The Glass Menagerie Symbolism Essay

Amanda becomes a woman bent on finding her daughter either a job or a husband and finding out why her son disappears every night. To help her appear strong and willful, Amanda escapes to her own days as a young girl, finding more than seventeen gentlemen callers, and allows herself to believe her life is stable enough that her daughter and her will be financially taken care of. These facades crumble when she realizes her daughter has never been capable enough to find either a job or a husband. While these expectations of Laura hurt her, they allow her mother to escape to her days of being flaunted over and adorned by men. Once she does see her daughter is struggling, Amanda has to face the fact that her daughter will always be dependant upon her mother. These realities continue to affect how her children act and the results of the

    Tennessee Williams is one the major writers of the mid-twentieth century. His work includes the plays, The Glass Menagerie and A Streetcar Named Desire. One theme of The Glass Menagerie is that hopeful aspirations are followed by inevitable disappointments. This theme is common throughout all of Williams' work and throughout his own life as well. It is shown through the use of symbols and characters.

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.

Tennessee Williams, born Thomas Lanier Williams, wrote The Glass Menagerie, a play which premiered in Chicago in 1944. This award winning play, autobiographical in nature, represented a time in which Williams felt the obligation of his responsibilities in regards to the care of his family. Robert DiYanni, Adjunct Professor of Humanities at New York University, rated it as, “One of his best-loved plays...a portrayal of loneliness among characters who confuse fantasy and reality” (DiYanni 1156). Alternatively, The Glass Menagerie, a play set in the era of the Great Depression and written from the narrator’s memory, was meant to teach us the how our relationships with one another can alter our futures, for better or worse. Everything about this particular play was a direct and clear symbolization of Williams ' life growing up. Williams uses characterization to depict several people from his real life in this play; his sister, himself, his overbearing mother, absent father, and a childhood best friend. Williams does a splendid job transforming his personal life into a working piece of art. In Tennessee Williams ' play, The Glass Menagerie, his character, Laura, is central to the structure and focus of the story due to her individual ties to all of the supporting characters throughout the seven scene play.

   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.

Tennessee Williams (1911-1983), born Thomas Lanier Williams and is considered by be one of the leading playwright of his age and post-World War II America. He took many of the elements of his plays from his own life. He was born in Columbus, MS, to a violent, aggressive traveling salesman and a high-minded, puritanical, preacher 's daughter. He had an older sister named Rose, who he adored, but suffered from mental problems that eventually caused her to be institutionalized. Rose was the model for several of Williams characters,His family moved to St. Louis at some point in his childhood. Williams attended a succession of universities before he finally received his degree in playwriting. Between stints in college, he worked for three years in a shoe factory.

Don't you think I know it? I'm so proud! Happy and - I feel I've - so much to be thankful for" (p. 414).?Amanda has two fears in her life.?One of her worst fears is having Tom grow up to be his father. "Promise, son, you'll - never be a drunkard!" (p. 414).?"When I see you taking after his ways! Staying out late - and - well, you had been drinking the night you were in that - terrifying condition" (p. 415).?Amanda's other fear in life is having Laura grow old without a gentleman caller.?"We have to be making plans and provisions for her. She just drifts along doing nothing. It frightens me terribly how she just drifts along" (p. 416).?Tom suggested to Amanda that Laura just might be what people call home girls but Amanda refuses to believe it.?"There's no such type, and if there is, it's a pity! That is unless the home is hers, with a husband" (p. 416).?Therefore, Amanda sees the fire escape as a way to escape her own problems and invite gentlemen callers into their lives for Laura.?

The masterful use of symbolism is delightfully ubiquitous in Tennessee Williams’ “The Glass Menagerie.” He uses a collection of dim, dark and shadowy symbols that constantly remind the audience of the lost opportunity each of these three characters continually experience. This symbolism is not only use to enlighten the audience to their neglected opportunities to shine, but it is also repeatedly utilized to reinforce the ways in which the characters try in vain to cross over turbulent waters into a world of light and clarity. It is thematically a wrenching story of life gone by, and the barren attempts to realize another reality that is made more poignant by symbolic language, objects, setting, lighting and music. The characters are

Tom’s memories also prohibited him from finding happiness and moving forward, but it also led to the creation of the play. All of the characters have ways to deal with their cruel memories, except Tom. Amanda has her happy days from her youth and Laura has her glass collection. Tom has no sufficient way of escape. He has tried escaping to the movies, but he came to realize that it was not a real way out.

In Tennessee Williams's drama The Glass Menagerie the setting and dramatization in the play are used to convey each member of the family's hopes, desperations, and fears. He uses symbols throughout the story to add a deeper meaning and give his characters a sense of mystery. Also, though maybe inadvertently, The Glass Menagerie actually parallels the people and events in Tennessee Willliams's life.

In The Glass Menagerie, Tennessee Williams beautifully encapsulates man’s desire to escape from uncomfortable emotional and physical situations. Whether he’s showing a young man trapped in a factory job he hates, an aging single mother who mourns for her life as Southern belle, or a young lady who fears that she’ll spend her life alone, he clearly demonstrates these desires and fears for his audience. Williams shows us through the actions of his characters how humans handle a wide variety of uncomfortable situations, and how these situations dramatically influence one’s ability to thrive. The playwright doesn’t seem to believe in the idea of “bloom where you’re planted”, and the desire to escape becomes a major theme of the play, demonstrated across multiple characters in a wide variety of ways. Creative individuals often do not thrive in noncreative, industrial environments. Williams demonstrates this clearly in this “memory play”, which carries many autobiographical element. Tom Wingfield represents his own character, Williams himself, and also serves as a narrator, making him quite the complex character. Williams’s uses Tom to show how an emotionally complex, creative individual can quickly feel trapped and tied down in a factory job, longing to get out, see the world, and pursue a job with more creative elements. Tom’s escapism, drinking, and evening theatrical adventures all reflect the life of the playwright himself, as Williams was known to struggle with alcoholism

The Glass Menagerie is a memory play written by Tennessee Williams in 1944 which tells about the life a family of three. This play is an incredible piece because it is based off the life of Tennessee Williams himself; the main characters are Amanda, the mother, Tom, the son, and Laura, the daughter. In Paul Newman’s depiction of the play which has been converted into a film, the film perfectly uses acts out every aspect of the play. Tennessee Williams keeps the audience attentive in his play, that’s why the film was successful. Williams accomplishes this through the character’s glass menageries, Laura’s emergence out of her shell and heartbreak, and the ending.

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.

Written in 1944, Tennessee Williams wrote a play during World War II when people were barely making ends meet. Centering on the Wingfield family, the story consisted of five characters: Amanda Wingfield (the mother), Laura Wingfield (the daughter), Tom Wingfield (son, narrator, Laura’s older brother), Jim Connor (Tom and Laura’s old acquaintance from high school) and Mr. Wingfield (father to Tom and Laura, and Amanda’s husband)- who abandoned the family long before the start of the play. The title, “The Glass Menagerie”, represented a collection of glass animals on display in the Wingfields’ home. At one point or another, these animals then represented each character when they couldn’t accept reality. The theme of this play were about the

    Aside from the internal and external conflicts which impact Amanda, Williams's strongly expresses his indictment through his very own character, Tom. Tom is merely a victim of both societal conflicts and his own guilt caused by his decision to seek fulfillment within his own life, rather than surrender to the unsatisfying life which his mother had created for him. One of the greatest factors in Tom’s lifestyle that creates his desire to escape this sense of imprisonment, is society's overall attitude toward homosexuality, specifically within his mother. Amanda stated, “I took that horrible novel back to the library- yes! That hideous book by that insane Mr. Lawrence. I cannot control the output of diseased minds or people who cater to them- but I won’t let such filth brought into my house” (Williams 759). Because 1930’s society does not allow homosexuality to be expressed openly, literature is the closest way which allows him to express himself. The simple fact that his novels are the one way which allows him to gain any sense of satisfaction is taken away by his