Representation of Gender Identity in Egyptian Students’ Graphic Adaptation of Chekhov’s “Anna on the Neck” – A Multimodal Discourse Analysis

Abstract

The present paper provides a (multimodal) discourse analysis of gender identity representation in Anton Chekhov’s short story “Anna on the Neck” and its graphic adaptation created by Egyptian university students as a requirement of a community service-based graduation project. The selected texts are analyzed in terms of the ideational and interpersonal meta-functions of discourse proposed by Halliday (1994) and Halliday and Matthiessen (2004), Martin and White’s (2005) appraisal theory and the representational and interactive functions of visual grammar introduced by Kress and van Leeuwen (2006). The paper provides a quantitative-qualitative analysis which shows that the female protagonist in the original text is portrayed as a submissive shallow character using her beauty to acquire gains and take advantage of her hypocrite husband, whereas the female protagonist in the graphic adapted text is attractively depicted as a dynamic character who is capable of initiating change, standing up for her beliefs and freeing herself from a tyrant husband while adhering to social norms. The multimodal discourse analysis presented herein also throws light on how graphic text adaptations can be used as community service tools to inform, persuade and reform social practices and attitudes.