The Glass Menagerie Research Paper

At the age of 16, Tom published a story for the first time. It was in response to the question, “Can a Good Wife be a Good Sport?” He took third place in the contest and won 5 dollars. In 1937, his first play, Cairo, Shanghai, Bombay, was produced in Memphis. After writing a series of other plays that weren’t so successful, he hit it big with The Glass Menagerie. This play was originally called “The Gentleman Caller”, and was turned down as a screenplay. He was 34 when he wrote it.  In 1948, Williams wrote A Streetcar Named Desire, perhaps his best known play. This play earned him his first Pulitzer Prize. He earned his second Pulitzer in 1955, with Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Cash).

Tennessee Williams is regarded as a pioneering playwright of American theatre. Through his plays, Williams addresses important issues that no other writers of his time were willing to discuss, including addiction, substance abuse, and mental illness. Recurring themes in William’s works include the dysfunctional family, obsessive and absent mothers and fathers, and emotionally damaged women. These characters were inspired by his experiences with his own family. These characters appear repeatedly in his works with their own recurring themes. Through The Glass Menagerie and A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams presents the similar thematic elements of illusion, escape, and fragility between the two plays, proving that although similar, the themes within these plays are not simply recycled, as the differences in their respective texts highlight the differences of the human condition.

The next section I read was pages two hundred and twenty-six to pages two hundred and eighty-eight. It was about the New York Experience throughout the family. The characters in this section are the Walls, Eric and John. Jeannette arrives in New York and she gets a job in a hamburger shop, then Lori and Jean get enough money to rent their own apartment. Jean begins her school in New York and starts writing for The Phoenix. They hear that Rex is in jail and he is just getting worse and Brian moves to the city. Then Jean begins college at Bernard and Maureen also moves to New York. Jean hears on the radio about a van breaking down and everything in it falling out including the dog. She then hears from

The Glass Castle; a memoir by Jeannette Walls is a heart wrenching story of a family that learned what loyalty is and is not. The family is dysfunctional and unique. It was eye-opening to read about this family moved from place to place not knowing where they would end up, what they would eat or what they would wear. Reading about how the Walls kids dealt with mental illness and alcoholism was indeed eye opening.

Tennessee Williams has become one of the best known literary figures on the American Scene and also one of the most controversial. A Streetcar Named Desire is a 1947 play opened on Broadway on December 3,1947, and closed on December 17, 1949, in the

On March 26, 1911 the human version of the great state of Tennessee was born in Columbus Mississippi. His name was Thomas Lanier “Tennessee” Williams. Tennessee was one of the most amazing playwrights of the 20th century. Although he was one of the greatest playwrights of his time he had to endure many obstacles throughout his lifetime. He had to deal with the complicated marriage that he had with his wife. Also his parents’ marriage was very strained, and caused problems in his life as well. Tennessee’s father was an alcoholic, and was often times very violent. Also as a child Tennessee Williams almost lost his life to a very serious disease. As a result of Tennessee Williams flaws, obstacles, and determination he went on to become one of the greatest play writers of the 20th century.

The theme of Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie is conflict. The play contains both internal and external conflict. The absence of Tom's father forces external turmoil and conflict between Tom the protagonist, and his mother the antagonist. The internal conflict is seen within Tom through his constant references to leaving home and his selfishness. The play is about a young aspiring poet named Tom, who works at a shoe warehouse. Tom is unhappy with is life at home mainly because of his overbearing, over protective mother named Amanda. Tom also has a sister within the play named Laura who chooses to isolate herself from the rest of society. During the play Tom's relationship with his mother is filled with very harsh and abrasive

German writer Gertrud von Le Fort once said, "Symbols are the language of something invisible spoken in the visible world." The Glass Menagerie author, Tennessee Williams, does just that by using symbols to show the main themes in the play. Some of the main themes, represented by symbols, Williams uses are memories, living in the past, hope, feeling trapped, insecurity, and adventure and escape. Writers use symbols to help bring meaning and emotion to the story. Symbolism helps the play or story become more powerful and memorable to the viewer or reader.

Tennessee Williams was a well known Modern English playwright. He was born in Columbus, Mississippi and moved to St. Louis, then to Memphis, and later graduated from the University of Iowa in 1983. Williams began to turn his short stories into plays and later on into films. His wildest audiences were in contemporary dramatic literature. Williams’s plays have been produced in England, France, Hally, Germany, Greece, Austria, Switzerland, Holland, Poland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, Cuba and Mexico. One of William’s most intriguing plays is Streetcar named Desire. Streetcar was produced around 1947. The “setting of Streetcar” is a combination of raw realism and deliberate fantasy” (Riddel 16). The main character of the play is Ms.

Thesis: Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie demonstrates human struggles with accepting the hard truths of reality, creating tendencies to retract to disappointing illusions.

(3) His most popular work is perhaps “A Streetcar Named Desire” because it dealt with sexuality and psychology that had never been spoken of before in American Culture. “A Streetcar Named Desire” came out in the year 1947 and completely surprised the audience that read it.The book included every act of defiance in media that can be possible.The play is about a women name Blanche Dubois who has just lost everything, her home, her family, her money, her job and her husband. She then decides to move in with her sister Stella who left the family and married a controlling, and aggressive man, Stanley. The couple have a very strong sexual desire for each other which so begins Williams first strike against “society rules”. Stanley and Blanche don’t seem to quite get along however there are many controversial discussions on whether or not they were actually flirting with one another. Meanwhile Blanche begins to date one of Stanley’s close friend Mitch, who she grows very fond of; Blanche begins to admit personal secrets to him including the death of her husband which throughout the novel it is a very sensitive topic for her to discuss. This part of the play is perhaps the most unforgiving scene Tennessee Williams could have written. A majority of the play

Have you ever watched a play and been amazed to how real the play appears? Refer to this as realism. Realism tries to create an illusion that makes a certain situation look like that action is actually happening. Realism can also refer to certain social issues. Something that provides to realism is the spectacle. The spectacle is what the audience sees and hears during the play. In the play The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams, there are several different examples of spectacle. These example gives the audience an entertaining value and sets the tone for the plot. During the play, the spectacles that contribute to the realism would be the screen and the music.

Thomas Lanier Williams was born in Columbus, Mississippi on March 26, 1911. Cornelius Coffin Williams, father of Thomas, spent a significant amount of time away from his family, as he was a traveling shoe salesman. Thomas, therefore, did not receive much paternal influence during his childhood from his father. He relied on his maternal grandfather, an Episcopal minister, for guidance and support. From age fourteen, Williams discovered writing to be, “an escape from a world

Each character in the Glass Menagerie is living in their own fantasy world, which reflects that during the period of World War II and the Great Depression, the U.S. working people in lower middle class worked hard in different ways in face of cruel reality. Whether live in the past, hide themselves from others, walk out bravely, or even completely escape from the result, they all struggled between the real and were unable to escape the tragic fate. The beautiful fantasy is as beautiful and fragile as the glass menagerie.

Through his play “The Glass Menagerie”, author Tennessee Williams provides a numerous number of themes to reflect aspects of his life. Of such themes, Williams uses the idea of escape, vulnerability and deceit to create ways in which he can include segments of his life. From the themes listed in his play, Williams is able to create a scene which represents the hidden views of the average american family. Due to the way in which Williams includes aspects of his life in “The Glass Menagerie”, he was able to bring a form of realism to the play.