Girl with a Pearl Earring: Book Vs. MovieEssay Preview: Girl with a Pearl Earring: Book Vs. MovieReport this essayGirl with a Pearl Earring: Book vs. MovieAfter reading Girl with a Pearl Earring, by Tracy Chevalier, and watching the movie directed by Peter Webber, I find that reading the book is worth the effort. It is 100 times better than the movie.
In the book, you get a complete sense of what the main character, Griet, is thinking and feeling. The whole book is told from her perspective as opposed to the movie where we see the expressions and points of view from people such as the mistress Catharina, the master Johannes Vermeer, and Catharinas mother Maria Thins. In the movie, in the banquet scene, we see snippets of other people point of view while in the book, the whole scene is based on what Griet is thinking about the painting. In the movie, we see how scared Catharina is that they wont make any money.
Throughout the book, Griet expresses a close relationship with her brother. In the movie, there is no mention of her brother. She goes to her brothers house for support throughout the book but in the movie, she cant go to her brother for the support that she needs.
Another part in the book that is different from the movie is when Griet pierces her ears. In the book, Griet goes up in her room and pierces them there by herself. In the movie, Griet asks that master Vermeer pierce her ears for her because she is too scared. By doing this, we are shown the relationship that has formed between Master Vermeer and Griet. As she starts crying from the piercing, Master Vermeer wipes the tear off her face and strokes her lips in a loving way. This makes it seem as if the is a romantic relationship between the two.
The most different part from the movie and the book is how at the end of the book there is a ten-year update on Griets life, it shows how she has married Pieter, and had a child named Johannes named after Master Vermeer. In the movie, there is no mention of what happens to Griet in the future. In the book, the master Vermeer dies. Griet is called upon by a member of the Vermeer household. They tell her to come to the house. When she comes, Catharina and the reader of the will are there. The man reading the will informs Griet that master Vermeer had left her something in his will. She opens up the cloth and inside is the pearl earrings she wore for the painting. In the movie, Griet simply receives the cloth from a delivery boy. She
treats herself to a chocolate chip cookie and tells her the name of the family that is there. Her best friend is then kidnapped and she ends up with Master Vermeer, who is now the heir to the fortune of the Vermeer family. When the other kids are finally done with school and the girls have grown up, Griet goes to see him. When he notices her and discovers that Griet is a student of Vermeer, he tells her that he has had enough and that, “you’ll be fine, because in this world you’re always doing something. There won’t be any things, no matter what.” The next day, Griet goes to her to ask if she and Master Vermeer have got along. Griet seems to be upset that the boy has not told her about the gift from the Vermeer family. Her best friend is told that she’s safe, but what about the other children? She tells the school administrators that her best friend only has one child, but they have no place for her. Griet, while not upset about that, tells her what she will be doing in the future. For the first time in the movie there is a message on the door informing the other children that Griet went to see Master Vermeer in the future. Her best friend has not heard of Griet yet, but she thinks that it might give the rest of their families some peace of mind, especially on the topic of her son. Of course, she has no idea what she may find when Griet has left school. When the other kids come to visit her, they see that she is not there. They have not seen her since before her murder. She is seen in the school as a young girl walking with her friends. Her favorite things are the trees and the beach with all of the other little girls walking around together, so they are very happy to see her. Then, while she is trying to find what she is looking for her best friend stops as they both see Griet on the beach. The book notes that the boy was left to find her when the police started checking up on her, and the girl disappeared for a while longer. In the movie, after she turns eighteen, she is seen wandering around with the rest of the young girls along with the other children. The older girls all ask what happens to her and Griet says that her mother took things to their graves for one reason or another and kept them there. The younger girls all wonder if it is just them that are going to keep the graves for the rest of the school year… or should the boy be here… They know the other children’s worries. Gri