Embodied Knowledge and Impenetrable Subjectivities: Lowndes’s and Hitchcock’s, The Lodger
Robert Preslar | Fukuoka Women’s University
Publication: Volume 6 Issue 1
Abstract | This essay traces issues of embodiment through Marie Belloc Lowndes’ 1913 novel The Lodger, to the 1927 film adaptation of that novel, The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog, directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Despite the fact that Hitchcock’s adaptation departs from Lowndes’ novel in important ways, it is a work which builds upon and recontextualizes, rather than reconstructs, its source text. Further, among Hitchcock’s filmography, relatively little attention has been paid to The Lodger, and even less attention has been paid to its relationship to its source text. By focusing closely on the treatment of embodiment in both works, this essay demonstrates that the human body becomes a site of inscription and aesthetic production in ways that reflect the respective mediums of novel and film. In Lowndes’ novel, much of the narrative is conveyed through the embodied experiences of the protagonist, Mrs. Bunting, and the novel’s villain uses the bodies of his victims to inscribe his beliefs into culture. In Hitchcock’s film, the audience’s inability to access the protagonist’s innermost thoughts, even as the protagonist behaves in increasingly suspicious ways, highlights the limits of visual representation.
Key words | Embodiment, Marie Belloc Lowndes, Alfred Hitchcock, The Lodger, Adaptation Studies, Film Studies
Robert Preslar (preslar@fwu.ac.jp) is Lecturer at Fukuoka Women’s University, Japan. He earned a Ph.D. from Seinan Gakuin University in 2020. His research is particularly focused on films directed by Alfred Hitchcock, with an interest in the relationships his films have with their source texts. He is also interested in using film and literature to engage students in discussions about cultural differences across different eras and different countries.
MLA Citation for this Article:
Preslar, Robert. “Embodied Knowledge and Impenetrable Subjectivities: Lowndes’s and Hitchcock’s, The Lodger.” Language, Literature, and Interdisciplinary Studies, vol. 6, no. 1, 26 Apr. 2024, pp. 1.1–1.19, https://ellids.com/archives/2024/04/6.1-Preslar.pdf.