To Kill A Mockingbird Movie Vs Book

Books and Movies: Scouting Out Their Differences

To Kill a Mockingbird is a powerful novel, laden with impactful themes for the reader to walk away with. This book tells the story of two children named Jem and Scout Finch during the 1930’s. These two siblings, together, figure out the mysteries hidden in their small town of Maycomb, Alabama. Throughout the book they learn very important values, which become empowering messages to the reader. Harper Lee wrote the novel version, and Robert Mulligan directed the movie version. Although the two have the same plotline, the movie is missing several important details from the book - many themes from the book have been downplayed, characters have been combined or taken out completely, and some events

This impactful event helps to show the compassion of the small town. It shows how everyone really cares for each other, and the people of Maycomb are not as superficial as readers may first assume. Also, it shows how close everyone in the town was in the book, and how everybody in the town knew everyone. As Scout thought, “‘The men of Maycomb, in all states of dress and undress, took furniture from Miss Maudie’s house to a yard across the street’” (Lee 92). Scout’s thoughts during this event display how the people of Maycomb came together to help. This was clearly a significant scene in the story, but somehow got left behind in the movie version. Her house never caught fire in the movie version, and Miss Maudie was not even present as a character. Also, this cuts out an entire theme from the novel. People who only view the movie do not see the compassionate side of Maycomb, and also never see how closely knit the town really is. The house fire is just one major scene left out of the book, and there are many more noticeable differences between the novel and

She is Scout and Jem’s aunt, and she brings many important values and lessons to the novel. One theme she introduces is gender stereotyping. Aunt Alexandra was insistent on helping Scout become more ladylike, which was a stereotype expected of ladies back in those times. Scout did not enjoy becoming ladylike at all, however Aunt Alexandra persisted in helping to change her, and this shows the stereotyped mindset people had back then. However, she teaches Scout more than simply how to be a lady. Whenever Scout displayed interest in doing something that the Finches were not supposed to do, Aunt Alexandra would scold her and command her not to. An example of this could be when Scout wanted to play with Walter Cunningham. When Scout told her Aunt she wished to play with him, she quickly shut Scout down: “ I’ll tell you why,” She said. “Because he – is – trash, that’s why you can’t play with him. I’ll not have you around him, picking up his habits and learning Lord-knows-what…” (Lee 301). Despite Aunt Alexandra being such a pivotal character, Robert Mulligan decided to leave her out of the movie, having her only show up for a few seconds before Scout’s first day of school. Not only does she only appear for a very miniscule amount of time, she was also present in the Finch household way too soon than she had in the novel. With this major difference, the movie