The Glass Menagerie Play Vs Movie Essay

The movie and play productions of “The Glass Menagerie” tell very different stories. The play tells a story of a family with no father – emphasis on no father – that can’t seem to be nice or truthful to one another. The movie tries to tell a similar story but they avoid mention of the father as much as possible. In the beginning of the movie Tom’s opening words are cut out, negating the fact that the entire story is Tom’s memory of what happened. This can change the meaning of the story and make it seem as though we are seeing the events as they happen and then catching up with Tom later at the end of the movie. The Father’s role is greatly down played in the movie, the night Tom comes home and asks “… But who in hell ever got himself out of one [a coffin] without …show more content…
Right before they went outside Amanda talks to Tom through Laura and when doing so she use different lines than the play had, making her sound worse than how she normally spoke. After a few minutes of arguing over Tom’s breakfast they start to talk about Laura and in the book Amanda and Tom sit at the same time, however in the movie Amanda walks around the apartment looking at things while talking to Tom then after she has made her way around the room she sits down to talk to Tom face to face. Before Amanda tells Tom that he could go to college with the money he uses for smoking, she tells him to keep himself looking nice – like his father did. However in the movie they do not mention the father, he seems to be a touchy subject for the movie. Without the father in the movie Tom’s disappearance cannot be explained away as him following in his father’s footsteps as easily as it can be for the play version of Tom’s