Struggles Through Similarities

Authors note:

This piece is a comparison between a book and a movie that talk about the Revolutionary war. While reading this please look for my use of descriptive use of vocabulary. 

The Revolutionary War was a immense time for people of all walks of life.  Especially for the people that are part of the continental army, the militia army, and their families. I have recently read an excellent and insightful book called The Fifth of March by Ann Rinaldi and watched the movie The Patriot by Roland Emmerich. The movie and the book were similar in many ways such as rebelation, and fighting, but they were also fairly different.

In the movie The Patriot, Benjamin is a single father of seven but oldest son, Gabriel, goes off to war without the blessing of Benjamin (Emmerich). Likewise in the book The Fifth of March,  Rachel Marsh who is nanny to John and Abigail Adams' children and also a patriot meets a solder by the name of Matthew, but she like Gabriel, disregards the awfully important and smart warnings of their parental figures and does whatever they wish (Rinaldi).

The book and the movie the kids should have took their parental figures advise because while Gabriel and Rachel sneak out there ate many dangerous things that happen. In the book there are various times when the church bells rang for a riot; people were throwing rocks and stones at the soldiers from inside their houses there was people yelling out their windows and then a riot was started and people started getting vicious (Rinaldi). In the movie the battles were taking place right in the town also.  After Gabriel was shot in a nearby town he hobbled to his family’s house where a fight broke out once Colonel Travington found out that Gabriel went home. As the war was raging on Gabriel and Benjamin had a front row seat sitting inside their house just 50 yards away from where the battle was going on (Emmerich). Having the battles right in your front yard would be very horrifying and shocking especially during the frightening time period of the Revolutionary War.

Although there was a lot of fighting in both the movie and the book, the ways of fighting only had a modest difference. In The Patriot there was a lot of the fighting and a lot of mind games involved; trying to sneak up of the other side and not get caught because the movie was taking place during the war. Unlike the book The Fifth of March because the book was taking place  before the war was started while the colonist were still upset because the British kept making more taxes to help pay for the French and Indian War. This made the battles more of a rage and more out of control because all the colonist were upset and were just trying to get the Red Coats back for all the taxes. While all this was going on a  supplementary amount of soldiers were showing up making the colonist upset to a greater extent.

As you can see this essay has shown many similarities and differences between The Patriot and The Fifth of March. Although these two books take place during two different time periods the themes are many the same. Even if in The  Patriot there are many more deaths, the drive for both sides to win is very apparent. In The Patriot the colonist could have given up but they didn’t and it paid off so always go after what you want and you just might get it.