Comparing The Small Assassin

Even though Ray Bradbury wrote both the Small Assassin episode and short story you notice differences and similarities between the two. In the Small Assassin episode the doctor asked Dave, the husband if he and Alice, the parents, wanted the child. In the short story, Dave explained to the doctor that “it was a 'wanted' child, they planned it together and Alice was so happy” (Bradbury 2) . Dave could not understand why all a sudden she disowned her newborn. In the episode, Alice makes it well known that she wanted nothing to do with the baby. In the short story, you express sympathy for her because she comes off as being fearful of her son. Even though Alice was acting odd towards the baby, the hospital still released them to go home. In the

This reminds Dave of seeing the baby wide awake during the night, not making a sound. In the episode, Alice became very vocal about the baby trying to kill her. She becomes hysteric claiming that her newborn baby has it in for her. In the short story, Alice “was going to kill the baby” (Bradbury 7) while Dave had only been gone a day on his trip. She explained to Dave that even though she tried to smother him when she came back he was alive. She then tried starving him and not giving him any attention. But, the baby still lived. In the episode, the doctor explains to Dave how Alice wanted to kill the baby. The look on Dave's face shows pure astonishment at what the doctor was saying. A difference between the short story and the episode is what Dave had slipped on that had sent him down the stairs one morning. In the short story, it was a “patchwork doll he slipped on” (Bradbury 9), which he had bought for the baby. In the movie, instead of a patchwork doll it was a teddy bear with a red ribbon around its neck that you see several times towards the