Movie vs. Huck Finn

Since we just read Huck Finn only a week ago, I still had the book on my mind. Although there were not any black characters or black-white relationships in the film, I think that it forced us to look at other relationships in the movie, or at least that is what I focused on. One relationship which I really concentrated on is the young boy and the new “father.” All I could think of when seeing these scenes were Huck and his father, Pap. All that both of the “fathers” were after was the money, and they would both do anything to get it. In Huck Finn, Pap went to the lengths of locking him up in a cabin to fend from himself. In the movie, their new “father” even killed the mother and tried killing the little children as well when they would not tell him where the money was. Both of these works showed me the theme of greed and the things people would do to get rich. I never really thought about this theme before when dealing with Huck Finn because I think there is so much more to the plot in that story. Another thing that I looked at was the relationship of Ms. Watson and the woman taking care of the little children in the film. Both of these characters were motherly figures but we got to see the difference in the way that the little boys take to her. Huck does not want to be civilized and runs away. Huck stays at Ms. Watson’s in the beginning but does not really enjoy it but instead thinks of suicide and a way of escape. In the film, the boy really seems to confide in the motherly figure when he asks her to tell him the story of the kings again and grabs her hand. He and his sister in the end are adopted and we see him hugging her after giving him a Christmas present. He seems to enjoy having a mother figure and we see a different relationship. There are different characters in the book and the movie, but also some of the same. Watching the film and reading the book made me look at character relationships like I haven’t before. I found a new theme of power of greed in Huck Finn which I sort of looked past before watching the film so I do think it allows us to consider Huck Finn in a new light. I was forced to look at different relationships and I think the film was worth watching so we can look deeper into the book.