The Glass Menagerie Three Visions Of Time

   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.

As the Great Depression crept up on the United States people began to see the effects of the economic down spiral. To try a keep afloat people did what they could to survive. The role women played during this time period was a strong example of this drive for survival. Women stepped up to the plate for their family and jumped into the workforce to become the new breadwinners of their family. They broke barriers and didn 't care what people thought of them. Even though most of the jobs out there were sexist towards women, they still worked and found ways to provide for their family. With society pushing them to stay as housewives and “leave jobs for men” women still prevailed. Women’s role throughout the Great Depression both increased and

The Depression caused women's wages to drop even lower, so that many working women could not meet basic expenses” (“Working Women”). Women were hired more frequently than men because they would work for lower wages

During the Great Depression, life wasn’t easy. Many farmers lost their farms and during that same times, years of erosion and drought were created in the Midwest, where crops could no longer grow (about.com) and many families lost their savings as the numerous amount of banks collapsed in the early 1930s. Because these families could to not pay for rent payments or mortgage, they were forced out of their homes or were evicted from their apartments. Unemployed and underemployed male heads of the families founded the depression to be extremely difficult, because in traditional concepts, the men were the providers of the families (galegroup.com). Unemployment rose from three percent to 25 percent during the depression. Those who still had jobs, their wages fell 42 percent. Famers and other unemployed workers traveled to California to find work, but many of them ended up living as homeless (about.com) It is said in academic.mu.edu that The main role of women during

The role of women in United States has always been a very important and crucial role. During the Great Depression, the unusual pressures greatly magnified women’s part. Women have always seen a shift in the definition of what is expected of them. The great depression put an even heavier burden on them. This is a review of three journals that explore these topics.

The Great Depression was the single worst economic crisis ever experienced by the United States. In President Franklin Delano Roosevelt 's own words, by 1933 fully one-third of the nation 's citizens were ill-housed, ill-clad, and ill-nourished. Roosevelt 's was a presidency sired in crisis and sustained in war, and the very fabric of American society could not but be fundamentally altered as these extraordinary years progressed (Heale 2001, 16). One such fundamental change pertained to the American family. The Great Depression would forever reform the ways in which women in America were perceived, utilized, and ultimately, needed. Eliciting deep wellsprings of resourcefulness and ingenuity, the Great Depression demanded that women assume

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

The Great Depression caused families in many areas to endure hardships. The unemployment rate was at 25% in 1929, many men, women, and even some children begged and searched for jobs everyday, some even hopped on trains in hope that they would find a job. Many people, mainly men were hostile with women because they found that women could find a job easier than a man, although women were also going through the same hardships. Not only was unemployment part of the suffering people went through, many people while jobless lived in shacks made of whatever they could find out of the garbage or debris from roads. Many people who had families made houses out of crates or rusted out car bodies, some men would show up at homeless shelters while searching

In urban America, as men continuously lost their jobs, women had to try to find work to feed themselves and their families. During the Great Depression, “women made up 25% of the work force, but their jobs were more unstable, temporary or seasonal than men, and the unemployment rate was much greater” (McMahon). But even though it was very difficult to acquire jobs, less was expected of them than for rural women. Before the Great Depression, women already had trouble obtaining jobs, but “during the 1930s, a woman's chances for employment were often even slimmer. In the eyes of society, unless a woman was single and self-supporting, she was supposed to be a homemaker, helping her family through the national crisis by being thrifty and resourceful” (Press 19). This pressure for women to know how to save money for the family instead of looking for a job

The world is crafted through humanity’s perceptions, shaped by their shared experiences of the world, yet differentiated by each individual experience. Within The Glass Menagerie, by Tennessee Williams, the ideas of overwhelming truth, individual perceptions, and the flaws of humanity are all explored. Through the various characters, with a specific focus on Tom’s narration, Williams argues that the truth is only a subjective idea that is created through the perceptions of humankind, molded through humanity’s flaws.

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 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

Tennessee Williams', The Glass Menagerie, is a play that evokes great sympathy and in some cases, empathy for a protagonist who struggles to overcome two opposing forces; his responsibilities and his desires. There are many symbols and non-liner references that contribute to the development of characterization, dramatic tensions and the narrative. This essay will examine in detail, the aspects of the play that contribute to the development of the above mentioned elements.

The plays, “The Glass Menagerie” and “A Raisin in the Sun,” both deal with the love, honor, respect and everything in between that encompass a family. In “The Glass Menagerie,” Amanda, the caring yet animated, over protective mother, wants to be cared for, but in “A Raisin in the Sun,” Mama, as she is known, is the overseer of the family. The prospective of the plays identify that we have family members, like Amanda, who can be overprotective, or like Mama, who we can look at as the chief of the household. The mothers in each of the plays will be contrasted.

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