The Glass Menagerie

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,

Amanda Wingfield’s life is turned upside down by her husband’s departure. In her mind it shatters hope for

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.

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

Later in life, Tom and Jim work in the same shoe warehouse. Laura, is a shy

Lifespan development is a field of study that examines patterns of growth, change, and stability in behavior that occur throughout the entire life span. The purpose of field being that one can determine the average maturation levels both physically and mentally in humans being born today (Feldman, 2006). This paper will delve into the human development of a twenty-one year old fictional character named Sara Jones, in a way that is similar to people who are living today. Sara’s life will be explained and discussed from prenatal development through newborn and preschool up until middle childhood and adolescence. Although she is a fictional character her stages of development will be presented in a way that is probable for a young

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

Thomas Lanier Williams, born in Columbus, Mississippi to Edwina Dakin and Cornelius Coffin Williams, became one of the nations greatest playwrights. He was born on March 26, 1911 in his grandfather, Reverend Walter E. Dakin's, Episcopal Church. William's mother, Edwina, was a lively and colorful woman. She married a man whom contradicted her lifestyle. That man was Cornelius Williams, a gruff, pistol dueler with a violent temper. He was a lieutenant in the Spanish American War and a descendent from frontiersmen. Cornelius and Edwina married and continued to live in Mississippi. Cornelius had a job as a traveling salesman. Thomas became sick with diphtheria at age five which is how his love for literature bloomed. He lived in Mississippi until

The theme of Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie is conflict. The play contains both internal and external conflict. The absence of Tom's father forces external turmoil and conflict between Tom the protagonist, and his mother the antagonist. The internal conflict is seen within Tom through his constant references to leaving home and his selfishness. The play is about a young aspiring poet named Tom, who works at a shoe warehouse. Tom is unhappy with is life at home mainly because of his overbearing, over protective mother named Amanda. Tom also has a sister within the play named Laura who chooses to isolate herself from the rest of society. During the play Tom's relationship with his mother is filled with very harsh and abrasive

The Glass Menagerie is a memory play written by Tennessee Williams in 1944 which tells about the life a family of three. This play is an incredible piece because it is based off the life of Tennessee Williams himself; the main characters are Amanda, the mother, Tom, the son, and Laura, the daughter. In Paul Newman’s depiction of the play which has been converted into a film, the film perfectly uses acts out every aspect of the play. Tennessee Williams keeps the audience attentive in his play, that’s why the film was successful. Williams accomplishes this through the character’s glass menageries, Laura’s emergence out of her shell and heartbreak, and the ending.

The Glass Menagerie, the characters are all facing some sort of problems. One of the main character in the play is Laura Wingfield. The rest of her family consist of Amanda Wingfield , her mother and her brother Tom Wingfield. Laura lives in a fictional world with her glass figurines. Laura is terribly shy, and has no gentlemen callers. The important thing in the play The Glass Menagerie is the glass figurines. Laura struggles to be social in society . The play takes place during the Great Depression where families struggle to survive.

The Glass Menagerie is a play set in the 1930s, and the 1930s was an era where society expected women to live a domestic life. According to a journal titled “‘Women Who Have No Men to Work for Them’: Gender and Homelessness in the Great Depression, 1930-1934” by Elaine S. Abelson, “Women, unlike men, have never been fully detached from family, domestic life, and a quasi-dependent role” (106). This quote demonstrates that women have long been family-oriented, homebound, and reliant individuals. It is significant because it clearly depicts societal expectations for women in the 1930’s. During this time period, women felt oppressed because society wanted them to stay home, care for the children, cook, clean, and maintain the household; they were subservient to men. In general, a woman was not encouraged to work outside of her home because men were the traditional breadwinners. As a result, it was rare and unacceptable for women to be apart of the workforce. The workforce often discriminated against them because of their gender. This quote reveals important insight into the play by portraying the role that Amanda and Laura have in their family. Being that Amanda and Laura are women, their duty is to live a domestic life in which they accomplish daily household tasks while Tom provides the income. Amanda and Laura are not given the equivalent opportunities as Tom, so they must heavily rely on him.

Our characters are Wingfield’s: Tom, Laura and their doting, or rather hovering, mother Amanda, and the gentleman caller. Tom Wingfield soliloquizes and reminisces of the times stuck in a New York apartment with his mom and sister who’s awkward but gentle disposition puts her on the spectrum of being crippled, at least according to her brother. Life is hard

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

Through Amanda’s inability to separate the real from the fantasy, William’s proves that Amanda’s main coping mechanism is to retreat from reality. Amanda’s role as the forgotten southern belle also impacts her relationship with her daughter Laura, who suffers from crippling social anxiety and an inferiority complex as a result of her disability.