Essay on The Glass Menagerie and the Life of Tennessee Williams

Amanda becomes a woman bent on finding her daughter either a job or a husband and finding out why her son disappears every night. To help her appear strong and willful, Amanda escapes to her own days as a young girl, finding more than seventeen gentlemen callers, and allows herself to believe her life is stable enough that her daughter and her will be financially taken care of. These facades crumble when she realizes her daughter has never been capable enough to find either a job or a husband. While these expectations of Laura hurt her, they allow her mother to escape to her days of being flaunted over and adorned by men. Once she does see her daughter is struggling, Amanda has to face the fact that her daughter will always be dependant upon her mother. These realities continue to affect how her children act and the results of the

The play The Glass Menagerie, written by Tennessee Williams, is told as a flashback from the point of view of the character Tom Wingfield. He narrates the play as well. It is set in St. Louis in the year 1937. Tom works to support his mother, Amanda, as well as his sister Laura. Laura is extremely shy, and her mother is not happy with her because she does not attract any “gentlemen callers.” Laura gets enrolled in a business school by her mother, in hopes that she will go into a business career and earn money for herself and her family. A few weeks after, Laura drops out of business school due to her shyness, and wanders the streets of St. Louis during the day. When she is caught by her mother after she visits the business school, Laura tells her “I’ve just been going walking” (Williams 1166). It is then decided that the only hope left in Laura is in marriage. Laura then begins to sell magazine subscriptions in hopes that this job will not only earn her money, but attract a gentleman caller as well. Tom, who works in a shoe warehouse, is a slight alcoholic. He tries to get away from the job that he doesn’t like by drinking, watching movies, and reading literature. Tom often argues with his mother Amanda, and in one of these frequent arguments, Tom accidently breaks a few of Laura’s glass animals. These glass animals are her most prized possessions, so Laura is upset but forgiving.

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

Amanda cannot resign herself to the fact that her youth has gone and tries to implement her unrealized goals in her daughter's life. Her daughter, Laura Wingfield, is a young, beautiful, intelligent girl, perhaps the most tragic character in the play. Since childhood, Laura’s one leg is shorter that the other one, which made her crippled. The constant pressure of the mother, the fear of her brother and the physical flaw alienate her from society, turn her into a frightened, submissive, weak-willed, little girl, whose mother makes all the decision instead of her. Amanda constantly fantasizing and dreaming to marry Laura, so her future husband will take care of her dependent daughter.

   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.

In The Glass Menagerie, Tennessee Williams presents us with four characters whose lives seem to consist in avoiding reality more than facing it. Amanda lives her life through her children and clings to her lost youthfulness. Tom retreats into movie theaters and into his dream of joining the merchant seamen and some day becoming a published poet. Laura resorts to her Victrola and collection of glass ornaments to help sustain her world of fantasy. Finally, Jim is only able to find some relief in his glorified old memories. This essay will examine how Amanda, Tom, Laura and Jim attempt to escape from the real world through their dreams.

Amanda was abandoned by her husband and now must raise her two children alone, Tom and Laura. Amanda is informed and considers Tom’s unrealistic, daydreaming about becoming a recognized, successful poet rather than staying at his present job he spites. Amanda is not only overwhelmingly confused, but also terribly troubled about the future. Worse still, the fact that Laura is crippled causes her to worry even more. Amanda tries to arrange everything for Laura because she will live paralyzed forever. Aware of the reality, she enrolls her in a secretarial course in the hope that she would become, if not successful in marriage, at least independent. Disappointed by Laura 's inability to cope with the studies in the business school, Amanda cannot but desperately find her a reliable husband who

The Glass Menagerie is a memory play that is, in a way, a partial autobiography of the life of its author Tennessee Williams. Williams, like Tom, worked in a factory and lived with his mother and sister. With this in mind, it’s no wonder why Tom is so fond of his sister Laura, and always more than happy to do what his mother says when it comes to her. For example Amanda, Tom’s mother, has requested Tom to bring home a gentleman caller for Laura to which he responds:

In “The Glass Menagerie,” Tennessee Williams presents four characters that choose to avoid reality rather than facing is. Amanda lives her life through her children’s and clings to her past. Tom constantly spends his nights at movie theatres and dreams of joining the merchant seamen and someday becoming a published poet. Laura uses her collection of glass ornaments and victola to help sustain her world of fantasy. Finally, Jim is only able to find relief in his praised old memories. Amanda, Tom, Laura, and Jim attempt to escape from the real world through their dreams of a fantasy life they desire.

“The Glass Menagerie” by Tennessee Williams written in 1944. In many of his plays the circumstances reflect his own life, in the Glass Menagerie this is especially true. His father, a violent traveling salesman, and mother a puritanical, preacher’s daughter. He also had an older sister named Rose, whom he cherished, she suffered from psychological problems which lead to an institutionalized life. The Glass Menagerie represents a somewhat altered image of the Williams family, set in the 1930’s in the Wingfield’s meager apartment; which is in a lower-class tenement building in St. Louis, it’s a “memory play,” in which Tom (after his own real name Thomas) recalls scenes from his youth during the height of the Depression. Outspoken Amanda, Tom’s

Life is just one big lesson that you learn off of, it’s a learning experience that make people who they are and also makes them become a better individual. The book “The Glass Menagerie” by Tennessee Williams has an amazing character named Laura, you get to experience Laura shape into a more confident woman than what she starts out as in the beginning of the book. You will be introduced to her Glass Menagerie, which is a collection of slightly exotic animals, also her pride and joy.

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

Amanda Wingfield was a complex character that encompassed many facets of her personality. She longed to have the life she had as a girl and young woman with gentleman callers and being the center of attention; her reality though, was a much more dismal existence with a son who worked at a factory making little money at a job he despised and a daughter that was as emotionally and physically

Written in 1944, Tennessee Williams wrote a play during World War II when people were barely making ends meet. Centering on the Wingfield family, the story consisted of five characters: Amanda Wingfield (the mother), Laura Wingfield (the daughter), Tom Wingfield (son, narrator, Laura’s older brother), Jim Connor (Tom and Laura’s old acquaintance from high school) and Mr. Wingfield (father to Tom and Laura, and Amanda’s husband)- who abandoned the family long before the start of the play. The title, “The Glass Menagerie”, represented a collection of glass animals on display in the Wingfields’ home. At one point or another, these animals then represented each character when they couldn’t accept reality. The theme of this play were about the

The character of Amanda is tragically flawed with blatant arrogance, and Williams uses this fault to serve a dual purpose. To escape her un pleasant circumstances, Amanda frequently boasts of her popularity and beauty as a young girl to her homely and terribly unpopular daughter. Haughtily Amanda describes in great length how desirable she was, how pretty she was, and how smart and charming she was. Initially this boasting appears to relive her former glory and avoid the harsh reality of present