The 1972 film version of Sounder is quite different from the novel. It stresses the unity of the black family and its strength, and the family members are given names. Paul Winfield plays the father, Nathan Morgan; Cicely Tyson plays the mother, Rebecca Morgan; and Kevin Hooks plays the boy, David Lee Morgan, who is older than the boy in the book. Also, a definite setting, Louisiana in 1933, is established. The mother is not the passive martyr depicted in the novel but is instead a courageous, powerful woman who encourages her son to learn to read. Nathan returns home after only one year and is not as horribly crippled as he is in the novel.

Sounder is not as badly wounded either, and he accompanies the boy on his quest to find his father. The Hollywood version has a happy ending with the reunited family sending the boy to...