Where The Red Fern Grows: Similarities Between Book And Movie

Is your heart still in the right place? Has a story ever run with it and broken it, with tears running down your face? If you have read Where the Red Fern Grows, it has definitely happened, making your heart buoyant with happiness and and break with tragedy. The strong-willed Billy, with his faithful redbone hounds, the brawny Old Dan and the brainy runt Little Ann, toy with your emotions as you follow them through their adventures and their tragic losses. Even though the movie based off the book is meant to be similar, and is, there are still differences between them.

The movie was adapted off the book, and that fact is obvious, due to the many commonalities they share. When Billy first saved up for the dogs, he defined his personality and impacted the emotions of the storyline, although he saved for one year

rather than two in the film. It shows Billy’s extreme amount of love and dedication for his hounds, as well as the large amount of dog-headed determination that was a main part of his personality, and without it, his perseverance and dedication to his dogs would not have been as apparent as he performed hard labor to earn money. When Billy Colman chopped a large tree down with a small axe, in both storylines, it echoed upon his stubbornness and his devotion for his pups. The physical abuse he inflicted upon himself was enough to keep him from going on, but he did to keep a promise to his coonhounds and not to lose their trust. Again, it showed the strong bond between human and hound, and how much Billy was willing to do to keep their trust, bond, and loyalty. It strengthened the point that was first shown when he started working for his pups, and also helped make the point more clear to those that didn’t notice the bond they shared the first time. While the family was getting ready to leave the countryside for the last time, he made the decision to finally visit the dogs’ graves. In both the movie and the novel, the namesake of the story played a major role in revealing how important the pair of redbone coonhounds were to the Billy and the world. When he first saw the red fern growing on the graves of the hounds, he thought it was a wild bush and almost chopped it down before he realized that it was a holy red fern, showing the lengths he would go to to protect even the corpses of the redbone hounds. It also hinted at the fact that maybe Dan and Ann were a gift from God to show Billy the true meaning of dedication, love, trust, and loyalty, among other things. Since the movie was adapted off the book, it’s no surprise that there are similarities.
Due to budget and time constraints, movies are usually different from their book counterparts, and Where the Red Fern Grows is no different. When Billy saw the gold and silver cups on the mantelpiece at first in the novel, it ruined lots of the suspense in the Championship Coon Hunt. However, since the scene of the first chapter was not included in the movie, it kept the suspense of “will he win or not?”, which was one of the few redeeming aspects of the movie. Another key difference was that the team of hunter and hounds did not formally or actually win first place in the movie; it was given to him by one Sam Billington out of pity. When Billy Colman actually won in the novel, the victory showed how much his devotion and perseverance paid off, but without it in the movie, his efforts seemed in vain.Without a proper win, the movie’s theme was not as apparent, as with the emotion of a proper victory, so the novel was better in this case. Additionally, the scene in which Little Ann fell into the river was missing from the movie. When the runt misjudged the size of a jump and ended up clinging to a chunk of ice in a freezing river, Billy had to think quick to rescue her. This part of the plot reinforced the connection between Billy and his dogs, and therefore made the connection between reader and character much stronger. As a result, the connection between watcher and actor is much, much weaker than the connection between the reader and the character. This scene again reinforces the devotion and perseverance of Billy, and the lack of it makes the book better. Novels are usually different from their film counterparts, and this pair of book and movie is no different.
All in all, the novel Where the Red Fern Grows and its film counterpart are similar, as they are meant to be, but there still are noticeable differences.

The important similarities, such as how Billy saved up for and bought the dogs, the way he chopped down a giant sycamore to fulfill a promise to his dogs, and the red fern that had grown on the dogs’ graves, are all there, showing that the movie producers read the novel before they started producing it. However, the lack of an Old Billy, an actual win, and Ann’s almost death shows that the analysis of the book wasn’t quite complete when they started filming. As a result, most of the book was better than the movie, as the attachment to the characters was greater due to the scenes that were in the book, but not in the movie. The only part of the movie that was redeeming was the lack of the “first chapter,” when Old Billy gave away the win in the novel. Since that part of the plot was not in the film, it kept the victor of the competition a mystery, and therefore keeps the suspense there during the hunt. The book is one of the most tear jerking I’ve ever read, but the movie seems very distant and

nonchalant.