Glass Menagerie Essay

We are sometimes known as our own worst critic and after reading Alice Walker’s short story “Everyday Use” and Tennessee Williams’ play “The Glass Menagerie”, we experience two characters that display this to be true. In “Everyday Use” we are introduced to Maggie, the timid and homely little sister who has burns throughout her arms and legs due to a house fire which occurred many years prior to when the story takes place. In “The Glass Menagerie” we read about Laura, an introverted character who suffers from a childhood illness causing her to have one leg shorter than the other leaving her to rely on the use of a

“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.

The Glass Menagerie is a memory play narrated by the main character and son, Tom Wingfield. It takes place in their apartment in St Louis, 1937. The father left them years ago leaving Tom to support the family. He works in a shoe warehouse, a job in which he hates and wants to leave, but can't because he has a duty to support the family. His mother, Amanda is loving and caring but nags too much, annoying Tom. She expresses the desire for her daughter, Laura, who is crippling shy, to have "gentlemen callers". Amanda finds out that Laura dropped out of college because of her shyness and she demanded Tom to choose a gentleman caller for her. He chooses Jim O'Connor, a boy who she liked in high school, but was too shy to talk to him before. Tom invites him for dinner and Jim talks to her and gets her to open up a little. He leads her on by kissing her then after tells her he is engaged. He then leaves and Laura gets sad. Amanda yells at Tom, blaming him for it. Tom reveals to the audience that he abandons his family later that night and has been haunted by Laura ever since.

Having been born crippled, Laura suffers from extreme anxiety at the thought of people judging her imperfections, exemplified in her panic towards Amanda, “Oh, Mother, please answer the door, don’t make me do it” (Williams 56). Due to her fears, Laura continuously searches for ways to avoid confrontation and people, despite her mother’s attempts to push her to become more of an extrovert (Brinkman 1). Laura, depicted as the ‘antagonist,’ verifies as the main focus of The Glass Menagerie due to her mother and brother’s actions for her, from wasting money on her to become a lady, to Tom bringing home Jim as a potential caller (Brinkman 1). Despite Laura’s shortcomings and weak character, I believe the story belongs to Laura. Laura, within the script, establishes a three-dimensional characterization.

Laura’s glass menagerie represents her own emotional spirit. Laura had a minor physical impairment. Because of her physical appearance, she had a fragile and delicate inner appearance as well, like her glass pieces. Appearing weak to herself, outsiders were not able to see her true inner self and who she really was as an individual. The glass menagerie is a good comparative to Laura’s feelings about herself and how those around her also feel.

Growing up, Tennessee Williams’ had a modest mother along with a loud and abusive father. Many children today grow up without their father being around. The outcome of being a child of a single parent could be great, but it is up to them to choose not to let one conflict get in their head. In Tennessee Williams’ play, The Glass Menagerie, the author creates two characters, Tom and Laura Wingfield. Tom struggles to concentrate on occurrences that are right in front of him, learning that he will later regret his decision of leaving his family behind exactly like his father did, while Laura has trouble finding confidence, she comes to understand that lacking that confidence will only stop her from better preparing herself for the future.

The Glass Menagerie Being too self-conscious can deprive one from doing many things. Whether it is making friends, getting a job or finding love, worrying too much about oneself can end badly. In the play The Glass Menagerie, by Tennessee Williams, Laura was very self-conscious. Laura had a disease called pleurosis, which caused one leg to be longer than the other. She was so worried about how she was viewed by others that she missed out on living a fulfilling life.

We all have illusions. We can hardly live without them. Most of the time they are harmless thoughts about things that are usually unattainable. An example would be when a person sees something that they want and then dreams of having it. Whenever someone holds an opinion based on what they think is true, or in some cases what should be true, rather than what actually is true, then that is an illusion. Illusions sometimes help people cope with painful situations, but in the end, illusions are only a false escape from reality. The characters in the book The Glass Menagerie are each affected by their own different illusions. Tom, Laura, and Amanda all survive because their illusions protect them

The most important symbol in this play is the title itself, The Glass Menagerie. A menagerie is a collection of wild animals kept in captivity for exhibition; in this case it was Laura’s collection of glass animal figurines. The little figurines, especially the unicorn, represent a number of elements about Laura and the entire play itself. The glass is a symbol of fragility, which is also a key facet to the overall symbolism in this memory play. Like the Menagerie, Laura is unique, delicate, and somewhat childish.

In “The Glass Menagerie,” Tennessee Williams presents four characters that choose to avoid reality rather than facing is. Amanda lives her life through her children’s and clings to her past. Tom constantly spends his nights at movie theatres and dreams of joining the merchant seamen and someday becoming a published poet. Laura uses her collection of glass ornaments and victola to help sustain her world of fantasy. Finally, Jim is only able to find 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.

The Glass Menagerie is the central symbol in this play referring to how, “a collection of wild animals is kept in captivity for exhibition. It revolves around a strange or diverse collection of people or things” (Dictionary.com, 2014). Williams quoted from Jim, “You know what I judge to be the trouble with you? Inferiority complex! That’s what they call it when someone low-rates himself! I understand it because I had it, too” (Williams, 2013) p1047 I). Laura feels like she’s in captivity because lack of self-esteem and because of her disability.

The Glass Menagerie is a play, told by the memories of the narrator, Tom Wingfield. Tom loves books and writing but is working in a warehouse to support his mother, Amanda, and sister, Laura. Mr. Wingfield, Tom and Laura’s father, ran off years ago leaving Tom to be the man of the house. Tom's decision to leave his mother and sister was justified on the grounds that Amanda tends to show him little to no respect, on top of the lack of respect Tom feels as if he would be better off doing what he would like to do. Adventure. With those being said, of course it’s difficult for Tom to make this decision because he is unsure of the state it would leave his mother and sister in, with nobody to take care of them is unsure whether it’s the right decision.

In Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie, there is a collection of glass animal figurines that belong to Laura. Laura uses those figurines to escape her reality. The “glass menagerie” is also a metaphor because all of the characters have a metaphorical glass menagerie that they use to escape their reality.

a fight at the end of scene two, it is apparent to Laura that Tom is

The Glass Menagerie first opened on March 31, 1945. It was the first big success of Tennessee Williams’ career. It is in many ways about the life of Tennessee Williams himself, as well as a play of fiction that he wrote. He says in the beginning, “I give you truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion'; (1147). The characters Tom, Laura, and Amanda are very much like Williams, his sister Rose, and his mother Edwina. We can see this very clearly when we look at the dialogue, and the relations between the action in the play and the actions in Tennessee Williams’ life.