First, the stories you mentioned are very famous. The audience watching Oh Brother Where Art Thou is aware it’s an adaptation of the Odyssey. Therefore it’s not someone attempting to pass off work as their own.
The stories this authors copied were either unpublished manuscripts she got access to in writers groups or very obscure works that it’s unlikely her readers had read.
Second, the examples you gave were extremely transformative. Just look at the differences between Westside Story and Romeo and Juliette. It’s a musical for goodness sake. It subverts expectations by letting Maria live through it.
The writings at issue are short stories, so there’s less room for transformation in the first place. And there was clearly not even a strong attempt at transformation. The author even kept some of the same character names.
There was no attempt to subvert expectations largely because the audience had expectations, since they weren’t aware of the originals.
>change settings
She didn’t even do that.
> for books nobody bats an eye
If a popular book were revealed to be a beat for beat remake of an obscure novel with the same setting, similar dialogue, some of the same character names, and few significant transformative elements, you can bet your life there would be a scandal.
Like I wrote, I wanted to point a difference in attitude between academic and entertaining writing. I think I don't disagree with you in this specific case (now). You seem to have looked into the actual case, while I didn't.
The stories this authors copied were either unpublished manuscripts she got access to in writers groups or very obscure works that it’s unlikely her readers had read.
Second, the examples you gave were extremely transformative. Just look at the differences between Westside Story and Romeo and Juliette. It’s a musical for goodness sake. It subverts expectations by letting Maria live through it.
The writings at issue are short stories, so there’s less room for transformation in the first place. And there was clearly not even a strong attempt at transformation. The author even kept some of the same character names.
There was no attempt to subvert expectations largely because the audience had expectations, since they weren’t aware of the originals.
>change settings
She didn’t even do that.
> for books nobody bats an eye
If a popular book were revealed to be a beat for beat remake of an obscure novel with the same setting, similar dialogue, some of the same character names, and few significant transformative elements, you can bet your life there would be a scandal.