Illusion vs. Reality in The 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,

her nervous and shy personality and has a fear of Tom being like his father,

In The Glass Menagerie, Tennessee Williams uses the theme of escape to help drive the play forward. None of the characters are capable of living in the real world. Laura, Amanda, Tom and Jim use various methods to escape the brutalities of life. Laura retreats into a world of glass animals and old records. Amanda is obsessed with living in her past. Tom escapes into his world of poetry writing and movies. Jim also reverts to his past and remembers the days when he was a high school hero. Mr. Wingfield is referred to often throughout the play. He is the ultimate symbol of escape. This is because he has managed to remove himself from the desperate situation that the rest of the family is still

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.

Wingfield's Absent Father in The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams Mr. Wingfield plays a relatively prominent throughout the play. His decision to leave the Wingfield household has left lasting effects on the rest of his family. This has helped in establishing certain themes and issues in the play. The mentioning of his character in almost every scene throughout the play suggests its role in the action of the play.

Everyone in the family sticks to their societal role, Tom takes care of the Amanda and Laura, Amanda does some work, but she does do a lot of work in the house, and Laura is attempting to find someone to marry so she does not have to go to work. When Amanda was younger, she tells the reader that she always had gentleman callers, and she is always hoping that Laura will get gentleman callers. An example of Amanda projecting this belief onto Laura is when Amanda says “"Resume your seat, little sister – I want you to stay fresh and pretty – for gentlemen callers! (1.14)”. However, having to take care of his sister and living with Amanda causes tension in Tom’s life. Tom works in a factory, as most men did in the 30s, and this meant that he worked long hours for little pay. Tom wanted to be a poet, but he had to keep working because he had to support his family. Amanda puts a lot of pressure on Tom to be there for his sister, to be his older sister’s guardian, and she gets upset when Tom is out late drinking and going to the movies as his

   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” of Tennessee William, he wrote a drama play to emphasize readers about the life is at a standstill the Wingfield family. Through of the Wingfield family, he uses many symbols which represent many things, but the important main symbolization is fire escape that shows three main characters; Tom Wingfield, his fire escape is the way out of Amanda and Laura. Amanda Wingfield, hope gentlemen callers to enter their lives, and Laura Wingfield, who wants in her own world by collecting unicorn animals. They express successfully in the play by using the fire escape portrays each of characters as literal exist from their own reality.

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.

Glass Menagerie” is a tragic story of the Wingfield family, a dysfunctional family of dreamers

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.

The gentleman caller was Amanda’s fascination and great hope for the Wingfields to attain financial security. With a husband, Laura will be provided for and the two women will no longer depend on Tom. Amanda’s ambition for Laura showed the level of disconnection from the real life and fragility of her dreams. Even if Laura could find a husband, it was strange that Amanda should have so much faith that a husband for Laura would mean security for their family. In spite of everything, Amanda’s husband was unfaithful, and his choice to leave the family led to their current dilemma. Amanda was fixating on the idea of the gentlemen caller; she proposes a switch for Tom’s freedom in exchange for a husband to Laura. She was trying to make plans for Laura because she knows that she is getting older. Laura needs a husband to support her. Amanda was still putting her safety into the hands of men; perhaps she sees

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

Set in St. Louis Missouri prior to World War II, Tennessee Williams reflects back on his deeply tragic and dysfunctional familial experiences in, “The Glass Menagerie”. Williams brilliantly incorporates real aspects of society to reveal how they contributed to the nonreal aspects and the conflicts which affected his family. The real aspects of the play which had a significant impact on the lower middle-class families such as the Wingfields included, the economic hardships surrounding the Great Depression, the fall of the American south, society’s intolerance towards homosexuality, and many threats abroad. Although Williams play was merely a series of hazy memories, the nonreal aspects combined with the major societal conflicts contribute