The Grapes of Wrath
The Novel vs. The Movie!
By: Efe Nesiama AP English IV IRP Assignment
Compare and Contrast: Characters
Tom Joad
The Protagonist! Strong-willed and very wise for his age, he is the pride and vitality for the Joad Family.
Jim Casey
Former preacher and close confidant to Tom. Though he may not appear to be all there, he is very witty and wise, enabling him to understand the world more than any other character.
Ma Joad
Spunky, determined, and caring! She is definitely the mother of the household. She is almost fearless in everything she does! But she does have a soft spot for her family, children, and others. She prides in Tom as her favorite son and the two have a very peculiar relationship.
Compare and Contrast: Tone, Setting, and Imagery
The filmmakers' intentions in putting this novel to screen was to show how the impact of the Great Depression effected the families of that time. The films rustic and vintage appearance helped create a strong feeling of poverty and realism to the audience. The filmmakers effectively recreated the scenery to make the setting as real as possible. The use of actual dialect of the Okies, was helpful to make the dialogue as realistic as possible. Throughout the movie the family's clothing, possessions and even the car added to the effect that Steinbeck had created when he wrote his novel long ago. Overall, although there were several omission of scenes in the film, it still was effective in enhancing the imagery, setting, and tone that Steinbeck had created. The major challenge of the film was to make it appear as realistic as possible rather than follow the exact plot line set by Steinbeck, which they accomplished.
Compare and Contrast: Theme, Main Idea, and Conflict
The book, however makes a different approach. Rather than evenly dividing the focus on both the family and world views, it focus much more on the world. Though there are a few chapters where Steinbeck utilizes the Joads' journey to the reader, he tends to draw out their anguish and suffering and universalizes it as the pain of the world rather than the individual.
In the movie, the shift in thinking is also accompanied with the replacement of the individual family by the world family. The thing that started the breakup of the individual family was the loss of their land. The family had lived there for many generations and had strong ties to the land. Getting thrown off the land was sort of like reflects the losing of their family origin. Though this is expressed in the book, it tends to focus on the general plight of the Okies rather than just the Joads'.
One difference that can be noted in the novel and the film is the ending. In the movie, though gaunt in many ways, has a much more positive ending, where Tom leaves the family and the family departs the haven of the desirable Government Camp on to find work in northern California compared to the stark and depressing break-up of the Joads' in the novel.
The characters that were chosen to play the parts were effective in portraying their character roles. Peter Fonda who played Tom Joad was successful in showing the depth of his character's harshness and sincerity. Tom Joad can be seen as the main protagonist. He is a strong, responsible person who doesn't like being pushed around. The portrayal of Tom in the movie accurately reflects the novel.
Conflict is, more or less, accurately played in the movie, albeit it is disproportionate in the types that are shown. While the book focuses on the man vs. world(the bank, camps, physical environment vs. man), the film pertains to the more physical altercations between Tom and the people attempting to take advantage over him and his family (police, camp guards, and employers).
Compare and Contrast: Overall
It it argued that the film uses visual imagery to focus on the Joads' as a family unit, whereas the novel focuses on their journey as a part of the "family of man". She points out that their farm is never shown in detail, and that the family members are never shown working in agriculture; not a single peach is shown in the entire film. This subtly serves to focus the film on the specific family, as opposed to the novel's focus on man and land together.
Bibliography
2. The Grapes of Wrath. Dir. John Ford. Perf. Henry Fonda, Jane Darwell, John Carradine. Twentieth Century-Fox, 1940. DVD.