This Boy's Life Movie And Book Comparison Essay

In the 1950s, Leonardo DiCaprio surprised the world with his superb act as Toby Wolff in the film adaptation of the memoir This Boy’s Life - capturing Toby in all his troubles and grim upbringing, yet subtly reminding us that his unfortunate childhood prepared him for a great career in writing. Although many similarities between the novel and the film are striking, the differences are highly pronounced, therefore; raising the question which version is better? I will argue that the text of This Boy’s Life is better than the film at its use of stream of consciousness, accurate depiction of the main characters, and a realistic plot.
Why does Tobias's life seem troubling and why can’t he just have the life any kid of his age might have? As suggested both in the story and the movie, his mother, Rosemary, takes most of the blame because of her

Just by reading the book without watching the movie, I understood Tobias as a kid who strives to be successful only in his mind and doesn’t do the work it takes to be great, like Paul in Paul’s Case. One of the biggest problems that Toby has to deal on a daily basis both in the novel and the movie is the cruelty and violence of Dwight. In the novel, he handles Dwight’s violence by killing him in his imagination, “I even thought of killing him, shooting him down some night while he was picking on my mother” (Wolf 133). This way of handling this problem can be characterized as immature and destructive, as it doesn’t only solve your problem but also exacerbates it in a great deal. In fact, his extravagant imagination leads to fake his transcripts and academic record in order to get into Princeton and the Hill. As a result, the Toby in the novel appears more like of a weak character to the reader, which happens to be the accurate characterization