The Webster's New World College dictionary (2005) defines novels as relatively long fictional prose narrative and films as a sequence of photographs projected on a screen in such a rapid succession that they create an optical illusion of movement (p.529 & p.988). These two genres have been the main topic of an age-old debate. The debate revolves around the question, which are better novels or films? People tend to have different opinions on whether books or movies tell a better story.The debate continues to grow due to Hollywood making more and more movies based on books. To illustrate my views on this debate, I will be comparing and contrasting the novel and film versions of William Golding's The Lord of the Flies and Toni Morrison's Beloved. While both novels and films provide their audience with a great form of entertainment, each genre has it’s pros and cons, and deciding whether a novel or film tells a better story is dependent on the audience’s particular preferences. Novels allow the reader to create the images, voices, and background of the story, using their imagination to visualize the story for themselves. On the other hand, a good director can take a great piece of literature and turn it into an amazing visual experience. However, the film is dependent on the director's vision and audience has little say on how the story is portrayed. I would rather read novels than watch films because novels provide better story experiences for their audiences through increased creative freedom through imagination, lack of time limits, increased exposure, and the social experience it provides. I will be using two novels turned films for my analysis of this topic. I will be using examples from Golding's The Lord of the Flies and Morrison's Beloved....
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...Agnes, M. Ed. of the book. (2005). The 'Secondary' of Dictionary (Fourth Edition) -. Canada
In our contemporary civilization, it is evident that different people have somewhat different personalities and that novels behold essential and key roles in our daily lives; they shape and influence our world in numerous ways via the themes and messages expressed by the authors. It is so, due to the different likes of our population, that we find numerous types and genres of books on our bookshelves, each possessing its own audience of readers and fans. In this compare and contrast essay, we will be analysing and comparing two novels, The Chrysalids and Animal Farm, and demonstrating how both books target the general audience and not one specific age group or audience of readers. We will be shedding light at the themes and messages conveyed to us in both books, the point of view and the style of writing of the authors as well as the plot and the format used by the authors, in order to demonstrate how both books are targeting the general audience.
Neill, Alex. “Empathy and (Film) Fiction.” Philosophy of film and motion pictures : an anthology. Ed. Noel Carrol and Jinhee Choi. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2006. 247-259. Print.
Have you ever read a book and then watched the movie and saw many differences? Well you can also find lots of similarities. In the book “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and the movie “Tom and Huck” there are many similarities and differences having to do with the characters personalities, the setting, the characters relationships with one another and the events that take place.
"William Golding's Lord of the FLies: Man's Capacity for Evil." Teen Ink. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Apr. 2014.
Mulvey, Laura. "Visual Pleasure in Narrative Cinema." Literary Theory: An Anthology. Ed. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. Malden and Oxford: Blackwell, 1998.
Whenever books are adapted for film, changes inevitably have to be made. The medium of film offers several advantages and disadvantages over the book: it is not as adept at exploring the inner workings of people - it cannot explore their minds so easily; however, the added visual and audio capabilities of film open whole new areas of the imagination which, in the hands of a competent writer-director, can more than compensate.
The PBS article on film adaptation points out the difference between written text and film, and the struggle of adapting a book into a movie. Some novels are written in third person and require a narrator. Filmmakers have to be able to replace third person with more dialogue and some first person thinking. Filmmakers also struggle by removing the visual interpretation and imagination by those who read the novel. As some novels take many days to read, filmmakers must also reduce the length of the film to keep the viewers attention. Some of these additions only can be applied by “using tools to recreate and refashion scenes”. With “refashioned scenes”, comes new themes. For example, the reader and viewer notice this in Ray Bradbury’s “The Pedestrian” which seems to show that the advancement in technology could possibly pose as a threat to future society.
In the past century, many classic books, short stories, and novella have been adapted into on-screen versions. This is because some people may find that watching a story unfold in front of their eyes more enticing than reading from a book. Others enjoy being able to see and compare a story they may have read come to life on screen. Since there are so many aspects that have to be altered in order to make the movie appeal to the audience, the faithfulness, or lack of, to the original work can cause readers to dislike the cinematic version. However, a true work of fidelity is unreachable because “it sets up an unreliable standard for evaluation” (pg. Naremore). Films and the stories they are derived from cannot be compared because of how different
In the novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding, the representation of childhood as times of tribulation and terror along with the community accepted portrayal of innocence shapes the theme of civilization vs savagery.
Many time in our lives, we have seen the transformation of novels into movies. Some of them are equal to the novel, few are superior, and most are inferior. Why is this? Why is it that a story that was surely to be one of the best written stories ever, could turn out to be Hollywood flops? One reason is that in many transformations, the main characters are changed, some the way they look, others the way they act. On top of this, scenes are cut out and plot is even changed. In this essay, I will discuss some of the changes made to the characters of the Maltese Falcon as they make their transformation to the ?big screen.?
Literature }is a writing which expresses and communicates thoughts, feelings and attitudes towards life~. Rees (1984, p. 2). Whereas the novel, as a precised particular genre of literature, is a narrative prose of considerable length,which merges reality with fantasy and imagination to imbue its characters and actions with a sense of fiction. In answer to the second part of the question, Nin (1972, p.168) argues that }the function of the novel is to give you an emotional experience....
This paper will explore the three elements of innate evil within William Golding's, Lord of the Flies, the change from civilization to savagery, the beast, and the battle on the island. Golding represents evil through his character's, their actions, and symbolism. The island becomes the biggest representation of evil because it's where the entire novel takes place. The change from civilization to savagery is another representation of how easily people can change from good to evil under unusual circumstances. Golding also explores the evil within all humans though the beast, because it's their only chance for survival and survival instinct takes over. In doing so, this paper will prove that Lord of the Flies exemplifies the innate evil that exists within all humans.
Salam Rushdie, author of Haroun and the Sea of Stories, once claimed that seeing the classic movie The Wizard of Oz “made a writer of [him] (London: Palgrave-Macmillian, 1992).” He continued on to explain how the movie later influenced the novel, because it provided the “right voice” as he attempted to create a story that could transcend the boundary that typically “ghettoizes children’s books from adult literature” (London: Palgrave-Macmillian, 1992). While adult readers did tend to shun and avoid children’s literature, movie adaptations of children’s books (such as The Wizard of Oz) were able to attract audiences of all ages. As Rushdie himself states, the movie’s influence on the text is not subtle on any level. In both cases, a pre-adolescent
Many people go to the movies because they are intrigued by the story that it presents. A lot of people may not realize that these movies come from books full of much more. Much more details, much more thrill than movies could ever create. Books are a door that will take us into a world full of adventure, in a way that movies will never be able to. Books are better that the movies because they give readers more details, they are easy to carry around, and they create a unique world to each reader.
Also, books usually have more characters and give continued suspense so that the reader will be hooked or addicted to finish the book to find out the story. On the other hand, movie producers need to eliminate so many details about the story in order to squeeze everything into one to two hours. Due to this, those people who love detail information about stories usually prefer books than movies as movies does not have a detailed information about the story. Furthermore, reading books can not only enhance the reader’s vocabulary and creativity, but also increase their reading and writing skills, while watching movies only provides entertainment (Lee, wordpress.com).