Comparing Books And Movies In Frances Hodgson Burnett's 'The Secret Garden'

The novel is capable of giving readers more insight into the story with the use of symbols and hidden meanings. It is able to do this because it depicts important underlying messages and incidents. For instance, in the novel one may realize that Mary Anne starts to wear a necklace with tongues on it. This shows the readers that Mary Anne is no longer than clean innocent girl. She is now a brutal solder always ready to kill. “Elongated and narrow, like pieces of blackened leather, the tongues were threaded along a length of copper wire, one overlapping the next, the tips curled upward as if caught in a final shrill syllable” (O’Brien 111). Portrayed in both the novel and movie is Mary Anne’s change in personal hygiene. “No cosmetics, no fingernail filing.” “She stopped wearing jewelry, cut her hair short and wrapped

Another reason that certain things were not shown in the film that came from the novel is because they are sensitive for certain viewers to watch. Even with all the warnings little kids will still watch something like that because there is nothing stopping them. Movies nowadays have very sensitive content that is not meant for kids under a certain age to watch. In the novel there are parts where they might not be appealing to the eye to read and with a movie, people will not ‘want to watch it even if it has a good background.

Normally, when a movie is made about a story in a book the two stories are not exactly the same. The movie is adjusted by adding small details or leaving out some parts in order to make the story more

When she enters the bedroom, her voice changes from present to past tense and she starts to reminisce and begins to talk about her mother and aunts. She seems happy to remember her mother’s room and introduces her aunts to the audiences. Mary delivers her dialogue saying that the dressing table and the small elephant statue figures are all same. When Mary gently touches her mother’s photo, she delivers a sad tone. Her performance conveys to the audiences that she misses her mother. The tone of her voice represents that she is a gentle, innocent and a loving child. Her verbal and non-verbal interactions conveyed the viewers with a message that she is an orphan.

Another one of the biggest differences between the book and the movie is that Mary Jane saved

She made her into the village and through the square to set up her market stall of curiosities, her display is a large array of fruit or flowers in the forest, sometimes she would find owl pellets and would sometimes dissect them to see what the owls have been eating. Often, she would display books that she has written one book was titled ‘The Modern Medicines’. One of the villagers picked it up and attempted to read it and her face was puzzled, she remembered them looking at her and saying to her ‘What’s all these here squiggles on this pa’er Mary?’ She placed it down and walked to the vegetable stall.

The narrator believes she, too, can hide from reality in the garden. “ had a way of disappearing in the garden, as if the garden itself ate them, or, as if with its old-man memory, it put them away and forgot them” (paragraph 5). That is what she wanted from the garden, to be hidden or forgotten, as a child, “ a thousand years” like the “ of murdered pirates and dinosaurs” buried in the garden (paragraph 7).

In the background, there are houses of a 21st century style of living in the suburbs, making the setting familiar and relatable and allows the audience to feel connected to Mary. Therefore, the emotions and thoughts of Mary is as she comprehends Gods wishes can be further understood.

During Lily's journey the Black Mary helps change Lily's life by providing structure. The ritual of the Calendar

I didn’t pick the book over the movie because I think books are boring. When you are watching the movie you don’t have to use your brain that much. When I’m watching a movie about any type of genre that has a book that goes with it, I usually ask questions to myself (in my head) about

During their “removes,” Mary becomes too weak to walk any longer, and the Indians, “like inhuman creatures, laugh and rejoice to see it.”They do nothing to provide for her comfort during their long journeys through the rough landscape. Her only refuge is to take comfort in her prayer and hope that God will help her through these hard times. After the first several days, Mary develops a dependency upon the Indians, and begins to get used to their means of living.

"The Chrysanthemums" introduces us to Elisa Allen, a woman who knows she has a gift for growing things, but it seems to be limited to her garden. Diligently working in her garden, Elisa watches as men come and go, living their lives unconfined, wondering what it must feel like to have that freedom. That emotion is revealed as Elisa gases at her husband and acquaintances talking, "she looked down toward the men by the tractor shed now and then." As she tills the soil for her chrysanthemums Elisa tills the thoughts in her head. The garden she so desperately maintained represents her world. A world that will only flourish if nourished. Emotional nourishment and stimulation is what Elisa lacked and longed for. The garden is limited in space to grow and so is her marriage. The garden is safe, non-threatening and so is her world. The garden contains many different elements that make it what it is, although unseen, and if the proper nourishment is not given it will die, as with Elisa.

By the novel, Mary discusses several issues related to relationships which terrorize aspects of her personal life, including birth and childhood, the death of her mother, her miscarriage and new child and her coming across with the events which occurred in the summer of 1816 (see notes).

    Film and literature are two media forms that are so closely related, that we often forget there is a distinction between them. We often just view the movie as an extension of the book because most movies are based on novels or short stories. Because we are accustomed to this sequence of production, first the novel, then the motion picture, we often find ourselves making value judgments about a movie, based upon our feelings on the novel. It is this overlapping of the creative processes that prevents us from seeing movies as distinct and separate art forms from the novels they are based on.

The Secret Garden is a film based on Frances Hodgson Burnett's classic children's book bearing the same title. This movie is about a young girl who is literally shipped off to her uncle's English castle after her parents are killed in an earthquake. The main character, Mary, is played by Kate Maberly. She is tossed into a world where sunlight and cheerful discourse seem as rare as the attention she receives from the sour-pussed housekeeper Medlock, played by Maggie Smith. She helps her crippled cousin to see past his hypochondria and into the wonders of a long forgotten garden hidden beyond the confines of Misselthwaite Manor. While one critic dislikes the slight deviations from the book, another is