The Glass Menagerie was the first successful play written by Tennessee Williams in 1945. It brought the author great fame and success and alleviated him to the ranks of America’s most esteemed and regarded playwrights. This play introduced the genre of a “memory play” to the theater, characterized by the unusual amount of freedom given to the playwright. The settings in such a play are meant to be somewhat unrealistic. The scenes presented to the audience are supposed to be pictures of memories distorted by personal biases and perceptions. This bittersweet tale about the struggles and personal tragedies of the Wingfield family was based on a shorter story, Portrait of a Girl in Glass. It was written in the year 1943. While the two stories share many similarities in regards to the specific plot details and character names, there are also many differences between them considering character portrayals.
The synopses of The Glass Menagerie and Portrait of the Girl in Glass are very similar. They describe the life of the impoverished Wingfield family. It is a family of three, consisting of Amanda Wingfield and her two children – Laura and Tom. Tom works at the warehouse and dreams of becoming a poet. Laura stays at home, plagued by her own complexes and insecurities. Her mother’s attempts at making something out of her were unsuccessful – the girl had failed in her studies and avoided them ever since. Fearing for her daughter’s future, Amanda asks Tom to invite a friend over for dinner, in hopes of finding a proper suitor for Laura. The fourth character of the play, Jim O’Connor, takes a liking to Laura and they quickly warm up to each other. In the end, however, it is revealed that Jim is already in a relationship, dashing all hopes for Laura and her mother. Both the play and the story end with Tom leaving the family and wandering from city to city, searching for work. He is haunted by the image of his sister, whom he could never forget.
It should be noted that the play is somewhat longer than the short story and contains a lot more conversation and dialogue. Portrait of Girl in the Glass focuses mainly on Laura – the extremely shy daughter of Amanda Wingfield. Since she is the one in the spotlight, the rest of the characters are portrayed rather sketchily. Their motivations, hopes, and dreams are established, but not developed or elaborated on. The play treats its characters differently, as all four are equal, established and well-rounded characters. Laura retains her prominence, as the events happening in the play are still centered on her. However, the rest of the cast do not suffer from this. They could be considered independent characters, rather than supportive ones.
In the play, Amanda Wingfield is portrayed as a cheerful and bubbly woman who loves both her children dearly. It is the reason she likes exerting control over them in the smallest of things. She tries to control everything – from their plans for the future to how they behave at the table, even though both Tom and Laura are adults. This frequently puts her at odds with Tom and eventually ends up being one of the reasons for his departure (The Glass Menagerie 2). Amanda is portrayed differently in the story. She projects a stern image and does not speak nearly as much. She never has any quarrels with Tom, and his departure is motivated by his loss of his job at the warehouse rather than her attitude towards him (Portrait of a Girl in Glass 12).
The differences in the portrayal of Laura Wingfield in the play and in the story are arguably less obvious. Both versions show us a person crippled by shyness and personal insecurities far more so than by the actual physical trauma. However, the portrayals are not completely similar. In the short story, Laura seems more detached from the real world than she is in the play. She is often daydreaming and spends a lot of time with her glass figures and a book, treating its main character Freckles as an imaginary friend, of sorts. She does not speak much and is focused solely on herself (Portrait of a Girl in Glass 5). Laura is different in the play. She is shown to care about her family and worries about how Tom and her mother are constantly quarreling with one another. Her liking of Jim is motivated by their history and an old infatuation with him, rather than by his similarities with a book character (The Glass Menagerie 20).
Tom’s portrayal was changed the most. In Portrait of a Girl in Glass, he serves as a narrator. The story is told from his point of view. It does not allow for much characterization – he is too busy describing the world around him to have any space left for himself. Aside from a few biographical details, we do not get to know much about how he thinks or feels. In the play, Tom is a well-established character. He is shown to be ambitious. He loathes his work and desires adventure. The young man despises his mother’s attempts to control him, but he is shown to care for his sister. This is illustrated perfectly in a scene where he accidentally drops her glass figurines from the shelf and is bewildered and shocked by it, before helping pick them up (The Glass Menagerie 9). These details make the scene of Tom’s departure from the family much more realistic and the ending part where he is haunted by the image of his sister – much more believable.
Jim’s character remains the same in its essence. However, he received significant development in the play. He evolved from a random co-worker brought in for dinner to a person with old ties to both Tom and Laura. It made their connection much more believable and the scene where they recollect their memories of the past – much more heart-warming. He and Laura really looked like they could be happy together. That made the moment when Jim told her about his engagement even more tragic than it was in the short story.
Overall, I believe that The Glass Menagerie is superior to Portrait of a Girl in Glass. They are not two different stories told differently. The play is an improved version of the short story. Williams took his time to flesh out all of the characters, making them more relatable to the readers and the audience. This helps us sympathize with the hardships and tragedies they have to face in their lives. Reading the play affected me greatly. I felt very sorry for Laura upset that I was unable to influence the story towards a happy ending. Not many stories made me feel that way.
Works Cited
Williams, Tennessee. The Glass Menagerie, New York: New Directions Publishing, 1945.
Portrait of a Girl in Glass, New York: New Directions Publishing, 1948.