Clan of the Cave Bear: Book Vs. Movie

The Clan of the Cave Bear is a story set during prehistoric times in the land between modern Europe and Asia. It tells the story of a Cro-Magnon girl named Ayla who becomes orphaned due to a frightening earthquake. Afterwards she wanders through the vast wilderness and eventually winds up in the hands of a Neanderthal woman named Iza who raises her into adulthood. The clan finds her nature very different from their own and the son of the leader, Broud, resents Ayla for this reason. Ayla finds herself faced with the not only the task of surviving alongside another species, but also dealing with the abuse put out by Broud. In the end Ayla decides to leave the clan and even her own son in order to find her own way within the changing world. This is truly a story of aging. It is of the aging Ayla, who is the future of mankind, and the aging of clan, that is destined to become our past. Both the book and movie attempt to tell Ayla's story, but they tend to be different in various ways.

One of the major differences between the book and the movie was the changes in the timeline. For example, in the book Ayla is cursed for a whole month due to the fact that she used a weapon. Using a weapon was considered a taboo because men were the only ones allowed to hunt and any weapon touched by a woman would have to be destroyed and she would be sentenced to a death curse. After her curse, Ayla returns safely and after a few months becomes pregnant with a half Cro-Magnon, half Neanderthal child named Durc. The movie, on the other hand, portrays Ayla as being cursed while she is pregnant so she returns to the clan with the baby Durc in hand which makes the clan forget all about her wrongdoing. This change was probably made to pull the viewer deeper into the emotional bonds between the mother and son because in the book Ayla and Durc were actually quite distant from one another. The changing of the timeline, in this case, makes the ending to the movie far more emotional than that of the book because she ends up having to leave Durc behind with the clan after suffering through so much with him. There are other changes to the timeline, but none are as significant as this one.

Another difference occurred within the first ten minutes of the movie. This change would be the addition of Ayla's mother during the earthquake that originally caused Ayla to become an orphan. Ayla actually saw her own mother die in the movie whilst in the book her mother was nowhere to be seen. This event affected Ayla in the movie because even though she eventually forgot her own mother she always had a strong fear of losing Iza, who had become her adoptive mother. This could also be considered a foreshadowing of the end because in the end of the book and movie Ayla has to leave her child behind just like her mother had left her. This change makes for a dramatic reoccurrence and tie in with Ayla's past.

Not only are some of the scenes different between