The Glass Menagerie As A Modern Drama And Tragedy

In the play “The Glass Menagerie” each of the characters uses different escape mechanisms to avoid real life. Amanda, the mother, consistently tries to live in the past. Laura, the daughter, avoids the real world by using her own escape mechanisms; her glass figures, and her music and taking walks. Tom, the son, is always avoiding the real world by either going to the movies every night, or going to get drunk. Throughout this paper the reader will gain knowledge of how each character escapes from their everyday lives that they are living.

   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 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

“The Glass Menagerie” by Tennessee Williams is a play about desire to escape and this concept is conveyed through a variety of techniques and ideas shown in this play of exploration by the playwright, Tom Wingfield. First, Jim tries to escape his engagement by having a romantic night with Laura. Then, Tom’s father escapes for the same reasons Tom did. Thirdly, according to Roger Boxill from ‘The Glass Menagerie’ Amanda escapes by reminiscing “Blue Mountain ... And the seventeen gentleman callers.” Fourthly, Laura escapes with romance, going for walks, her “Glass Menagerie, stomach pain, and the broken horn from the unicorn. Finally, Tom escapes by traveling, going to the movies, drinking, and hanging out on the fire escape looking at the moon. Symbolism is also used in many literary works to for shadow or emphasizes an event that is about to happen or already has happened in the story. Hence the title ‘The Glass Menagerie’ in the play foreshadows/emphasizes the event happening or about to happen. The action of “The Glass Menagerie” takes place in the Wingfield family’s apartment in St. Louis, 1937. The events of the play are framed by memory Tom Wingfield is the play’s narrator, and usually smokes and stands on the fire escape as he delivers his monologues.

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 means the glass animals collected by Laura. Laura is as beautiful, fragile and vulnerable as the animals. The slight leg disability made Laura sensitive and inferior. As she was afraid to face the teachers and students, she dropped out. Her mother sent Laura to business school to learn typing in order to find a job. But Laura vomited during the speed typing exam as she was too nervous, so she had to drop out again. Laura was afraid of reality and only willing to stay in a fantasy world. Thus, she spent her day at home

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

By Laura losing herself in the world of her glass menagerie, she doesn’t have to deal with her insecurities and lack of self esteem. In her conversation with Jim, Laura says, “Put him on the table. They all like a change in scenery once in awhile” (1197). The fact that Laura is acting like the glass figures are real, and have feelings, show how she uses the imaginary world she has created with the glass menagerie to cope with the real world problems she has. Glass figures do not care where they are placed on a table, but in Laura’s mind it matters to her.

The Glass Menagerie is arguably the most symbolic and deep plays ever written. The Glass Menagerie isn’t just a story of Laura’s disability, it has a deeper meaning behind it, and it can be easily overlooked by mediocre minds. Although the story revolves around the Wingfield family, Tennessee Williams throws in symbolism that corresponds with his childhood. In a way, he found closure for the loss of his sister Rose through writing The Glass Menagerie. One of the symbols is the play that holds a different meaning for each of the characters is the fire escape. As the play evolves the fire escape brings out Laura’s, Tom’s, and Amanda’s true desires.

There are many unsuspecting events in The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams. There is a young lady who has a complex personality and life, and that would be Laura Wingfield. Laura’s society always persuades her and her actions. Her actions become her reality and they affect it. Laura gratifies herself with her own glass menagerie. Laura is in the wrap of her reality and tries to escape it. The standards of her society set what her family believes. The society affects their actions and their future.

Thomas Lanier Williams (1911-1983) was born in Columbus, Mississippi. He went to high school in St. Louis, and graduated from the University of Iowa. While in college, he saw the performance of “Ibsen’s Ghost,” and decided to become a playwright himself. The Wingfield’s in “The Glass House Menagerie, had a close resemblance to his family. His mother came from a line of Tennessee pioneers; his sister Rose suffered from shyness; Like Tom, William worked a job he didn’t like. He wrote poetry, felt comfort in movie going, and left home to wander with odd jobs. On Broadway in 1945, “The Glass Menagerie” had great success. It won a Drama Critics Circle award. In 1947 he received a Pulitzer Prize for “A Streetcar Named Desire.” Williams received another Pulitzer Prize for “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” in 1955. Williams wrote two novels, poetry, essays, short stories, and Memoirs (1975).

In The Glass Menagerie, one of the characters in named Laura. Laura has the figures of glass that she takes care of. Her mother doesn't want her to be doing that. Her mother tried to do everything to have Laura doing something “I put her in buisness college- a dismal failure! Frightened her so it made her sick at the stomach. I took her over to the Young People’s League at the church. Another fiasco. She spoke to nobody, nobody spoke to her”(Williams 31). Laura was concerned not a modern man because of how shy she was. Yet Laura knew what she was doing. Even though she wasn't the proper woman of that day and age, she knew what she wanted to do. It wasn't that she wasn't able to talk it was the people she was going to talk to.

The Glass Menagerie is a memory play by Tennessee Williams that highlights major memories he has of his life through Tom, the narrator of the play who dwells on a time of his life in which he endures with his mother Amanda and sister Laura.

The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams had ordinary people in an ordinary life that closely resembled the influences of Williams’ personal life while having reoccurring themes and motifs throughout the story. The play has been done by many with some variations in the scripts and setting while still clinging to the basic ideas of the original play.