A Lesson Before Dying Movie And Book Comparison Essay

Whenever a novel undergoes an adaptation into a film, the film writers (and possibly the novelist) make suitable changes to better adapt the film, which possibly includes changes in characterization, events and themes. With A Lesson Before Dying, both the film and the book portray a conflict between Grant Wiggins, the protagonist, and Reverend Ambroise about religion, the community and Jefferson, however, the book provides a more in-depth layer to the conflict. In the novel, not only does Ambroise besiege Grant about his atheism, but also asserts his dominance and his power as a reverend; Ambroise flaunts his authority, because he believes that Grant threatens his power when Grant actually does not care about Ambroise’s power. For the movie, however, Ambroise instead focuses more on Grant’s atheism and his devotion towards saving Jefferson’s soul. In the movie and the novel, Reverend Ambroise ignites the conflict through subtle yet sharpened jabs about Jefferson and Grant leaving the faith. Between the two mediums, however, both used different methods in underlying the initial conflict. For instance, in the book, when
In the novel, however, Ambroise also reveals his exaggerated concern over Grant’s apparent attempt at subverting his authority and proceeds to attack Grant about Grant’s atheism until the conflict abruptly ends before Jefferson’s death. Meanwhile, the film centers on a more trivialized version of the debacle by shallowing Ambroise’s motive to appear as if he only cares about the community and Jefferson’s state of belief rather than his own power. Even with their differences in execution, nonetheless, both mediums covered the religious divergence and at least covered the argument about Jefferson’s own soul and Grant’s unaffectionate view of the