Realism And Reality In The Glass Menagerie By Tennessee Williams

Reality is the true situation that exists; the real situation. Sometimes reality isn’t what people want it to be. Many attempt to find fulfillment in their own worlds by constructing new realities. In “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” by James Thurber, the protagonist Walter Mitty is bored with his life and yearns to experience adventure, so he creates his own reality to try an escape from all of his responsibilities including his nagging wife. Similarly, in the play The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams, Laura is misunderstood and lonely so she finds comfort in her peculiar glass collection. Her brother Tom is very much like Mitty because they both are controlled by an important female figure in their lives. For Mitty it is his wife

   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.

If I could change the outcome of the story, I would have allowed Laura and Jim O’Connor to get married. I would have made this change because then Amanda’s problem would have been solved, and Laura would have had financial support in the future. Another reason I would have made this change is because Jim O’Connor would have been the ideal man for Laura because he connected with her. He saw past her awkward fondness of a glass animal set. He also got Laura to take pride in herself.

Of Mice and Men is a novella written by the Nobel Prize Winning author, John Steinbeck. This book provided realism because it was based off of real life events that he put into his point of view. The book was about George Milton and Lennie Small. These two men were in search of a job during the great depression. Like everyone else, they had a dream of one day owning their own land and making their own money. George felt as if Lennie was holding him back because he had to look out for him every second of his life. Lennie had mental issues, so George never left his side because he promised. One day, while discussing their dream, they found someone who would help along the way. His name was Candy. He was a very sweet, loving, and caring guy. He

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

In Tennessee Williams, “The Glass Menagerie” all four characters consist in avoiding reality more than facing it, Amanda, Laura, Tom, and Jim. Amanda lives her life through her children 's and clings to her past. Tom constantly stays in movie theatres and into his dream of joining the merchant seamen and someday becoming a published poet. Laura resorts to her victrolla and collection of glass ornaments to help sustain her world of fantasy. Finally, Jim is only able to find some 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 order to function effectively within a community, some degree of realism is always required. Conversely, idealism is arguably a necessity in order to attain the exceptional status of individuality within the community. In Lucy Maud Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables, the relevance of both concepts and the way in which they change and are applied are explored within numerous characters. Anne Shirley embraces her idealism near the point of it consuming herself in order to cope with the harsh realities of her bleak past and uncertain future. In many cases, her initial fixation on the extraordinary clashes with the ordinary rigidity of the Avonlea lifestyle. Eventually, a greater mutual understanding surfaces in which Avonlea

Another way Tennessee Williams portrays illusion vs reality is through emotions. Emotions can be shown through how a person acts and speaks, but they can also be covered and private. Through most of this play, the emotions of the characters were dynamic and how Amanda feels and hopes of Tom of avoiding his father’s path was an illusion. In reality Tom feels like he is mistreated and no one appreciates his pain through his warehouse duty. An example of this is through Tom’s statement to his mother: “For sixty-five dollars a month I give up all that I dream of doing and being ever! And you say self - self’s all I ever think of Why, listen, if self is what I thought of, Mother, I’d be where he is -gone” (Scene III, Lines 76-80). Through the exchanges of harsh words between Tom and Amanda this quote stands out as Tom’s reality shadowing his illusion. Tom believes that his reality is having to pay the house’s bills and taking care of the family, but he has his own illusions to set off. An evidence of Tom’s illusion was during his conversation with Jim: “It’s our turn now, to go to the South Sea Island- to make a safari- to be exotic, far-off - but I’m not patient I don’t want to wait till

Individuals always have tried to maintain a good lifestyle, but they sometimes ignore reality while pursuing a goal that is merely an illusion. There is a strong connection between reality and illusion which is that when these two elements are balanced, they can provide a clean pathway in terms of individuals attaining their goals and interests. In the modern drama, “A streetcar named desire”, Tennessee Williams establishes a strong connection between reality and illusion. The author explores the idea of individuals giving up their touch with reality and trying to lead a life which is borderline fairy tale, going on to describe rather dramatic outcomes of the imbalance between these two elements. In this play the protagonist, Blanche DuBois,

Tennessee Williams was a writer who published short stories and dozens of plays. It is for his plays that the most successful of these, The Glass Menagerie (1944), A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955), and The Night of the Iguana (1961). and both A Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof won Pulitzer prizes. However, it's one of the foremost American playwrights of the twentieth century.

Albert Einstein once said, "Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one." Is reality really just an illusion or is illusion just a reality imagined? In the play, The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams explores the idea of reality and illusion that all humans have experienced fantasies, so they can escape reality. Even though all of Williams characters exist in their own state of illusion, the one that stands out the most is the mother, Amanda. The mother of this dysfunctional family lives her life through her kids.

Many playrites were inspired by William Shakespeare’s work, including Tennessee Williams. Tennessee Williams is the playrite of “The Glass Menagerie,” the story of a family with poor relationships. Inspired by Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Williams purposefully shapes his characters to parallel to Shakespeare’s characters. Williams also drew inspiration from his real life by basing the character Laura on his sister, Rose, due to the guilt he experienced after abandoning his family. Williams also drew inspiration from Juliet’s soliloquy from Act II when discussing roses.

In Tennessee Williams’, “The Glass Menagerie” Amanda was a woman who liked to reminisce about the past in order to escape from reality. Amanda was not wicked but intensely flawed. Her failures were centrally responsible for the adversity and exaggerated style of her character. Certainly, she had the endurance and heroism that she was able to support her children when her husband was gone. In her old life, she was once a Southern Belle with a genteel manner who lived on Blue Mountain. This was a place where Amanda’s version of the good old days back when she was young and popular. Amanda was full of charm in conversation that she managed to have seventeen gentlemen caller in a single day.

also went to the same high school as Laura. This is were the name came

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