Death Of A Salesman And The Glass Menagerie

At the onset of the book, Young Tom has just been released from prison and is interested in making up for lost time and enjoying himself. He is a strong family support during the journey but is among the first to begin reaching out to a larger family. At the end he has focused on the plight and abuse of all the homeless farmers and recognizes that they must

| Tom wants his old life back prior to the accident and he sees the accident as the end of his life as he knew it. He loses his sense of identity and sense of family in particular.Feels guilty and ashamed about the irrevocable consequences his brother’s irresponsibility had for other people and their familiesRetreats into a depressed state which feels empty and black.

As he begins to understand the people in his life and their actions, Jack learns that one can rarely make sense of an event until that event has become a part of the past, to be

Tom would beat her awful a considerable measure. At the point when Tom educated her regarding his meeting with

The characters that come alive in Williams' works represent people from his life. Amanda Wingfield from The Glass Menagerie holds strong resemblance to Tennessee's mother Edwina Williams. Williams described his mother as "a woman whose endurance and once fine qualities continued to flourished alongside a narrowness of perception and only the dimmest awareness of human feeling (Susquehanna. "Biographical Criticism)." Amanda easily mirrors this description of Edwina because of her selfishness concerning Laura's being unattached; Edwina was much like Amanda, getting numerous gentlemen callers as a young woman. Laura Windfield in The Glass Menagerie is very much like Williams' sister Rose Williams. Rose was institutionalized for having schizophrenia and was not able to interact with the outside world. Having pleurisy, Laura was also kept from being a part of the world she longed for. By using examples of people from his own life in

Tom believes he is this woman’s hero. Throughout the story he sees himself protecting her from Stanley’s domination (Lessing 858). He feels he is not her harasser and that she must be aware of his love for her. His dreams of her have convinced him that meeting this woman is in his destiny. He doesn’t interpret her indifference as rejection as Stanley does and has no idea how he will suffer for it later. Far gone into his fantasy, Tom imagines the nearby crane aiding his heroic rescue of her.

Thanks to his strong personality and nature, Jim develops into a wonderful man by the end of the novel, despite having gone through many difficult times. He used these tragedies to form himself into a strong person, instead of allowing it to break him down. When he was very young, he was orphaned, and sent to live in a new state, ‘I was ten years old then; I had lost both my father

The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams and Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller are two of the twentieth century’s best-known plays. The differences and similarities between both of the plays are hidden in their historical and social contexts. The characters of The Glass Menagerie and the Death of a Salesman are trapped by the constraints of their everyday lives, unable to communicate with their loved ones and being fearful for their future. There are a lot of comparisons that exist, especially between the settings, symbolism and characterization drawn between the two plays. The contrast comes form the ways that the characters choose to deal or not with the harsh circumstances of life.

When Tom introduces the characters in the play, he includes his father as one of them although clearly stating that he is not going to appear on stage. Tom also gives a brief description of his father, helping to establish a lasting impression on the audience after seeing the photograph which Williams has described to be “blown-up” and Tom describes as “larger-than life”. Mr. Wingfield is described by Tom as a “telephone man who fell in love with long distances”, “gave up his job with the telephone company and skipped the light fantastic out of town”. In addition to that, Tom provides us in his opening narration information about the postcard from his father containing the message of two words “Hello – Goodbye!” From Tom’s narration, we see the lasting effects of Mr. Wingfield’s abandonment on Tom.

Even though Tom is now aware of his origin it does not ultimately change all of his behavior and attitude or as it is described in the book “In several ways his opinions were totally changed,…, but the main structure of his character was not changed and could not be changed”. This condition only lasted for a certain period of time until he “dropped gradually back into his old frivolous and easy-going ways…” p.57 A similar thing happens to Chambers by the end of the story after Tom has gotten convicted to murder and Pudd’nhead Wilson has found out about the real identities of Tom and Chambers. Being a free man, the original Tom does not know how to deal with this situation because “his manners were the manners of a slave”. He did not learn how to write or to read, nor did he spend much time somewhere else but in the kitchen.

Jim still being a youngster was left in the care of a neighbor. Even though Jim and his mother were separated frequently they still kept close ties with each other.

Memory and Reality in Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie 'Being a memory play, it is dimly lighted, it is sentimental, it is not realistic'. To what degree is the play memory and to what degree is it realistic? "When a play employs unconventional techniques, it is not trying to escape its responsibility of dealing with reality, or interpreting experience, but is actually attempting to find a closer approach, a more penetrating and vivid expression of things as they are" (Tennessee Williams). The Glass Menagerie is one of Tennessee Williams' most eminent works and no doubt qualifies as a classic of the modern theater. Often referred to as a 'memory play', both the style and content of

Tennessee Williams was born Thomas Lanier Williams on March 26, 1914, in Columbus, Mississippi, the son of Cornelius Coffin Williams and Edwina Dakin. Williams had an elder sister, Rose, who was later committed to a mental institution, and a younger brother. In 1918 the Williams family moved to St Louis. In response to this unhappiness, and to the emotional pain of being bullied by children in the neighborhood, Williams began to read books and write his own stories; years later, in the foreword to Sweet Bird of Youth he commented that writing was "an escape from a world of reality in which I felt acutely uncomfortable. It immediately became my place of retreat, my cave, my refuge. ' ' Beginning in 1929 Williams studied at the University of Missouri at Columbia, at Washington University in St. Louis, and at the University of Iowa, meanwhile making a name for himself as a writer. Although this period was a creative one, and one in which his personal life settled down (he seems to have come to terms with his

Truth and illusion are utilized in Tennessee Williams “Streetcar Named Desire” and Arthur Miller's “Death of a salesman” through the use of the character; to lead the reader to a possible conclusion on the beliefs that went into the American dream that prompted people to work hard was that america was the land of opportunity while in fact that opportunity is used to manipulate those who follow this dream something that is most evidently shown in Millers main character Willy and to put forward a essential criticism of the materialistic

Time and space is an intriguing concept. Arthur Miller's (1949) Death of a Salesman and Tennessee Williams' (1945) The Glass Menagerie both implement these concepts in different ways. Death of a Salesman is told through the perspective of a man who is imagining his memories, while at the same time, living his everyday life. The Glass Menagerie, similarly, is told through the memories of the narrator, Tom Wingfield, but not while he is living his present life. The characters in both stories reminisce of their past regrets. However, the intent of the author's use of time and space to reach the reader is different in these stories.