Emma Greenway Horton

Emma Greenway is a character from the novel Terms of Endearment written by Larry McMurty, she was described in the book as a chubby down to earth woman, who does not care what others think, in the movie she is skinny and portrayed by Debra Winger.

The novel does not describe or follow her life like in the movie, the novel is mostly about her mother, only the last quarter of the book describes Emma's life, the movie goes interchanging between the two of them.

Early Life (Novel)
In the novel not much is said about her early life, she was born in the 1940's. Her Father died when she was 19 years old.

Early Life (Movie)
At a young age (5-7) Emma lost her Father and she was raised by her over protective mother. The two would constantly argue and on her way to prom her mom was over protective.

Marriage
In the beginning of the book Emma (22) was already married and she basically tells her mom she is pregnant within the first chapter. In the movie however she marries young and her mom boycotts the wedding so Emma moves away with Flap, at a reunion with the family Emma tells her mother she is pregnant and becomes furious.

Iowa
Emma, Flap and Tommy move to Iowa, she loves it there since it is quiet and away from her mother who is always carping Flap.

Children (Novel)
Emma has three children Tommy (12), Teddy (10) and Melanie (3), all of them run her down as Emma has financial problems and she is overwight since she eats wrong, does not exercise and is always stressed, she is also cheating on her husband with many different men since he cheats on her too.

Children (Movie)
Same as the novel, the kids are younger though, Tommy 10, Teddy 7, Melanie 2, Emma is not fat and she only has one affair with one man and ends it later on in the film.

Nebraska
Flap gets a new job, but must move the family to Nebraska, they move cause Flaps lover moves there also, and Emma confronts her.

Cancer in the novel
The cancer part is more vivid, painful, and sadder in the novel because of her poor lifestyle. (Diet, overweight in the novel, stress, no work, lack of exercise) Emma gets a huge lump in the armpit which turns out to be -low grade (type B) stage 3 non Hodgkin's lymphoma, Emma is dying from it very slowly and she has 6 months to live, she gets surgery to remove the tumor which has metastasized to many of the lymph nodes around there so it spread but very slowly then she takes chemotherapy goes bald (the works) unfortunately back in the 70's there isn't that much hope or many state of the art treatments and the chemo proved ineffective to the slow developing cancer which continued to spread and now Emma must write her will and she comes to terms with everyone she loves, she slowly dies painfully, and it's especially hard on Tommy, but Aurora is completely devastated upon her death. Her mother gets full custody of the kids.

Cancer in the movie
In the movie Emma's doctor finds 2 lumps in her armpit, her mother thinks it is a cyst but she has malignancy (notice how they don't ever say cancer in the film, back then cancer was not something people wanted to hear in movies) she took drugs for (they never say the word chemotherapy, nor does she go bald because-again back then people did not want to see this in Hollywood, so she kept her hair) she also was never seen in pain, her pain was offscreen and Aurora wanted her drug shots to keep her pain free. She dies rather quickly unlike the novel where it is ever so slow, she talks to Flap about the cheating and who should take care of the kids. Her mother keeps the kids.

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