The Glass Menagerie: Illusions over Reality

Amanda belittles Laura’s self-ownership which makes Laura immature and helpless as an adult. When the subject of gentleman callers comes up, Amanda addresses Laura, saying, “How many do you suppose we’re going to entertain this afternoon? [...] [reappearing, airily] What? No one — not one? You must be joking! [Laura nervously echoes her laugh]” (Williams 18). Amanda is caught up in her dreams of marriage for Laura, made clear by her enthusiastic tone and body language, but Laura’s uncomfortable laugh shows how she is not amused by her mother’s aspirations. Amanda is only focused on what she wants for Laura, but she should really be concerned with what Laura wants for herself. In addition, Amanda cannot accept the fact that her daughter is not going to have any suitors; she denies reality and tries to bring Laura into her world of illusions. This irresponsible parenting causes Laura to become the childish adult that she is. When Amanda questions where Laura was going instead of business college, Laura explains that, “I went in the art museum and the bird houses at the Zoo. I visited the penguins every day! [...] Lately I’ve been spending most of my afternoons in the Jewel Box, that big glass house where they raise the tropical flowers” (21). Laura is twenty-three years old and she is getting excited about visiting attractions meant for kids. She would rather explore the Zoo, an art museum, or a greenhouse than attend college, exhibiting her immature and irresponsible mindset. This juvenile behavior is what leads to Laura’s helplessness. While on the fire escape, Amanda tells Laura to make a

They hope Laura will eventually be able to find a husband or a job, but Laura always knows she will never be able to. Her self esteem issues play a key role in keeping her from doing either of those. Laura’s anxiety has affected her entire life without being dealt with properly. Tom’s decision to leave could potentially force Laura to find a job or husband to help her and her mother, but her anxiety and other issues would only get worse until she is unable to function anymore. Also, Laura knows Tom was never fully happy at their home, yet she could do nothing but hope beyond any reason she and her mother would survive. While Laura does face her reality to some extent, she clouds herself in the illusion that everything is fine how it is even farther than anyone in her

If there is any signature kind of character that marks Tennessee Williams’s plays, it is without a doubt the faded Southern belle. The Glass Menagerie’s Amanda Wingfield, the mother of Laura and Tom, is a perfect representative of this type, not unlike Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire, also by Williams. A proud and effervescent woman, Amanda passionately holds on to memories of a happier time, of days long gone by. Generally, a faded belle in a Tennessee Williams play is from a wealthy Southern family, raised by parents with traditional beliefs, and has suffered an economic or social, or both, downturn of fortune at some point in her life. Like Amanda, these women all have difficulty accepting a status in society different than what they are used to, as

Amanda and Tom share a familial relationship of mother and son. Williams depicts Amanda at first interpretation as overbearing, hypercritical and controlling. However, on further assessment, the audience is able to acknowledge a more admirable facet to her character: her evident persistence in trying to love her children. Through her attempts in perpetuating her youth and past glory, she distorts reality to fit her

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

    Tennessee Williams has a gift for character. Not many playwrights do, and even fewer possess the unique ability to craft a character as paradoxical and complex as Amanda Wingfield. In The Glass Menagerie, Amanda is a very difficult character to understand because of her psychological disposition. Williams realizes this and provides the reader with a character description in hopes of making the character more accessible to meticulous analysis.

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

The world is crafted through humanity’s perceptions, shaped by their shared experiences of the world, yet differentiated by each individual experience. Within The Glass Menagerie, by Tennessee Williams, the ideas of overwhelming truth, individual perceptions, and the flaws of humanity are all explored. Through the various characters, with a specific focus on Tom’s narration, Williams argues that the truth is only a subjective idea that is created through the perceptions of humankind, molded through humanity’s flaws.

“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.

In The Glass Menagerie, Tennessee Williams presents us with four characters whose lives seem to consist in avoiding reality more than facing it. Amanda lives her life through her children and clings to her lost youthfulness. Tom retreats into movie theaters and into his dream of joining the merchant seamen and some day becoming a published poet. Laura resorts to her Victrola and collection of glass ornaments to help sustain her world of fantasy. Finally, Jim is only able to find some relief in his glorified old memories. This essay will examine how Amanda, Tom, Laura and Jim attempt to escape from the real world through their dreams.

When Tom opens the play he mentions his father right away. He refers to him as “a telephone man who fell in love with long distances” there we see a blown up picture of their father. Through this picture we can see that the family still has not moved on. The effect it had on Tom is that Tom never really had a good role model growing up. He is not happy with the life he leads and he wants to escape that life. In his eyes, because his father left for something better - he doesn’t see the big deal if he left too.

In Tennessee Williams’, “The Glass Menagerie” Amanda was a woman who liked to reminisce about the past in order to escape from reality. Amanda was not wicked but intensely flawed. Her failures were centrally responsible for the adversity and exaggerated style of her character. Certainly, she had the endurance and heroism that she was able to support her children when her husband was gone. In her old life, she was once a Southern Belle with a genteel manner who lived on Blue Mountain. This was a place where Amanda’s version of the good old days back when she was young and popular. Amanda was full of charm in conversation that she managed to have seventeen gentlemen caller in a single day.

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.

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

    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.