We might all say that the book was better than the movie due to the reason that the novel had more adventure or heart-warming scenes. It seems a bit difficult coming up with one major difference between the novel and the film. I would say that there is probably three major differences between the two versions of To Kill a Mockingbird. The overall most seen difference is the development of other themes from the book. The film does go into depth when it comes to discussing the theme of social inequality/discrimination, but not when it talks about the theme of courage/bravery. I do praise the film for including the scene which features the children confrontation between them and Bob Ewell. The producers of the film completely take out the scene that features Jem reading to Miss Dubose, which I felt was a sentimental part of the novel. The other theme that was not discussed was the theme of coming of age, although the film does feature the growth of Jem and Scout. We do get to see a bit of Scout's growth, but Jem is still the same from the beginning to the ending of the movie. The famous scene which features Jem being honest to Atticus about Dill is completely cut out. This difference between the written and filmed version is huge. In my opinion this might be the most important difference between these two versions.
The theme that is mostly described in the film is of course the subject of inequality and social injustice. In the first part of my blog post I started to discuss the theme of courage which is not featured in the film version, but the topic of bravery also has no room in the movie. I mean at least we get to see the confrontation between Atticus and Bob Ewell, but do we ever see the school scene. In TKAM when we think of bravery we usually imagine the scene of Scout and Mr. Cunningham, which is in fact shown in the film. We don't see the physical trait of bravery which is when Scout confronts her teacher and fights with the infamous Cecil Jacobs and Francis. I feel like these two fights were the ones that truly shaped the future actions of Scout and developed the idea of bravery. I clearly don't remember if Atticus says "keep your head, but fists down" in the movie, but in my opinion I don't think he said these words. The fight between Scout and Francis was sort of a stop sign for Scout's fighting which truly changed her actions. In the movie Atticus does discuss that fighting will not work, but the movie was a bit to vague. That's another difference the book was more specific.
I did mention before that inequality is greatly expressed in the film, but the difference is that the novel described the other side of social inequality. The movie does show the unfairness that most African-Americans would receive, but they didn't show how some whites were also being discriminated during this time. The famous church scene from the book in which the Finch children accompany Calpurnia to her local church was not witnessed in the film version. In my opinion I felt like this was a big part of the novel because it is showing how discrimination exists in all types of races not just in one. This should have been included in the film in order to show the audience that children of all races suffered most of the time. The racist character Lula was not shown, but in the novel she seemed to be part of the growth development of characters such as Jem and Scout. This showed the children that they must respect one another and treat others just like they would want to
be treated.
I included the movie poster and the cover of the book. I felt that by seeing these two images it showed me that each image represents a different theme. The movie poster represents fatherly love, and it is written that these children are exposed to the town's social injustice. When I look at the book cover I see the theme of growing up or losing one's innocence which is a difference from the movie poster.
Comments: Nikolas, Marisa, and Leanna's Blogs.
Abdiel - I liked how you connected the missing scenes to the themes that were developed in the novel. It is very true that without these scenes, character development cannot be completely fulfilled.
ReplyDeleteI feel that the theme of coming of age was lacking in the film (from the parts I saw, of course.) I think that it focused more on social inequality but didn't go into it beyond the Tom Robinson case.
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