Glass Menagerie Essay

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.

Another means of Tom’s escape are his outings to the movie, which are aided by the fire escape. Tom goes to the movies for several reasons; to satisfy his need for alcohol, to escape his home life, and to experience some adventure. Walter is a black man in the 1950’s supporting himself, his wife, son, sister and mother in a small apartment in Chicago. He and Tom are both treated less than what a human is worth.

   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 use of movies and the images of dark movie theaters symbolize a fantasy world, a world where Tom can escape and watch the idealistic adventures of other people’s lives. It is a symbolic way for him to leave his own reality without physically having to make that choice to do it for real. He tells Jim that, “People go to the movies instead of moving. Hollywood characters are supposed to have all the adventures for everybody in America, while everybody in America sits in a dark room and watches them

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.

fears that she has lost or is losing him as far as the big things, the

Symbolism plays a fundamental part in Tennessee Williams’s play, “The Glass Menagerie”. Examples of the use of symbolism include the fire escape, as an escape from the family, the phonograph, as an escape from reality, the unicorn, as a symbol for Laura's uniqueness and the father’s photograph, representing something different to each character. Through recognition of these symbols, a greater understanding of the play’s theme is achieved.

     The Glass Menagerie, by Tennessee Williams contained well-characterized characters. The "Dead Poet’s Society" also contained a great set of characters that were similar to those in The Glass Menagerie. It is fair to say that the characters of The Glass Menagerie and the characters of "Dead Poet’s Society" are more similar than different.

One of the most important themes in the play is that of the conflict between desire and responsibility. Explain how this idea is presented through at least one character in the play.

Laura is a character who longs to find companionship, beyond her glass menagerie, although ironically, she is the one keeping herself from this companionship due to her anxiety against social interaction. Laura does possess the aptitude for companionship, but no sign of this comes until the end of the memory, at which point we as an audience understand the majority of why Laura behaves the way she does. By knowing the confinements of which Laura lives (in an apartment with her mother and brother) as they are mixed with her limited relationship(s), understanding her deep obsession with her glass menagerie and acknowledging the true happiness her glass animals bring her, and knowing the true need that Laura has for legitimate companionship beyond

Tom escapes his reality by going to the movies, drinking, and writing poetry. Tom says, “I go to the movies because – I like adventure… something I don’t have much of at work” (Williams 33). He goes to the movies during the night because the films he watches have adventures in them. He imagines himself in the movies and that is how he deals with the boredom he has at home during the day. Tom is very annoyed by the nagging of his mother, Amanda. He drinks to cope with the anger he receives when he talks to his mother. Tom is very bored of his life; he is tired of working in a shoe factory. When he is at the factory, he writes poetry to mentally and physically escape his job. Tom uses these escapism methods to make himself stay with his family. Although he did end up leaving his sister and mother, if it were not for these methods, he would have left long ago. Tom realizes that he cannot have adventures by simply watching movies. If he wants a real escape then he must leave his family. He physically leaves his family to join the merchant marines, but mentally, he is still attached to Laura and Amanda. That is why the play is Tom’s memory; he cannot forget the feelings he

The Glass Menagerie, a play written by Tennessee Williams, is in a play full of emotion. The writer envelopes his audience in a cloud of feelings, as he describes the lives of a family who faces poverty and diversity each day of their lives( Williams 2013.) This play is situated in a little, poor loft. The play happens inside the parlor and dining room of the loft. In the Glass Menagerie, the play focuses itself on four characters.These four characters include: Amanda Wingfield, (the mother) and a ladies of a confusing nature; Laura Wingfield, (the little girl) who is injuried from a childhood sickness, and Tom Wingfield, (the more seasoned child) who feels caught and is searching for away out of the life he is living and Jim (Tom 's companion ) who is lost in the past when he was a star football player. Williams ' characters are unequipped for living in this present reality. Amanda Wingfield uses sticking to her recollections to escape from reality. She is from the old south. Her old molded method for living keeps her fantasizing about when she used to go on McGuire 2rides to the ball with her noble men guests. She stresses so much because she settled on terrible decisions in her own particular life. Amanda is fantasizing at whatever point she needs to escape from the truth that she is poor and is not going anyplace. She describes stories of ballsand moves, church socials and noble man guests. She continues reminding herself, and everybody inthe room, that she was well

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

Amanda Wingfield in the play, The Glass Menagerie, written by Tennessee Williams, was portrayed as a distraught southern belle trying to control the lives of her children. In The Glass Menagerie Amanda is the matriarch of her small family who appears at first to be a woman who cared about her children’s futures- that is before she becomes so overbearing that she started to hinder her children’s future. Amanda was a single mother who could never grasp reality. The Glass Menagerie was a memory play that told of a family trapped in destructive patterns. After being abandoned by her husband sixteen years prior, Amanda became trapped between two completely different worlds; worlds of illusion and reality. It seemed like when the world