Movie And The Book example essay topic

The movie version of this story and the original written version vary quite a bit. One significant difference was the change in the character of Ethan. I think that Edith Wharton's image of Ethan, which was present in the book, was much different than what was shown in the movie. The movie was good, but it did not depict the events of the book very accurately.

In the movie, Ethan was much more vocal about his feelings compared to in the book. He rarely said a word to Mattie in the novel, but in the movie they were bot garrulous. The kitchen scene in the movie, which in the book showed how they knew each other's feeling without them being said or obviously shown, involved much interaction between the two. From the beginning of the movie, Ethan is never very shy to talk to Mattie unlike in the book where he hardly speaks to her. In this kitchen scene the cat breaks zeenas dish where as in the book, Mattie herself is actually the one who breaks zeenas favorite dish. Although the beginning and end of the book are told from a narrator's point of view, most of the novel concerns Ethan Frome's actions and view on life.

However in the movie, the character of Ethan Frome was not the crux. One scene that caught my attention right away, when watching the movie was the very first scene. In the movie, the narrator comes to starkfield as a Minister and sees Ethan from in the train station, differing from the book where the story begins in a post office when Ethan picks up a package from the post office. The narrator in the book was an engineer, stuck in starkfield because of a strike. Some of the changes in the book seemed to make an enormous change, some were good and others were bad. The good changes seemed to make the movie take another path that the book had never taken.

In the movie the minister sees that the whole town is ostracizing Ethan Frome, but in the book the narrator never even realizes that there is something else going on besides him being crippled that the town people seems to find. This change made the movie more interesting, because it brought the antipathy that existed between Ethan and the people in starkfield. His communication was not only different with Mattie; it was also different towards the people in Starkfield. Instead of just minding his own business, as he did in the book, he often said things to bystanders who looked upon him with curiosity. There was one scene that was mostly the same from book to novel, though it was not very important to the story line. It was when Ethan asked Mr. Hale for money.

In the movie the minister sees that the whole town is ostracizing Ethan Frome, but in the book he never even realizes that there is nothing going on besides him being crippled that the town seems to find. I think both the movie and the book were good because each followed a different path to arrive to the conclusion.