The Glass Menagerie Motivations

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

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.

In a 1965 interview, Tennessee Williams said, “I have always been more interested in creating a character that contains something crippled. I think nearly all of us have some kind of defect, anyway, and I suppose I have found it easier to identify with the characters who verge upon hysteria, who were frightened of life, who were desperate to reach out to another person” (Stang, 1965). The Glass Menagerie takes place at the apartment of the Wingfield family in the 1930s. Each character finds the need to escape reality due to their individual personal desires and motivations. The main characters Laura, Amanda, Tom Jim and Father each have various weakness and strength that develop their character. Tom is the narrator and the protagonist of the story. He desires to escape his overbearing life for a life full of adventure and excitement.

The pressures of society in The Glass Menagerie push Laura Wingfield to be a shy girl who does not have any contact with the outside world. Laura’s biggest flaw, her slight limp, cause her to shut out the world and become a hermit. Amanda, her mother, pushes her to go to college and find a man whom will take care of her. However, Laura’s insecurities kick in and she just about throws up during her first speed test in college, which shows just how serious her situation is. Her personality shines through her glass animals, whom she cares for with great tenderness. Laura has withdrawn from the real world and gone into a make-believe world which she creates from her set of glass menagerie.

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.

Introduction In the books The Member of the Wedding and The Glass Menagerie, the themes are very similar. In The Glass Menagerie, it is hard at times accepting reality. In The Member of the Wedding, not everything is going to go the way you planned it to and how you

In all their loneliness, Laura has collected a number of glass figurines that becomes known as “the glass menagerie.” This becomes a huge symbol in the play. The symbolism of the menagerie is representing Laura. All the glass is very fragile and delicate, just like Laura. She is very anti-social, and just a

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.

The Glass Menagerie is a dramatic play which was written by Tennessee Williams that depicts a picture of a dysfunctional family. These characters are Amanda Wingfield, the mother of Tom and Laura, and Jim O’Connor, the gentleman caller and a friend of Tom. In this play, Amanda Wingfield was abandoned by her husband, who happens to leave her and the family. At this point, Amanda’s responsibility was to take care of the family and also see to it that her high expectations for her children was fulfilled. This play brings out some issues of life especially marriage, which affected the life of Laura and her mother. For this reason, Amanda had to find someone with certain qualities to marry her daughter. Some of these qualities were a man who does not drink, a man with a better job or pursuing a good career, and a man with good character.

Escapism in “The Glass Menagerie.” 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.

Analytical Essay about Drama, “The Glass Menagerie” 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.

Life is just one big lesson that you learn off of, it’s a learning experience that make people who they are and also makes them become a better individual. The book “The Glass Menagerie” by Tennessee Williams has an amazing character named Laura, you get to experience Laura shape into a more confident woman than what she starts out as in the beginning of the book. You will be introduced to her Glass Menagerie, which is a collection of slightly exotic animals, also her pride and joy.

In the play The Glass Menagerie, written by Tennessee Williams, a realism style drama is still being performed 50 years after its debut in New York. The plotline and title both center on Laura Wingfield’s glass menagerie collection. William’s used glass as a tool to represent fragility, both of individuals and of the Wingfield family. The evidence regarding importance of the glass menagerie is found in the fact that Tennessee Williams names the play after it. Through the title, individual characterization, and family dynamic, Williams intertwines the theme of fragility to tell the tale of the Wingfield family equating them to glass, which is both beautiful and fragile like all people.

In terms of Laura herself, the glass menagerie in the central symbol to the play and represents, not only the different aspects of Laura, that is delicate and fragile, but also how Laura is trapped within a cabinet - within the fantasy world of glass figures. This links into the phrase ‘left on the shelf’, the idea that Laura, being part of the glass collections, has been left away from leading the normal life of romance which she fantasises about with Jim, showing how she has trapped herself on the shelf by being out of touch with reality, trapped within the cabinet. Linking on from the glass figures being symbolic of Laura, the delicacy could be seen as symbolic of her disability, something Laura also believes traps her from being ‘normal’. However, this links onto the next aspect of exploring relationships, and in many ways Amanda is responsible for Laura’s belief that her disability entraps her.

In conclusion, Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams expresses the use of literary device such as metaphor to convey meaning towards Laura’s life. As described through the eyes of the unicorn, Laura was also fragile and could easily be broken. Her strength came within after the breakthrough of the unicorn. She was able to regain her strength and walk away from her glass collection unto her real life. Furthermore, the action taken into the course of Laura can be brought up to the scenario in which Jim broke her glass unicorn. Without this event we can infer that Laura would of have not been courageous to leave her glass collection behind in order to start living a healthy, fearless life.