Fantasy and Imagination in The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams

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,

“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.

When Tom cannot actually bring himself to leave he uses many escape mechanisms to escape from his life. For instance, he escaped from their apartment onto the fire escape, and he sneaks away from the warehouse to write poetry. Tom also uses going to the movies every night and getting drunk to escape from his reality. In scene four Tom and Laura are having a conversation because he has been out for a very long time. Laura says “Where have you been all this time?” (1257.) Then Tom replies with “I have been at the movies.” (1257.) It also says in scene four that Amanda says “–well you had been drinking the night you were in that- terrifying condition! Laura says that you hate the apartment and that you go out nights o get away from it!” (1260.) This just shows that Tom is trying to escape from the life he is living, that he wants adventure. While his escape mechanisms do offer him a promise of freedom, it also traps him. At the end of scene III, Tom shouts at Amanda “I’m leading a double life,” (1256.) He wants to break free of the power Amanda has on him, but he cannot escape the love he has for his

Williams’s play is a tragedy, and one of quietude. He once expressed that “Glass Menagerie is my first quiet play, and perhaps my last.” It is a play of profound sadness, and through relationships between characters, portrays the “cries of the heart.” There is no cry more powerful that the cry and inner desperation of the heart. Williams’s has very little social context, but rather focuses on the conflicts within a domestic family. Such a focus is powerful, and the playwright expresses this power and importance implicitly through the estranged relationship between Amanda and Tom Wingfield.

   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 by Tennessee Williams is a play that focuses on people’s imperfections and how being overwhelmed can effect a person’s daily life. Tom, Laura, and their father were constantly overwhelmed and acted the way they did because of it. When Williams says:

Tom’s memories also prohibited him from finding happiness and moving forward, but it also led to the creation of the play. All of the characters have ways to deal with their cruel memories, except Tom. Amanda has her happy days from her youth and Laura has her glass collection. Tom has no sufficient way of escape. He has tried escaping to the movies, but he came to realize that it was not a real way out.

In The Glass Menagerie, Tennessee Williams beautifully encapsulates man’s desire to escape from uncomfortable emotional and physical situations. Whether he’s showing a young man trapped in a factory job he hates, an aging single mother who mourns for her life as Southern belle, or a young lady who fears that she’ll spend her life alone, he clearly demonstrates these desires and fears for his audience. Williams shows us through the actions of his characters how humans handle a wide variety of uncomfortable situations, and how these situations dramatically influence one’s ability to thrive. The playwright doesn’t seem to believe in the idea of “bloom where you’re planted”, and the desire to escape becomes a major theme of the play, demonstrated across multiple characters in a wide variety of ways. Creative individuals often do not thrive in noncreative, industrial environments. Williams demonstrates this clearly in this “memory play”, which carries many autobiographical element. Tom Wingfield represents his own character, Williams himself, and also serves as a narrator, making him quite the complex character. Williams’s uses Tom to show how an emotionally complex, creative individual can quickly feel trapped and tied down in a factory job, longing to get out, see the world, and pursue a job with more creative elements. Tom’s escapism, drinking, and evening theatrical adventures all reflect the life of the playwright himself, as Williams was known to struggle with alcoholism

The Glass Menagerie is a memory play narrated by the main character and son, Tom Wingfield. It takes place in their apartment in St Louis, 1937. The father left them years ago leaving Tom to support the family. He works in a shoe warehouse, a job in which he hates and wants to leave, but can't because he has a duty to support the family. His mother, Amanda is loving and caring but nags too much, annoying Tom. She expresses the desire for her daughter, Laura, who is crippling shy, to have "gentlemen callers". Amanda finds out that Laura dropped out of college because of her shyness and she demanded Tom to choose a gentleman caller for her. He chooses Jim O'Connor, a boy who she liked in high school, but was too shy to talk to him before. Tom invites him for dinner and Jim talks to her and gets her to open up a little. He leads her on by kissing her then after tells her he is engaged. He then leaves and Laura gets sad. Amanda yells at Tom, blaming him for it. Tom reveals to the audience that he abandons his family later that night and has been haunted by Laura ever since.

In Tennessee William’s work “The Glass Menagerie”, a theme that is well developed is feeling trapped. Williams and Tom, both share similarities. This theme fits well with Tom, Laura, and Amanda. They each have a feeling in which they are trapped. The family overcomes many obstacles from their past.

This novel illustrates multiple characters with unique personalities. One of them is Tom Wingfield, which is the son of Amanda and lives in a materialistic society. His mother depends on him to support the family. However, Tom does not want the responsibility to care for the house and his family and chooses to leave instead. In addition, the fire escape is an important object in the play. Tom is a character that uniquely reacts to the society in The Glass Menagerie. He shows how a person can act when in a tough situation.

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.

In the Glass Menagerie by Tennessee William’s, Tom narrates the story through his memories. Tom resided in a small tenement with his older, slightly crippled sister, Laura and his overbearing, audacious mother, Amanda. Tom is a young man in his mid-twenties who has had to assume the role as provider for the household. His and Laura’s father left them and their mother years ago. Their father was an alcoholic with adulterous tendencies. That left Tom no choice, but to be the man of the house. His mother though filled with good intentions, created strife among the family. Amanda nagged and harped on her children about everything, to no bitter end. Amanda entwined every aspect of her children’s life into her own, she relied on them for

The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams had ordinary people in an ordinary life that closely resembled the influences of Williams’ personal life while having reoccurring themes and motifs throughout the story. The play has been done by many with some variations in the scripts and setting while still clinging to the basic ideas of the original play.

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