The Glass Menagerie Escape

Both beneatha and Laura have suitors. Mama would like for her family to know and learn values and heritage not money, even though it is sometimes needed. In Amanda’s case she is more concerned of her daughter Laura. Amanda also wants Laura to see what she’s experienced by her husband tom walking out and she needs a man that would not do what her fathers done.

The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams is a celebrated and cherished play that has affected generations. Written in 1945, the play very well may have been an outlet for Williams to accept what had happened to his own sister. Rose Williams had been lobotomized due to schizophrenia, affecting her brother greatly. While Williams’ family may be real, his characters are over dramatic and eccentric. The characters of Amanda, Tom, and Laura make up an extremely dysfunctional family living together in a 1930’s Saint Louis. By the end of the play, each character has affected themselves and each other. The characters spend the majority of their lives inventing someone who will make the rest of their family members happy, and when these facades crumble,

In the play “The Glass Menagerie” each of the characters uses different escape mechanisms to avoid real life. Amanda, the mother, consistently tries to live in the past. Laura, the daughter, avoids the real world by using her own escape mechanisms; her glass figures, and her music and taking walks. Tom, the son, is always avoiding the real world by either going to the movies every night, or going to get drunk. Throughout this paper the reader will gain knowledge of how each character escapes from their everyday lives that they are living.

   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.

Tom is coffined in a cheerless life style which he tries to avoid through the exploitations of unrealistic or broken getaways. As the only man remaining in their family, Tom works to sustain his mother and sister, therefore leaving him with “no single thing in [Tom’s] life here that [he] can call [his] OWN!” (Scene 3:86-87; 89)

The masterful use of symbolism is delightfully ubiquitous in Tennessee Williams’ “The Glass Menagerie.” He uses a collection of dim, dark and shadowy symbols that constantly remind the audience of the lost opportunity each of these three characters continually experience. This symbolism is not only use to enlighten the audience to their neglected opportunities to shine, but it is also repeatedly utilized to reinforce the ways in which the characters try in vain to cross over turbulent waters into a world of light and clarity. It is thematically a wrenching story of life gone by, and the barren attempts to realize another reality that is made more poignant by symbolic language, objects, setting, lighting and music. The characters are

One of the big motivations shown through the characters in The Glass Menagerie is the yearning of escape from the real world. One example shown through Laura’s character is she finds a way to escape reality through her glass menagerie and the old records she plays that once belonged to their father. The mother, Amanda, tries to escape her current life as a deserted wife who must constantly scramble for money by retelling stories of when she was young. Her favorite story to retell regards one day when she received the attentions of seventeen gentleman callers. For her, those gentleman callers represent what her life was and what it could have been if she had not married her husband, “the telephone man who fell in love with long

The world is crafted through humanity’s perceptions, shaped by their shared experiences of the world, yet differentiated by each individual experience. Within The Glass Menagerie, by Tennessee Williams, the ideas of overwhelming truth, individual perceptions, and the flaws of humanity are all explored. Through the various characters, with a specific focus on Tom’s narration, Williams argues that the truth is only a subjective idea that is created through the perceptions of humankind, molded through humanity’s flaws.

The way Tom acts on the difficulties and challenges that he faces at home not only affect him but his family as well. He escapes his troubles from home, due to the pressure, by going to the movies. Finally, his mother realizes and

Within the quote Tom proves he is a coward because he tries to find the easy way out of handling his problems by leaving. Tom believes his absence is a well deserved punishment for his mother and boss because he was forced to fill his father's shoes. The portrayal of Tom's character is similar to Jessie's because they both feel leaving is the only way to solve their problems. Much like Tom, Jessie chooses to solve hers within the play by leaving through death. Both Jessie and Tom feel handling their predicaments by leaving are justifiable and suitable. For instance, Jessie's cowardliness is displayed when Thelma says, "You can keep trying. You can get brave and try some more. You don't have to give up!"(Norman 1486). It is clearly seen within the quote Thelma equates Jessie to a quitter because she realizes Jessie is abandoning her many problems by giving up. Jessie's desperation and lack of confidence compliment her depiction as a coward. In the same way, Stein believes Tom is coward when he says, "Tom's desire to escape from home and the warehouse and Amanda's belief" (Stein 4). Stein's references to the things Tom abandons during the play emphasizes Tom's cowardly manner. Stein realizes Tom would rather act irrationally and not try to solve his problems as opposed to acting rationally and solving the problems. As has been noted, the portrayal of Tom as a coward helps to elaborate on the theme of conflict.

Amanda loves to remember and remind anyone who is listening about her past when all the male suitors wanted her. She likes to close her eyes and escape from her reality as often as her children do. The only thing Amanda is truly invested in is her kids, who she only really uses as an escape and a distraction. She fills the void of her husband's absence with trying to push her kids in the right direction. Unfortunately for Amanda, what she wants for her kids and what they want is different and her actions only serve to push her children further

Each character in the Glass Menagerie is living in their own fantasy world, which reflects that during the period of World War II and the Great Depression, the U.S. working people in lower middle class worked hard in different ways in face of cruel reality. Whether live in the past, hide themselves from others, walk out bravely, or even completely escape from the result, they all struggled between the real and were unable to escape the tragic fate. The beautiful fantasy is as beautiful and fragile as the glass menagerie.

In contrast to red, white, or yellow roses, blue roses are not found in nature. Blue roses are special because they can’t be achieved naturally and, therefore, they represent the desire for the unattainable. In The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams, the symbol of blue roses is used to represent Laura Wingfield’s unfulfilled desires as a result of her shyness. In the first place, the blue roses represent Laura’s incomplete goal for a successful education.

Critical Casebook of interpreting Amanda wheels you from seeing the struggling mother to the terrible excuse for a mother that most would call social services to leave her an empty-nester. Rasco brings images of the “death-house” she created for her children. I do have to say, this image did make me laugh, of course you must laugh, or you would cry. Rasco’s distain for Amanda is evident with statements of “destroying every vestige of hope and beauty and joy.” The accounts of Amanda bring a perspective that many have come to including Jones, that further the views of her selfishness, valuing money or gentleman caller’s over her daughter’s own happiness.

As Dan Mutia once said, “You can never escape reality, you can only delay the inevitable.” This quote describes the Wingfield family completely. Each of them is trying to escape an unavoidable reality. The Glass Menagerie written by Tennessee Williams has three main characters Tom, Amanda and Laura. Tom is Amanda’s son who is supporting the family, because his dad has left.