Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie Essay

The pressures of society in The Glass Menagerie push Laura Wingfield to be a shy girl who does not have any contact with the outside world. Laura’s biggest flaw, her slight limp, cause her to shut out the world and become a hermit. Amanda, her mother, pushes her to go to college and find a man whom will take care of her. However, Laura’s insecurities kick in and she just about throws up during her first speed test in college, which shows just how serious her situation is. Her personality shines through her glass animals, whom she cares for with great tenderness. Laura has withdrawn from the real world and gone into a make-believe world which she creates from her set of glass menagerie.

“The Glass Menagerie” by Tennessee Williams, was written in the early forties but could be misconstrued as a present-day play, because of the family dynamic that has changed since the forties but has not been completed replaced. In this play, we are introduced to Tom Wingfield who is the breadwinner for the family, which consists of his mom and sister. Amanda Wingfield who is an overbearing mother that knows no boundaries, and Laura Wingfield who is the sweet, and embarrassingly shy daughter of Amanda. Their family dynamic is like most of ours. The mother loves her kids dearly but struggles with letting go of her old identity, the daughter who allows her disability to determine her happiness and the brother who is obligated to work but would rather drink and party his money away. I’m sure many of us can relate to this family in some form. My favorite character in “The Glass Menagerie” is Laura. I love Laura because I can relate to her in more than one way. I was a shy individual most of my life, but once people got to know me they realized I was no different from them. In the following paragraphs, I will share Laura’s character with you, the similarities between Laura and the glass unicorn and I’ll tell you how the glass unicorn represents Laura.

Every person has one illusion or another. Occasionally to the point where it becomes difficult to even recognize what is real from false itself: “If something is there, you can only see it with your eyes open, but if it isn't there, you can see it just as well with your eyes closed. That's why imaginary things are often easier to see than real ones.” (Norton Juster) Every character in The Glass Menagerie, written by Tennessee Williams, tries to find some sort of solace in order to escape the brutality of reality.

The glass menagerie symbolizes Amanda Wingfield's overwhelming need to cling to her past and her fulfilled fear of being alone.  Amanda resents the poverty-stricken neighborhood in which she lives so

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.

Glass is an everyday object that serves a different purpose in each particular person's life. Its uses range from decorations to something as common as a household mirror. Others use glass to see more than just themselves; they use it to see the world. Additionally in the play, glass itself is an everyday object with a deeper meaning; the glass animals themselves are symbols of the uniqueness of individual people and Laura relies on them (like one would glasses) to cope with the world around her. Spectacles take something nonsensical, and turn it into a clear picture; much like how spectacles in the play, The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams, clarifies the theme of realism.

In The Glass Menagerie, Laura lives in her own illusion of what she feels like is reality. Laura is a girl with no motivation to pursue a career or relationship. She lives in a world of delicate and fragile glass animals, a lot like herself on the inside. For example, the book says “Whereas fabricating an idealized past becomes Amanda’s compensation for her present existence, Laura’s retreat

introduction to the play is one as a gentleman caller. When Laura describes her glass animals to

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

Laura’s collection of glass animal figurines represents some of her personality traits. The figurines show that Laura is delicate, transparent and curious, but old-fashioned. Glass is transparent and boring, but, when light is shined on it correctly, it refracts an entire rainbow of colours. Similarly, Laura is quiet and shy around strangers, but for those who get to know her, she is interesting like the rainbow of colours in glass.

    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.

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.

Since she has a disability, Laura finds it hard to communicate with the outside world around her and secludes herself within her fantasies that center on her animal figurines and musical demos. While scolding her daughter for quitting business school, Amanda exclaims to Laura: “So what are we going to do the rest of our lives? Stay home and watch parades go by? Amuse ourselves with the glass menagerie, darling? Eternally play those worn-out phonograph records your father left as a painful reminder of him” (Williams 1637). Laura receives harsh

“Oh, be careful- if you breathe, it breaks!” (968). People with strong personalities are not so easy to break, but a person with a low self-esteem is very vulnerable and tends to depend on others to succeed. The vulnerability of Laura, a character of The Glass Menagerie, is depicted by her glass figurines. She is so dependent on her mom and brother that she is unable to see the world as it is, so she creates one of her own.

The Glass Menagerie starts with Amanda calling Tom to the dinner table so they can say grace. The tension in the family starts immediately when the mother starts yelling at Tom saying that animals have sections in their stomach, which enable them to digest food without mastication, but humans need to chew their food. This shift in tone to