The Glass Menagerie and What's Eating Gilbert Grape Essay

The Glass Menagerie and What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? The Glass Menagerie was written by Tennessee Williams and What’s Eating Gilbert Grape was written by Peter Hedges. The first main difference between these two works is that The Glass Menagerie was a memory play that premiered in 1944 and What’s Eating Gilbert Grape was a novel in 1991 that was later adapted into a film in 1993. The main factor in The Glass Menagerie is that the characters and the story mimic the author’s own life, which he includes himself, his mother and sister as the representation of the characters in the play and how his emotions are depicted towards his family. What’s Eating Gilbert Grape is separate and not inspired by the author’s life, but instead about a man named Gilbert that has to take care of his disabled brother and his obese mother, which gets in the way when love walks into his life. The similarities and differences that both stories have are the characters and the themes, such as escapism and the interactions between the main character and his family. The character, Amanda, from The Glass Menagerie is similar to Gilbert’s mother, Bonnie, from What’s Eating Gilbert Grape because their characteristics are alike and their major role in their respective stories. For Amanda’s character, “Don’t say crippled! You know that I never allow that word to be used!” (80) and “One Sunday afternoon in Blue Mountain-your mother received-seventeen!-gentleman callers! Why sometimes there weren’t chairs enough to accommodate them all” (33). This shows that Amanda really cares about her daughter, Laura, and that she depends on Tom to take care of the family, by having a job and paying the bills. The difference between Amanda and Bonnie is that Amanda dwells in the past and annoys Tom by exaggerating the stories to him. For Bonnie’s character, after Arnie gets arrested for climbing up the water tower, Bonnie finally leaves the house after 7 years and orders the policemen inside the police