American Pastoral Essay

It’s very difficult to find a healthy child to parent relationship; hatred or anger is always present in one or both of the sides. In the novel, “American Pastoral”, by Philip Roth, the relationship of a daughter, Merry, and her father, Swede, shows how parents will do anything for their child, while their children will not do the same back for them. The story being very influential, an original film was created about it. The movie does a great job of summarizing the book and showing the influence a child has on his parents. However, the movie has notable differences to the book, which hurts the effectiveness of the story. The main differences noticed between the novel and the film is the removal of major parts in the story and the effectiveness

There are continuous pauses/flashbacks of the story that when reading it, it is very difficult to understand when Swede is in a memory or actually participating in the chronological order of the story. These flashbacks help provide deep insight to the love Swede has for Merry and Dawn. In the movie however there are not as many flashbacks as the book, the movie doesn’t provide strong insight into what exactly Swede Levov is thinking. This is a critical part of the story because in the book, a majority of the story is seen through Swede’s perspective. The meeting between Skip Zuckerman and Swede Levov is also not shown in the film. This major scene is what leads up to the creation of the story, the beginning of the pursuit to want to tell Swede’s story, and provides foreshadowing for the rest of the book. Even though the film does miss a few important scenes, the film also adds a funeral scene. The strong funeral scene provides a very emotional ending to a very emotional book, the scene shows how Swede remains attached to his daughter Merry for the rest of his life, and why she is a major cause of his death. The scene is not in the book, however it does help in the overall understanding of what Merry exactly does to the