Girl with a Pearl Earring: Book Vs. Movie

Girl with a Pearl Earring: Book vs. Movie

After 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 Catharina's 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 won't 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 brother's house for support throughout the book but in the movie, she can't 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 Griet's 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