The Glass Menagerie Essay examples

In The Glass Menagerie, by Tennessee Williams, and A Doll House, by Henrik Ibsen, each protagonist faces the difficulty of society’s rule. Tom, being the “man of the house”, provides for his family and is depended upon. Were as Nora is co-dependant of her puppet master of husband Torvald. Despite their differences, Tom and Nora parallel the flaws in their common daily lives.

For instances, Tom wonders off towards his dreams of seeking adventure, the mother remains in her past and Laura in a world to herself filled with her glass animals. Tom express, “Her method of dealing with the situation, retreating into a "world of her own," does indeed, as Tom says, make her seem "just a little bit peculiar" (King 209). Tom told his mother the way Laura act wasn’t normal but he found his method artistic. Tom escape to the movies away from the painful situation and arguments (208). Freedom was a strong sense for Tom being force to stay with his family was more of an emotional factor than an exterior one.

The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams is a celebrated and cherished play that has affected generations. Written in 1945, the play very well may have been an outlet for Williams to accept what had happened to his own sister. Rose Williams had been lobotomized due to schizophrenia, affecting her brother greatly. While Williams’ family may be real, his characters are over dramatic and eccentric. The characters of Amanda, Tom, and Laura make up an extremely dysfunctional family living together in a 1930’s Saint Louis. By the end of the play, each character has affected themselves and each other. The characters spend the majority of their lives inventing someone who will make the rest of their family members happy, and when these facades crumble,

The characterisation of Tom from a strong, guarded lone-wolf figure to a suicidal wreck in need of love and reassurance from those around him is crucial in illuminating the central themes of the novel to the reader. In earlier chapters of the novel, Tom is portrayed as strong and independent, determined to achieve his goals himself. He lives by the

Another means of Tom’s escape are his outings to the movie, which are aided by the fire escape. Tom goes to the movies for several reasons; to satisfy his need for alcohol, to escape his home life, and to experience some adventure. Walter is a black man in the 1950’s supporting himself, his wife, son, sister and mother in a small apartment in Chicago. He and Tom are both treated less than what a human is worth.

Tom escapes reality in many different ways. The first and most obvious is the fire escape that leads him away from his unhappy home. He also escapes into his world of poetry writing and movies. The more Amanda nags, the more Tom seems to need his movie escapes. They take him to

Williams’s play is a tragedy, and one of quietude. He once expressed that “Glass Menagerie is my first quiet play, and perhaps my last.” It is a play of profound sadness, and through relationships between characters, portrays the “cries of the heart.” There is no cry more powerful that the cry and inner desperation of the heart. Williams’s has very little social context, but rather focuses on the conflicts within a domestic family. Such a focus is powerful, and the playwright expresses this power and importance implicitly through the estranged relationship between Amanda and Tom Wingfield.

   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.

Profound in the love shared between the father and son, their sense of unity kept them pushing through the pain for “each the other’s world entire” (6). In a society painted by shades of grey, one cannot help but at times feel the desire to fade into the world full of suffering. In the father’s perspective “there were few nights lying in the dark that he did not envy the dead ” (230). However, the man is fortunate because he has a spark in his life that motivates him to keep going- the boy. Many others before the man took their own life in an attempt to rescue themselves from the doomed life ahead. However for the father, “the boy was all that stood between him and death” (29). The father possess such love for the boy that no matter what the situation is he will never take the easy route out. He will never put his own needs over the boy’s. He will never leave him to try to fend for his own. Furthermore, if the boy were to ever depart life before him he “would want to die too” (11), thus proving that the boy is the father’s incentive to carry on. With the love for his son in mind, the father is enabled to carry on with his life. During a difficult situation, love encourages one to see it to the

Title Name Institution North Country and Boys in the Hood North County. The film start in 1989 when Josey Aims together with her children moves out of her abusive husbands, to live with her parents. Josey’s Hank thinks that she is promiscuous including the towns people to.

pretensions of aristocracy. She is now as poor as Stanley and Stella, but she cannot help but

Tom is coffined in a cheerless life style which he tries to avoid through the exploitations of unrealistic or broken getaways. As the only man remaining in their family, Tom works to sustain his mother and sister, therefore leaving him with “no single thing in [Tom’s] life here that [he] can call [his] OWN!” (Scene 3:86-87; 89)

In the play “The Glass Menagerie” of Tennessee William, he wrote a drama play to emphasize readers about the life is at a standstill the Wingfield family. Through of the Wingfield family, he uses many symbols which represent many things, but the important main symbolization is fire escape that shows three main characters; Tom Wingfield, his fire escape is the way out of Amanda and Laura. Amanda Wingfield, hope gentlemen callers to enter their lives, and Laura Wingfield, who wants in her own world by collecting unicorn animals. They express successfully in the play by using the fire escape portrays each of characters as literal exist from their own reality.

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.

As a mother, Amanda Wingfield had always encouraged her children to be all they could be. When Laura asked about clearing the table, Amanda’s responded by telling her to “…go in front and study your typewriter chart. Or practice your shorthand a little. Stay fresh and pretty! It’s almost time for our gentlemen callers to start arriving” (Williams, Scene 1, 976). This quote showed two aspects of the nature versus nurture debate. Amanda intended to nurture Laura’s success by encouraging and pushing her to study hard, to practice her writing, and look pretty while naturally, Amanda was concerned about taking care of herself and making sure her children make the right decision so that they may provide for her all the things she never had.