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.

In the play, The Glass Menagerie, Tennessee Williams portrays his sister, Rose, as a character named Laura. Laura is a nervous, quiet girl who struggles with a mental disorder. “She has failed to establish contact with reality and continues to live vitally in her illusions.” (Williams xvii) This is a close comparison to his sister in real

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

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.

In Tennessee Williams’ play, The Glass Menagerie, all four members of the Wingfield family have chosen to hide from reality. Amanda tries to relive her past through Laura, and denies anything she does not want to accept. Laura is terrified of the real world, and choses to hide behind her limp, her glass menagerie and the victrola. Tom hides from his reality by going to the movies, writing poetry, and getting drunk. Mr Wingfield hides from his reality by leaving his family and not contacting them after he has done so. Each member of the Wingfield family has their own escape mechanism which they use to hide or escape from the real world.

In Tennessee Williams's drama The Glass Menagerie the setting and dramatization in the play are used to convey each member of the family's hopes, desperations, and fears. He uses symbols throughout the story to add a deeper meaning and give his characters a sense of mystery. Also, though maybe inadvertently, The Glass Menagerie actually parallels the people and events in Tennessee Willliams's life.

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

Throughout the play, “The Glass Menagerie” by Tennessee Williams, Laura’s glass collection, especially the tiny unicorn, can be used as a symbol to help us understand each of the characters individual viewpoints. The glass unicorn holds the most significance for Laura, but it, but the glass menagerie is symbolic of each and every one of the characters’ lives and attitudes. All of the characters can be better understood by relating them to the glass menagerie.

In the screenplay, The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams, characters struggle with the acceptance of reality. With the inability to handle reality, the Wingfield family barricades themselves in a fragile world of illusions and dreams. As in most cases, appearance is not what it seems.

The Glass Menagerie, written by playwright Tennessee Williams, is the story of a family torn apart by heartbreak from the past and tragedy from the present. Williams' parallels this play to his true life experience with his own family, which makes The Glass Menagerie an even more tragic version of what happens to a family when love is lost and abandonment is reality. Providing for a family can be an overwhelming responsibility, for there are many pitfalls along the way, some families are able to cope, some are not, and The Glass Menagerie gives us insight into what truly happens to a family when faced with abandonment.

We all want to disappear at times… escape even. In the end we all know that we cannot run from our problems, no matter where you run they are always there lurking in the shadows. Tennessee William’s 1944 play “The Glass Menagerie” is a remembrance of time long ago and wanting to escape the unhappy, confining lives of Tom, Amanda, Laura and Jim. Although they are unhappy with their lives they choose to hide from the reality. Amanda is stuck in a lifetime ago- her youth back in St. Louis in the 1930s. She tries to relive her youth through Laura. Laura is pretty much terrified of life in general and uses her disability to hide. Tom on the other hand just exists through life and spends a lot of time writing poetry, drinking and living vicariously through movies he watches every night at the theater. Jim is a coworker of Tom’s and went to high school with Tom and Laura. He knows that there is more to life than what he lives. His plan of escape come via continuing his education, but often relives the past of his glory days. Each character in the play has their own method of escape which they use to hide from the real world.

    The Glass Menagerie, by Tennessee Williams, contains multiple themes.  While there are many themes, the theme that holds the piece together is illusion versus reality.

The Glass Menagerie is a five-character memory play written by Tennessee Williams in 1945. The play is introduced to the audience by Tom, the narrator and protagonist, as a memory play based on his recollection of his mother Amanda, his sister Laura, and his friend Jim O’Connor as a gentleman caller. There is a fifth character in the play, Tom’s father who doesn’t appear except in the photograph frame. Among them one of the most interesting characters in the play is Laura Winfield who is lovely and dreamy but fragile girl. In this play, Williams represents Laura as physically and emotionally crippled and different from other girls. He tries to give us the picture of the psychological problems

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