AbstractsPsychology

The play which follows marks a culmination of a powerful and rewarding aesthetic experience originating in an initial response to Flannery O???Connor???s short story, Good Country People. In a genuine emotional and intellectual response to a work of art, the beholder is made conscious of a particular condition of perception already inherent in his mind., For the somewhat creative personality, it is not uncommon for this newly felt percipience to engender emotional tension and intellectual excitement that yearn for resolution in an act of creativity. Such an experience of Flannery O??? Connor???s story is here represented in the play, Good Country People. The process of adaptation is the difficult business of grasping and maintaining the tenuity between one???s faithfulness to the original work and his feelings for the dictates of the new form. The process is most correctly a symbolic transformation of an essentially non-discursive nature and, therefore somewhat beyond the conveyance of words. It has been discovered, however, that at a certain point, the process reversed itself and the fundamental creative idea was no longer centered around the adaptation of a story but writing of a play. From that point on, the play, rather than the story dictated the creative choices. If there are those who misunderstand the play and decry certain alterations that have been made in the O??? Connor??? story line, for the sake of dramatic viability, it is doubtful that what is written here will transform their doubts into acceptance. In defense of these alterations, it may be suggested that, for the playwright, the fundamental creative choice was the choice to write the play that is also an adaptation, rather than an adaptation that is also a play. The play, however, remains faithful to the O??? Connor story and remains faithful to it in a manner that extends far beyond a strict adherence to story and plot.