sense, the mother in Hot Summer Winds is a stronger woman in that she takes hold of her sexual agency; she takes her body as her own and takes ownership of her sensuality. There arise many speculations as to why Omori handled the affair in this manner, the most reasonable answer being the different social and historical contexts that shaped Omori's work. Hisaye Yamamoto, wrote Seventeen Syllables and Yoneko's Earthquake in 1949 and 1951 and according to Elaine H. Kim's interview with Yamamoto, Yamamoto states that, "I guess I write to reaffirm certain basic truths which seem to get lost in the shuffle from generation to generation, so that we seem destined to go on making the same mistakes over and over again. If the reader is entertained, wonderful. If he learns something, that's a bonus" (110). Thus we see that Yamamoto's purpose is to present to the readers the relationship between first generation Asian American parents and their second generation children.

Yamamoto wrote her story prior to the 1960's, before the Women's Movement, thus one may argue that Yamamoto's purposely hides the mother's affair with Marpo due to the social norms of her time. Emiko Omori adapted Seventeen Syllables and Yoneko's Earthquake to film in the early 1990's, nearly three decades after the Women's Movement. Omori was also raised in a time in which women had the freedom to be openly liberal with their sexuality. Thus, one can see that Omori's agenda in constructing Hot Summer Winds differ from that of Yamamoto's; whereas Yamamoto was strictly presenting the generation gap between the first generation and second generation, Omori is interested more in the presenting of the Asian American family in the current social avenue and thus applies not only the traditional social contexts covered by Yamamoto, but also adds those of the current social norms.

The dual plot method employed by Hisaye Yamamoto effectively grasps the reader's attention by forcing the reader to participate in order to unearth the complex dynamics of the adult world, and thus Yamamoto's short stories present an interesting representation of Asian Americans. Although the element of "double telling" is lost in Omori's film adaptation Hot Summer Winds, one can conclude that the film still succeeds in that, like it's literary origins, it portrays an Asian American family living in the United States during the early 1900's. The difference in the representation lie not in the personal preferences of Yamamoto and Omori, but rather in the different social history that each subsisted in.