From Schindler’s Ark to Schindler’s List: Analysis of Adapted Foil Characters

Abstract

Amon Goeth and Oscar Schindler are adapted from real life to the novel and to the film. They have been presented in a way as they appear as foil to each other. The study applies Foucauldian analytical theory to evaluate these two characters. In terms of their appearance, dressing, voice, accent, actions, the time camera captures them in the film, the sentences utilized for describing the characters in the novel, the camera shots and angles, their behavior with the opposite gender and for their emotions they both get different treatments. This differentiation is more implicit in the film than the novel. The aim is to trace evidence from the process of adaption from the novel to film to know how the characters of Amon and Oscar are presented in contrast, yet they share some characteristics which can be explored by applying Foucauldian theory. For Amon the people seemed nothing else but bodies for whom he could sentence death at any time, for Oscar people would happily offer sacrificial golden teeth. The factors which make these two characters powerful or weak, beneficial or harmful, savior or oppressor, liberator or enslaver, and kind or cruel also make them as poles apart binaries.