To Kill a Mockingbird Book vs Movie
Uploaded by flyguy666 on Mar 29, 2007
To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee is a very good book which revolves mainly around the development of the main character, Scout, and her family who live in the south during the great depression with is a time frame of the late 30’s. Much of the development of these characters is drawn from the trial of a black man named Tom Robinson, who was accused of raping a white woman. With their father acting as the defense attorney in this highly popular case, Scout and her brother Jem are faced with many problems. When the story was made in to a movie however, it lost many key characters, and events. It is almost as though the book and the film tell two different stories, as one is about Scout, Jem, and Atticus, and there lives in Macomb County, while the other focuses more on the trial of Tom Robinson. To prove this point, these characters, events, and concepts will be compared between the film and the book.
`There are many characters who, in the film, were left out, but whose characters are lula, Alexandra, and Jack. Rlula was placed in the story to show the other forms of racism which also took place in the south, was the only example in the story of black on white racism. Alexandra, was used to show the stereo type on southern woman, the huge importance she placed on family, her affinity for gossip. And lastly, Jack was used to argue that cliché and reflect the more positive southern people, along with Atticus, he showed that not all southerners conformed to the older thought prosses. His patience with Scout, his understanding of Atticus' situation, and support thereof, all were different to the norm of the community in the south, therefore showing that not everyone fit the stereotype. The movie, however, excluded all three of these characters who seem to be somewhat important to the story and development not only of the other characters that they interact, but with the setting and mood of the story.
In addition to the many characters which were left out, there were several key events which were left out or changed in the film. In the book, Scout finds the knothole in the Radley's front yard, and keeps it secret from Jem, this being the first time she has ever kept anything secret from her brother it troubles...