The Bad Seed Summary

The Bad Seed is quite a breath-taker. It all started when Rhoda’s (the main character) father went away to the army, and she was left home with her mother. Her mother since childhood had been having terrible nightmares about her child committing crimes. When Rhoda was born the dreams haunted her. Now, all her mother can do is hope her daughter doesn’t do those terrible things.
This family lives in an apartment with the janitor (Leroy). This is where we find a difference in the play and the movie. Leroy lives in the garage of the apartment in the play, but in the movie he lived in the basement of the house.
Rhoda goes to school with a boy named Claude. They end up having a confrontation when Claude wins the best handwriting contest and receives a metal. Rhoda gets very upset and at a class picnic she plots to kill Claude. Claude goes down to the dock and Rhoda pushes him in the water and takes the metal. Claude dies from drowning. His parents are hysterical when they heard this news. They went to visit Rhoda to find out what had happened, because last they had heard she was the last one with him. Rhoda was outside when Mr. /Mrs. Daigle (Claude’s parents) came to visit so they talked to her mother instead. Rhoda’s mother had no idea what had happened but when Mrs. Daigle told her what they had heard; Rhoda’s mother questioned Rhoda when she came inside. Rhoda lied to her mother and hid the shoes that she wore to the picnic. Rhoda sent the shoes down the incinerator and Leroy snatched them out of there. He knew everything that had happened.
In the end is where I find the biggest difference between the movie and the play. The play ended with Rhoda living and playing the piano for her father and her mother commits suicide whereas, in the movie Rhoda goes back to the dock in the middle of the night. She dies from being electrocuted from a pole she tried to use to find the metal. The mother shot herself and was in the hospital when her husband came home. The mother lived and the Rhoda dies. This was the biggest difference and pretty shocking. I didn’t expect the movie to end this way but it was a surprise and a twist to the play.