I had chosen to transform “Christabel” by Samuel Coleridge into a supernatural-spy fiction in the structure of email and diary entries. I chose to write in a dialogic epistolary form as it can help to add greater realism to the story because it mimics the workings of the real life. It also helps me to explore and demonstrate the points of view of the protagonist, Christabel and antagonist, Geraldine. This was quite interesting as I wanted to educate my audience and give them an insight of Geraldine’s clear intentions in my transformation, which Coleridge had not attempted. The second reason of my choice was quite differed as well; Coleridge wrote Christabel in a third person subjective narrative in focussing mainly on Christabel. However, in my transformation I had written in a stream-of-consciousness narrative which helped me to portray Christabel’s hatred and growing fear towards Geraldine.
I used the evilness of Geraldine portrayed in “Christabel” as the base concept of my epistle. I had presented the appearance of Geraldine in the transformation similar to the original, which helps the audience recognize the character instantly. In the poem, Coleridge had mentioned the “damsel bright/ Dressed in a silken robe of white…” In the transformation, I had chosen to avoid the archaic word choice “damsel” to add reality to the text as it is written during the 21st century and to portray the significance divide between the source text and the original as it is written during different periods of time. I had chosen to avoid the phrase “damsel” or any feminine lexis to indicate Geraldine as a female because the reader is thoroughly