The Glass Menagerie Pressure

In the play “The Glass Menagerie” each of the characters uses different escape mechanisms to avoid real life. Amanda, the mother, consistently tries to live in the past. Laura, the daughter, avoids the real world by using her own escape mechanisms; her glass figures, and her music and taking walks. Tom, the son, is always avoiding the real world by either going to the movies every night, or going to get drunk. Throughout this paper the reader will gain knowledge of how each character escapes from their everyday lives that they are living.

The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams is a play that focuses on people’s imperfections and how being overwhelmed can effect a person’s daily life. Tom, Laura, and their father were constantly overwhelmed and acted the way they did because of it. When Williams says:

In ‘The Glass Menagerie’ Laura was considered a very strong, independent and unique character. During this play Laura overcame mental, emotional and physical obstacles, these proved just how strong and independent she really is. Laura was a stronger character than her mother, Amanda.

The Glass Menagerie symbolizes Laura. Tom really cares about his sister Laura. He is motivated by anger. Tom goes out to drink and watch movies just to get

Laura Wingfield has chosen to hide from reality in the play The Glass Menagerie. She seems to live in a world of her own, and hides from everything and everyone outside of the apartment. Laura is terrified of anything new or different. Her mother sent her to business college, but Laura was so afraid that ‘The first time [they] gave a speed-test, she broke down completely – was sick at the stomach and almost had to be carried into the wash –room.’ (p 243). Laura uses her limp as an excuse to hide from the world. She believes that her slight limp makes her crippled and that she cannot be a part of the real world because of it. Laura’s glass menagerie and the victrola act as things which protect her from the real world in the play. Whenever she is

“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 means the glass animals collected by Laura. Laura is as beautiful, fragile and vulnerable as the animals. The slight leg disability made Laura sensitive and inferior. As she was afraid to face the teachers and students, she dropped out. Her mother sent Laura to business school to learn typing in order to find a job. But Laura vomited during the speed typing exam as she was too nervous, so she had to drop out again. Laura was afraid of reality and only willing to stay in a fantasy world. Thus, she spent her day at home

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 society in The Glass Menagerie is exceptionally intricate. Her own mother, Amanda, is very demanding of her and wishes her to have a gentleman caller. Amanda believes all young women should have dozens of gentlemen callers. She judges a woman’s worth by the amount of attention she receives from men and boasts about herself back then, "One Sunday afternoon in Blue Mountain – your mother received – seventeen! – gentlemen callers! Why, sometimes there weren’t enough chairs to accommodate them all. We had to send the nigger over to bring in folding chairs from the parish house" (Williams 8). Laura lives in a society that believes a man will support a woman. However, her own father runs out on their family and leaves Amanda

In The Glass Menagerie, one of the characters in named Laura. Laura has the figures of glass that she takes care of. Her mother doesn't want her to be doing that. Her mother tried to do everything to have Laura doing something “I put her in buisness college- a dismal failure! Frightened her so it made her sick at the stomach. I took her over to the Young People’s League at the church. Another fiasco. She spoke to nobody, nobody spoke to her”(Williams 31). Laura was concerned not a modern man because of how shy she was. Yet Laura knew what she was doing. Even though she wasn't the proper woman of that day and age, she knew what she wanted to do. It wasn't that she wasn't able to talk it was the people she was going to talk to.

The Glass Menagerie is a memory play that is, in a way, a partial autobiography of the life of its author Tennessee Williams. Williams, like Tom, worked in a factory and lived with his mother and sister. With this in mind, it’s no wonder why Tom is so fond of his sister Laura, and always more than happy to do what his mother says when it comes to her. For example Amanda, Tom’s mother, has requested Tom to bring home a gentleman caller for Laura to which he responds:

Laura Wingfield, from the classic play The Glass Menagerie, by Tennessee Williams, plays a pivotal and probably the most significant role in the story. She plays a physically and emotionally crippled young woman who unlike the rest of her immediate family, always seems to have a sense of compassion. Laura is always trying to keep peace in the Wingfield apartment, giving us a small sense of her character. The sheer fact that Laura has the least amount of lines in the play only adds to her selflessness. Many aspects of the play are symbols of Laura’s characteristics and tendencies, making Laura the most symbolic figure in the play.

Since its very first production, The Glass Menagerie has remained a treasure of modern, American theater, partly through playwright Tennessee Williams's masterful utilization of symbolism. One of these symbols, the glass unicorn, seeks to represent Laura and her development throughout the play. Williams establishes the symbolic relationship between Laura and the unicorn through the use of mutually shared characteristics, the most prominent ones being their lack of reality, shyness, and frailty. Readers will come to appreciate the subtle craftsmanship of the play's symbols and how the use of symbolism further develops Laura's character. To come to this appreciation, readers must first establish the symbolic connection shown through the shared

People who are different are sometimes seen as inferior individuals with subordinate lives. Tennessee Williams, playwright of the famous, The Glass Menagerie, exposes these ideas through the development of the character Laura, while tying her to strong symbolic features such as her glass unicorn in order to show the audience everyone has hope. On the surface, Laura is seen as a bleak character with an empty future, but with the symbolism utilized by Williams, Laura’s tremendous strength is revealed as she recognizes her abilities as well as a positive future for herself. At first, the breaking of the glass unicorn can be seen as a troubling experience for Laura, because throughout the play the reader has seen her emotional attachment with

Since she has a disability, Laura finds it hard to communicate with the outside world around her and secludes herself within her fantasies that center on her animal figurines and musical demos. While scolding her daughter for quitting business school, Amanda exclaims to Laura: “So what are we going to do the rest of our lives? Stay home and watch parades go by? Amuse ourselves with the glass menagerie, darling? Eternally play those worn-out phonograph records your father left as a painful reminder of him” (Williams 1637). Laura receives harsh