The Sweet Thereafter Summary Essay Research Paper

The movie and the novel The Sweet Thereafter had a few minor differences. Two of the differences that I would like to point out are the two that I consider being the two most important. The first topic of discussion in this paper is the picture on the front of the book and the meaning of it. The second topic I would like to bring up is the relationship between Mitchell and Zoe. The changes between the two are important, however, the main plot does not change between the movie and the novel.

The first comparison I would like to make is the picture on the front of the book. The picture shows how the story affects Mitchell s life. After reading the book, watching the movie, and listening in class I realized how they reflect each other. The family on the front of the book is Stevens family. This picture was when Zoe, his daughter, was young. The mother and daughter appear to be very close. The reality within the picture is that Mitchell is not quit as close as they appear. Mitchell did not want to be that close to his family simply because he feared being to close and then losing them.

The picture reminds me of the trip that the family took to North Carolina. This image comes from the end of their vacation. In the picture he seems like he is trying not to get to close to his family. One reason for this is the scare he went through with his daughter, Zoe. The scare the family went through was when Zoe got bit by a spider. When she started to swell up, her mother drove while Mitchell had to keep Zoe calm. To add to the scare Mitchell was going to have to do an emergency tracheotomy if her throat was to swell shut. They did, however, make it to the hospital on time.

After getting back home that evening the mattress that Zoe slept on was burned. From that night and for the rest of the vacation Zoe slept with her parents. All during the scare with Zoe, Mitchell felt like he was two different people, a father and a doctor. The father role that he was playing was to keep his daughter calm. The doctor role of the situation was holding onto the knife ready to cut into his daughters throat at anytime, ready to save her life.

The relationship between Mitchell and Zoe had drastically changed from the time she was little to the present time. This change applies to both the book and the movie, which proves that both are fairly consistent. The book goes into greater detail than the movie despite the rather identical comparisons. The movie sets the feeling that the book gives without going into all the details, although they approach the mood sets in two different ways.

In the younger years of Zoe she had a very close relationship with her father, however, as she grew older the two of them grew apart. Mitchell is now living in New York City while Zoe is living in California. The two of them may live far apart but they remain to keep contact with each other. Most of this contact comes through Zoe calling to ask for money.

The beginning of the movie started off with Mitchell as he was driving through a car wash while talking to Zoe. Mitchell got upset with Zoe a few times because he is not sure how to talk to her after the relationship they had in her younger years. They talked for a while then Zoe decided to hang up on him. Throughout most of the novel and the movie he compares losing Zoe to all the parents losing their children in the bus accident. By the end of the movie Mitchell finds out that Zoe has HIV and he goes to California to be with her.

The two differences that I have discussed in this paper were the two most important differences. Although these two differences did not have a really heavy change in the plot of either reference they were nonetheless important. The change in character and the lack of detail that is narrated in the movie should be noticeable to any individual that read the novel. I was pleased by the resemblance that the novel and the movie had because many movies that are made from books have many altered portions. In some cases this change is drastic but this movie was similar to the book.