Leonard Woolf’s village in the jungle is a fascinating novel written about the life of the peasants in Sri Lanka during the British rule. The story takes place in a remote jungle village called “Baddegama”. The writer recalls the strange happenings not only within Baddegama but also in its surroundings. The story is between a high cast family and a low cast family and how a foreign man who comes to the village influences these two families. The story goes on describing how the low cast family is suffered by the high cast family and their friends in the village.
In 1980, Sir Lester James Peries released a superb film based on this well known novel, naming it “Baddegama”. The film helped the novel to be as real as it was in the reader’s
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Very fair…... and looking into her eyes goes round and round very quickly on the floor.”
Another feature I noticed in the book is that the descriptions involved the switching of characters, showing omniscient, so that different points of views are shown to the reader. This is the main and the most important technique used by Woolf to keep the readers eye on each and every letter of the novel. It amplifies the curiosity and helps the reader to understand what exactly is happening in each scene of the story. The film does this very mildly but can say it is a good attempt to give the reader more sensible feelings so that each scene was an exciting one. This is seen clearly in the court scene where Silindu and Babun are taken to court by Bebehamy and Fernando.
“The parties and witnesses in the case were taken at once to the court-house. They waited…... a small square wooden platform surrounded by a wooden balustrade on three of its sides”, this indicates that the narrator sees all this and it makes the reader look in the narrators point of view.
The following lines shows how Silindu and Babun sees the court and the writer let the reader experience the state of the men
“Nothing happened all the morning. Babun and Silindu squatted down…, and they were led out and made to stand up against the wall on the left of the bench.”
The other obvious feature I noticed is that the film lacks the dramatic irony that the book exposes. The writer
All in all there were many things different about the book compared to the movie.
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
Is the novel making the same point about the value or ideas as the film? If so, how? If it is making a different point about the value or idea, how is it different?
An example would be the bombing of Baba-Levy's house. In the book, the bombing occurred while Marjane was at the mall on her way to her house. The movie showed this scene close to the last section of the first half of the movie and didn't mention her at the mall. The text however, showed a clear description of her reaction to the news of the bombing and running to her house for fear of her neighbors and her family's safety. In total, the text summarized and transitioned the plot better than movie.
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.
Colin Turnbull an anthropologist, rise in a wealthy English family which discover his fulfilment in life; which were the Pygmies. Turnbull then wrote a book called “The Forest People”, which Turnbull spent three years studying about the Mbuti Pygmies; who lives in the Ituri rainforest of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In “The forest people”, Turnbull display the world of the Pygmy tribe, its environment, and how pygmies adopt to its surrounding in order to survive its everyday life.
Upton Sinclair’s novel “The Jungle” is a classic story of greed, corruption, and misfortune following Jurgis Rudkis and his love interest/eventual wife, Ona Lukosazite, and their two families. The novel shows off the complexity of and fickle nature of life and all that within it that we all take for granted. The characters feel very human and their troubles are very sympathetic as well. One begins to feel delight as well as anguish at the author’s non-existent mercy.
Throughout every life, humans experience a rite of passage where they encounter transformative events that allow them to develop and grow towards adulthood. Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird and Sandra Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street both express this maturation and development from naivety. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Jem Finch lives in Maycomb, Alabama, a community gripped by racist attitudes during the Great Depression. In several childhood experiences, Jem grows after realizing the true character of his county’s members and gaining a greater sense of compassion towards other people. Esperanza of The House on Mango Street lives in an impoverished community where she is forced to realize the maturation of her sexuality at a hastened pace. Jem and Esperanza begin the journey to come of age through their loss of innocence from their respective encounters of racism and gender roles; however, Jem matures through his disillusionment and gaining of a greater sense sympathy in his experiences with illnesses and racism while Esperanza grows by gaining autonomy and independence because of her encounters with racism and sexual maturity.
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair is a vivid account of life for the working class in the early 1900s. Jurgis Rudkus and his family travel to the United States in search of the American dream and an escape from the rigid social structure of Lithuania. Instead, they find a myriad of new difficulties. Sinclair attributes their problems to the downfalls of capitalism in the United States. While America’s system was idealistic for Jurgis and his family at first, the mood of the story quickly transforms to assert that capitalism is evil. This theme drives the author’s message and relay of major issues throughout the entirety of the novel. The idea of capitalism and social Darwinism is to
Critics often argue that Upton Sinclair, author of many classic American novels including The Jungle, was cynical and bitter even. However if one were to dig just a bit deeper they may realize that Sinclair was spot on in his idea that this “American dream” that our country sells is actually a work of fiction.
What societal and government reforms did “The Jungle” call for. Do you feel this novel was effective in bringing about any of these reforms.
There are other significant similarities between the movie and the book, so if I overlooked or forgot any extremely crucial points, forgive me.
With many scenes taken away because some characters are never mentioned took away a lot of the overall meaning of the story. I didn’t feel to relate to the movie as much as I did with the novel. Leaving an apt amount of scenes out, took away some of the anticipation I was building up to. Which made me a bit disappointed.
When watching the film, the first difference the viewer can see between the book and the movie is how the characters are portrayed. A notable example would be Carlson. In the film,
In my opinion the movie helps to understand the situation and the topic of the novel.