The Glass Menagerie Comparison

The characters that come alive in Williams' works represent people from his life. Amanda Wingfield from The Glass Menagerie holds strong resemblance to Tennessee's mother Edwina Williams. Williams described his mother as "a woman whose endurance and once fine qualities continued to flourished alongside a narrowness of perception and only the dimmest awareness of human feeling (Susquehanna. "Biographical Criticism)." Amanda easily mirrors this description of Edwina because of her selfishness concerning Laura's being unattached; Edwina was much like Amanda, getting numerous gentlemen callers as a young woman. Laura Windfield in The Glass Menagerie is very much like Williams' sister Rose Williams. Rose was institutionalized for having schizophrenia and was not able to interact with the outside world. Having pleurisy, Laura was also kept from being a part of the world she longed for. By using examples of people from his own life in

Nora and her husband have just found money through her husband’s raise at the bank, but Noar is unhappy with her relationship with Herman.  “I mean that I was just passed from Papa’s hands to yours. You arranged everything according to your own taste, and so I had all the same taste’s” (Isben 1606). Nora is not happy with where she is in the relationship. She is just being led like cattle, but she is now leaving so she will not have to deal with it anymore. “I’m leaving right now” (Ibsen 1606). There are similarities and differences in these aspects between the two plays. Tom in The Glass Menagerie is also sympathized for, but he is not the center of attention until the end of the play. Laura and Jim are the center of attention. This is until the audience finds out Jim and his girlfriend Betty are “going to be married the second of June” (Williams 1656). The tone in this play can be seen as gloomy. Not one character in this play has found what they want in life. Tom wants happiness, his mother wants a good man, and Laura wants a husband to love her. Tom in The Glass Menagerie wants to better his career and life, and Nora in A Doll’s house wants to better herself and pay back the debt she owes to Krogstad. In the end they both achieve their goal.In The Glass Menagerie Tom leaves to find a better life for himself, but he is then left with thinking about his sister and how he did her wrong. “Oh, Laura, Laura, I tried to leave you

“The Glass Menagerie” is an autobiographical play, written by Tennessee William in 1945. Each character is a prototype of a real person, who played a significant role in the author’s life. It is a memory play, which based on author’s own life story and a point of view at the family problems and ways to solve them. The main problem in the play is the conflict between parents and children, which leads to adverse consequences for all members of the family.

The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams and Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller are two of the twentieth century’s best-known plays. The differences and similarities between both of the plays are hidden in their historical and social contexts. The characters of The Glass Menagerie and the Death of a Salesman are trapped by the constraints of their everyday lives, unable to communicate with their loved ones and being fearful for their future. There are a lot of comparisons that exist, especially between the settings, symbolism and characterization drawn between the two plays. The contrast comes form the ways that the characters choose to deal or not with the harsh circumstances of life.

Both Death of a Salesman, and The Glass Menagerie have many things in common. They are both great plays, and both concern dysfunctional families. But there is a deeper similarity to these great literary works. The similarity between the parents. Due to Willy Loman and Amanda Wingfield's lack of coping skills, as well as their inability to let go or accept their past, their children are ill-equipped to deal with the future.

   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.

The play, The Glass Menagerie, by Tennessee Williams is a play that focuses on the flaws of people and the overwhelming feeling that many face throughout their life. Tennessee Williams was quite familiar with this feeling. During his career Tennessee Williams even said:

An escape typically liberates a person from their suffering. However, in the Glass Menagerie, written by Tennessee Williams, escape is an ironical dream. Instead of being free, the characters are tied down to emotional and physical chains that hamper their desires. This impediment is depicted through details in which each character’s journey consists of trials and tribulation and the attempts to escape from the them.

The masterful use of symbolism is delightfully ubiquitous in Tennessee Williams’ “The Glass Menagerie.” He uses a collection of dim, dark and shadowy symbols that constantly remind the audience of the lost opportunity each of these three characters continually experience. This symbolism is not only use to enlighten the audience to their neglected opportunities to shine, but it is also repeatedly utilized to reinforce the ways in which the characters try in vain to cross over turbulent waters into a world of light and clarity. It is thematically a wrenching story of life gone by, and the barren attempts to realize another reality that is made more poignant by symbolic language, objects, setting, lighting and music. The characters are

One of the big motivations shown through the characters in The Glass Menagerie is the yearning of escape from the real world. One example shown through Laura’s character is she finds a way to escape reality through her glass menagerie and the old records she plays that once belonged to their father. The mother, Amanda, tries to escape her current life as a deserted wife who must constantly scramble for money by retelling stories of when she was young. Her favorite story to retell regards one day when she received the attentions of seventeen gentleman callers. For her, those gentleman callers represent what her life was and what it could have been if she had not married her husband, “the telephone man who fell in love with long

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.

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.

Foreshadow gives a hint of what events will take place in the near future. The one of many foreshadows that Williams uses is “A piece of translucent glass touched by light, given a momentary radiance, not actual, not lasting” (Williams 102). By saying this, Williams hints that Laura will feel the light, also known as self-confidence, which is what she lacks. However it will leave as fast as it arrives. From the start of the play it is displayed that Laura lacks confidence due to the fact that she is crippled, however there is hope that somehow she will gain confidence. The second foreshadow that Williams presents is when Tom accidently breaks some of the glass menagerie that Laura owns, which represents that in the future Laura’s heart will be broken as well. The reason that it would be her heart is due to the fact that Laura lives in her own world with the glass animals and she takes care of them will all her heart and would be broken if something happens to them. The third foreshadow that Williams epitomizes is when Amanda constantly tells Tom how to eat, or what to do. By doing so, Amanda is gradually pushing Tom away, which presents how their relationship will turn out in the near future. There are many others foreshadows that are presented, but the most important one is when Jim accidently breaks the glass unicorn. The breaking of unicorn presents that in forthcoming events, Laura’s heart will heartbroken as well. Williams does an unimaginable contribution with the use of foreshadow to keep the audience interested and wanting more. Williams shows that soon the characters will leave the confidence of their dreams and will face the truth of

Answer: The glass menagerie is a metaphor for a fragile life. It represents beauty and fantasy. The glass unicorn symbolizes how Laura doesn't feel like she is normal in comparison to others. Like unicorns, which do not actually exist.

    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.