The Glass Menagerie Reality

   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.

In the beginning of the play, Laura sees herself as “crippled” and not “expecting any gentlemen callers,” for she is extremely shy and unconfident. Furthermore, she embodies her collection of glass menagerie, for when Tom hurls his coat across the room “It strikes against the shelf of Laura’s glass collection... [and] Laura cries out as if wounded.” Laura’s action in this scene symbolizes her frailness and how she is a piece of the glass menagerie. Being part of the glass collection, Laura is confined to the shelf which the collection is on. This metaphorical representation of Laura depicts how she prefers to stay inside rather than going out into the world and becoming truly independent. Nonetheless, when Jim, the ticket to break out of this confinement, arrives, there is a shift in Laura’s character. As Jim talks to Laura, her “shyness is dissolving in his warmth.” Moreover, the unicorn piece which is symbolic of Laura and was once addressed as “lonesome” loses its horn in an accident. When its horn is gone, Laura states, “The horn was removed to make him feel less - freakish! Now he will feel more at home with the other horses, the ones who don’t have horns.” (Scene 7:6-9) Laura has lost her metaphorical horn and therefore she fits in with the rest of the world. For once in her life, Laura feels normal and her shell is broken as she dances and engages with Jim. However, Laura’s escape is not complete liberation, for even though Laura has liking towards Jim, the so thought gentleman-caller, Jim is engaged and has a fiance. This shows that Laura and her family will not truly escape from their setbacks even if a glance of hope, such as Jim, arrives for a moment in their lives. Therefore, at the end of the play, Laura’s “silliness is gone and she has dignity and tragic beauty” for “glass breaks so easily. No matter how careful you

Despite being a 'memory play', the basis and content of The Glass Menagerie is truth and reality as Williams' attempts to 'find a closer approach, a more penetrating and vivid expression of things as they are'. This basis of reality is evident in the play's setting, as The Glass Menagerie is presented with great fidelity to the social and historical realities of the time. This is demonstrated from the play's beginning as Tom 'reverses time to that quaint period, the thirties', and juxtaposes the turmoil in Spain to the uneasy peace in America, in an allusion to the forthcoming war (World War II). There are other allusions to the war throughout the play, such as in Tom's closing speech as he claims the 'world is lit by lightning'. It is clear that the historical realities of the time are effectively conveyed in the play, although it is not only the war-related realities of the time that Williams highlights.

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.

Broken Glass and Breaking from the Past In Tennessee William’s 1944 play entitled The Glass Menagerie, Williams employed prevailing symbolism to illustrate Laura’s odd habit and ultimate fate. Laura escaped from reality when she was in the presence of her glass animals, and suffered emotionally due to her physical deformity of one leg being shorter than the other. The figurine in her collection that she admired the most was her glass unicorn, which also served as a powerful representation of her oddness and physical defect. Throughout this essay I will further discuss the significance of the glass unicorn, by giving further detail on the connections made between Laura and the glass unicorn.

Moving on, The Glass Menagerie is a memory play narrated by the character Tom Wingfield who recounts one of his biggest regrets. The play focuses on the climatic decision between his commitment to his family versus his personal desires. Tom remembers that he longed to be free, but has stayed in the family because he

As Dan Mutia once said, “You can never escape reality, you can only delay the inevitable.” This quote describes the Wingfield family completely. Each of them is trying to escape an unavoidable reality. The Glass Menagerie written by Tennessee Williams has three main characters Tom, Amanda and Laura. Tom is Amanda’s son who is supporting the family, because his dad has left.

One way that the characters are representative of the glass menagerie is that they each live in a self-created fantasy world. Tom lives in a make-believe world in order to escape the realities of his surroundings. His father has gone and he is responsible for supporting his mother and sister by working in a job he cares nothing for. “I know I seem dreamy, but inside — well, I 'm boiling! Whenever I pick up a shoe, I shudder a little thinking how short life is and what I am doing! Whatever that means, I know it doesn 't mean shoes — except as

***The characters within The Glass Menagerie are almost all a part of the same family creating a family dynamic that effects the way the characters are developed. A majority of Amanda's part within the play of The Glass Menagerie consists of her providing a recollection of her past and enforcing her perceptions of those experiences onto her children. Most of her speech within the play is monologues of her reflecting upon her past. The Glass Menagerie is considered to be a memory play making a connection to Amanda's constant reflection on her past to the fact that this is a memory play one can observe that Amanda is the personification of the memory within the memory play. Amanda's constant recollection of the past effects the character development of Laura, tom, and of course herself.

She slowly starts opening up to Jim more, by mentioning how she went to all the performances he was in. Laura tells Jim about her glass collection, which she never lets anyone touch. “Oh be careful-if you breathe, it breaks (Williams 1204)! Laura is just as fragile as the glass figurines. Laura doesn’t want to pick favorites, but the unicorn one is her favorite and her oldest one.

This novel illustrates multiple characters with unique personalities. One of them is Tom Wingfield, which is the son of Amanda and lives in a materialistic society. His mother depends on him to support the family. However, Tom does not want the responsibility to care for the house and his family and chooses to leave instead. In addition, the fire escape is an important object in the play. Tom is a character that uniquely reacts to the society in The Glass Menagerie. He shows how a person can act when in a tough situation.

A Glass Menagerie is a collection of small, wild animals which can be put out for display for public view. Tennessee Williams's play “The Glass Menagerie”, is about a family with personalities so different that they do not get along. The family could be considered wild animals all in their own way. In the story, Laura’s menagerie breaks multiple times at the slightest touch. The title of the play “The Glass Menagerie is represented by the entire family because, like the menagerie, each family member displays fragile characteristics.

Amanda, the mother of both children, was raised in an upper class family. She often tells stories about her life and the many gentlemen callers she received. Throughout Tom’s memory, the character’s frustrations lead to heated arguments, which then leads to a tragic ending. Therefore, a central idea in “The Glass Menagerie” focuses on the impossibility of true escape and the frustrations each character experiences. I enjoyed the characters in the play for their

In the play The Glass Menagerie there are many types of symbolism used throughout the story. The major symbolism roles are portrayed thru the main characters of the story, the Wingfields, Amanda, Tom, and Laura. Each one of the family members represents different stereotypes of society.

  Tom Wingfield is the narrator and a major character in Tennessee William’s timeless play, The Glass Menagerie. Through the eyes of Tom, the viewer gets a glance into the life of his family in the pre-war depression era; his mother, a Southern belle desperately clinging to the past; his sister, a woman too fragile to function in society; and himself, a struggling, young poet working at a warehouse to pay the bills. Williams has managed to create a momentous play using a combination of different elements, including symbolism. Three noteworthy examples of symbolism are the fire escape, a sense of hope and an escape both to the outside world and from it; the glass menagerie itself,