Differences Between The Play And The Glass Menagerie

“The Glass Menagerie” is an autobiographical play, written by Tennessee William in 1945. Each character is a prototype of a real person, who played a significant role in the author’s life. It is a memory play, which based on author’s own life story and a point of view at the family problems and ways to solve them. The main problem in the play is the conflict between parents and children, which leads to adverse consequences for all members of the family.

   Tennessee Williams' play, The Glass Menagerie, describes three separate characters, their dreams, and the harsh realities they face in a modern world.  The Glass Menagerie exposes the lost dreams of a southern family and their desperate struggle to escape reality. Williams' use of symbols adds depth to the play. The glass menagerie itself is a symbol Williams uses to represent the broken lives of Amanda, Laura and Tom Wingfield and their inability to live in the present.

The Glass Menagerie, the characters are all facing some sort of problems. One of the main character in the play is Laura Wingfield. The rest of her family consist of Amanda Wingfield , her mother and her brother Tom Wingfield. Laura lives in a fictional world with her glass figurines. Laura is terribly shy, and has no gentlemen callers. The important thing in the play The Glass Menagerie is the glass figurines. Laura struggles to be social in society . The play takes place during the Great Depression where families struggle to survive.

The Glass Menagerie is a dramatic play which was written by Tennessee Williams that depicts a picture of a dysfunctional family. These characters are Amanda Wingfield, the mother of Tom and Laura, and Jim O’Connor, the gentleman caller and a friend of Tom. In this play, Amanda Wingfield was abandoned by her husband, who happens to leave her and the family. At this point, Amanda’s responsibility was to take care of the family and also see to it that her high expectations for her children was fulfilled. This play brings out some issues of life especially marriage, which affected the life of Laura and her mother. For this reason, Amanda had to find someone with certain qualities to marry her daughter. Some of these qualities were a man who does not drink, a man with a better job or pursuing a good career, and a man with good character.

In the play, The Glass Menagerie, by Tennessee Williams, the protagonist, Tom, runs away from home in an attempt to find truth and meaning in his life. He leaves behind his mother Amanda and sister Laura who is crippled. As Tom narrates the play by recalling his memories he talks about the night when Laura has her first gentleman caller over, Jim O’Connor. Over the course of the evening Jim breaks Laura's glass unicorn and shines a light through it, thereby breaking Laura free from her own caged life. Although Tom does not call home to check up on Laura and his mother, it is inferred from the narration of his story that Jim, in fact, saves Laura from a lifetime of continuous falsity. Jim O’Connor acts as a savior of Laura’s by breaking her

In a 1965 interview, Tennessee Williams said, “I have always been more interested in creating a character that contains something crippled. I think nearly all of us have some kind of defect, anyway, and I suppose I have found it easier to identify with the characters who verge upon hysteria, who were frightened of life, who were desperate to reach out to another person” (Stang, 1965). The Glass Menagerie takes place at the apartment of the Wingfield family in the 1930s. Each character finds the need to escape reality due to their individual personal desires and motivations. The main characters Laura, Amanda, Tom Jim and Father each have various weakness and strength that develop their character. Tom is the narrator and the protagonist of the story. He desires to escape his overbearing life for a life full of adventure and excitement.

The Glass Menagerie is a drama in which Tom, the narrator, shares his memories around the time World War II broke out. The memories Tom shares throughout the course of the drama resemble a life that is very close to the lifestyle Williams had before he became famous for his plays. To begin, the mood is set

In Tennessee Williams' play, The Glass Menagerie, Amanda, Laura, and Tom have chosen to avoid reality. Amanda continually attempts to live in the past. Laura's escape from the real world is her glass collection and old phonograph records. Tom hides from the real world by going to the movies and getting drunk. Each character retreats to their separate world to escape the cruelties of life.

¨Life is all memory, except for the one present moment that goes by you so quickly you hardly catch it going.¨ This quote by the author of The Glass Menagerie, Tennessee Williams, describes both The Glass Menagerie, a memory play, and the life of Tennessee Williams himself, for whom memories played a large role in his life. Within the play, many parallels can be drawn between the life of Williams and the life of Tom, the main character, such as a disdain for factory work. In addition, several characters in The Glass Menagerie have a difficult time fitting into the roles that their family and their society places upon them. This same struggle existed for Tennessee Williams his whole life, as he was never able to adapt to the stereotypical role his father had envisioned for him. Furthermore, in writing The Glass Menagerie as a memory play, Tennessee Williams reflects his own fond memories of growing up in rural Mississippi, which, despite the flaws of that portion of his life, is still a portion of his life that he wishes to be able to relive. Overall, The Glass Menagerie is reflective of the life of Tennessee Williams in numerous ways, and personal qualities of Williams are exemplified in the characters and the plot of the play.

An excellent writing technique employed by Williams that contributes to The Glass Menagerie’s success is his use of plot. Throughout the drama, the main character and narrator, Tom, is seemingly unhappy with his environment and situation. Williams transitions us through Tom’s memory to give the audience an understanding of what Tom experiences. Tom, left by his father to care for his mother and sister, has grown into a hardworking man who feels trapped and enslaved by his family. He tries to escapes his reality by going to shows and drinking to the point of intoxication. In the third scene, Williams gives us a glimpse into Tom’s habit of trying to escape during an argument with his mother:

Tennessee Williams’s, The Glass Menagerie, is one of the most popular plays of all times and the play that started his success as a playwright. This play explores a dysfunctional family who has been abandoned by the husband/father and struggles to progress in an economically stressed time. The play showcases three extremely complex characters who each have personal struggles in their own lives which furthermore create tensions between each other as a family unit. As a true lover of this play, I had to dig deep into the text and try to understand each of the characters of this play in order to figure out what was the cause to their unhappiness. There were many factors that played a huge role to the misery of their lives but the most

Tom and his sister Laura is symbolically the actual glass menagerie, the play belongs to neither of them. The play belongs to their mother, Amanda, as substantiated by

Tennessee Williams, born Thomas Lanier Williams, wrote The Glass Menagerie, a play which premiered in Chicago in 1944. This award winning play, autobiographical in nature, represented a time in which Williams felt the obligation of his responsibilities in regards to the care of his family. Robert DiYanni, Adjunct Professor of Humanities at New York University, rated it as, “One of his best-loved plays...a portrayal of loneliness among characters who confuse fantasy and reality” (DiYanni 1156). Alternatively, The Glass Menagerie, a play set in the era of the Great Depression was written from the narrator’s memory, was meant to teach us the how our relationships with one another can alter our futures, for better or worse. Everything about this particular play was a direct and clear symbolization of Williams ' life growing up. Williams uses characterization to depict several people from his real life in this play; his sister, himself, his overbearing mother, absent father, and a childhood best friend. Williams does a splendid job transforming his personal life into a working piece of art. In Tennessee Williams ' play, The Glass Menagerie, his character, Laura, is the central to the structure and focus of the story due to her individual ties to all of the supporting characters throughout the seven scene play.

Fleeting time, intricate glass, and a shy, crippled girl have nothing in common at first glance, but Tennessee Williams reveals an unlikely connection between the trio in his play The Glass Menagerie. These three items are beautiful beyond nature, but are all so fragile that one must be careful not to disrupt them. Williams uses his memory play to highlight the fragility of time, glass, and Laura. In order to preserve the expressionist style of the work, he provides production notes to assist directors in putting on the play, but many decide to take some creative liberties in their performances. The Alabama Shakespeare Festival (ASF) cast and director bring Tennessee William’s play, The Glass Menagerie, to life with creative decisions that develop the author’s ideas in a unique manner while maintaining the thematic tradition of the play.

The Glass Menagerie is a masterfully written play by Tennessee Williams and set in 1930’s America. The text develops themes about betrayal, broken relationships and disloyalty through the use of various stylistic devices to evoke an emotional response from the audience. One may think the text is ancient, as it was released during the 1940’s, however, it holds relevance to modern society, as it illuminates the gender expectations of women. Read on, and it will soon be clear why The Glass Menagerie is deception at its finest.