To Kill A Mockingbird Book Vs Movie Essay

It is difficult for a two hour film to include all of the details of a 281 page novel. This is demonstrated in the mediums of To Kill a Mockingbird because the movie changes many of the important events from the book. For example, in the novel, Atticus explains to Jem and Scout that it is a sin to kill a mockingbird at Christmas when they receive guns from their Uncle Jack. But, in the movie, Atticus tells the children that it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird at supper with Walter Cunningham. The film did this because this is a very important scene, but having the conversation at Christmas would take too long. Often in movies it shortens the time by combining multiple scenes into one. They do this because there are certain elements that are essential to the production of a film based on a novel. In this case, the conversation with the mockingbird is needed because it is the title of the film. Not only this, it presents a theme that develops throughout the film

This means that the viewer just sees what happens and the outcome, viewers don’t know why the character reacted in the way they are. They also don’t get to understand why the outcome of what happened happened. For example, at the end of the novel Boo (Arthur) Radley has a line, “Take me home”, this was put in the novel to show the reader that he wasn’t an enemy and that he wasn’t someone to fear. Rather, he was a person that was afraid and needed help. In the movie, Arthur doesn’t get his one line. This is because the movie couldn’t explain why he said this. Because they couldn’t have the line, they also abridged other parts of the story so that Arthur would be portrayed as a person who you should fear. The movie made Boo Radley be what the townspeople stereotyped him as and didn’t do anything against his stereotype. This is why we didn’t hear laughter come from the house when Jem, Scout and Dill played in the Radley yard and this is why Boo didn’t