What Is The Theme Of The Glass Menagerie

The play, The Glass Menagerie, by Tennessee Williams is a play that focuses on the flaws of people and the overwhelming feeling that many face throughout their life. Tennessee Williams was quite familiar with this feeling. During his career Tennessee Williams even said:

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

The Glass Menagerie, by Tennessee Williams, is a play narrated by Tom Wingfield, one of the three main characters in the play. The story is based on Tom’s memories of his past life while living with his mother Amanda and sister, Laura, during 1937 in St. Louis. These memories are skewed because of his inability to escape from his feelings of entrapment and the abandonment from his sister. The title suggest that the characters are a hodgepodge of fragile, sensitive, opposite people striving to survive life in the unrealistic fantasy world they each have created for themselves during the great depression. This paper will argue the symbolism between the characters themselves and Laura’s actual glass menagerie. The characters in the play are symbolic of a glass menagerie in the following ways: the characters exist in an unrealistic fantasy world, they glimmer in certain lights but not in others, and they are extremely fragile.

The glass menagerie is a superb work of art by Tennessee Williams. It is a play that highlights the various realities and desperations of its characters in their response to a confused society. Williams has an admirable talent for creating a play that’s genre is serious and has a tragic ending; yet he keeps the story interesting to the audience whether it be through reading it as a text or in the theater.

To escape the harsh means of reality, humans gravitate to leaving in the past or a dream. Some people fear dreaming, while others live to dream. Tennessee Williams’ play The Glass Menagerie presents three incomparable worlds: dream, reality and memory. The members of the Wingfield family in The Glass Menagerie shield from the reality and choose to live in a dream or a memory. Williams conveys that each character has their own dreams, which are wrecked, by the real world. The whole Wingfield family chooses to live in a dream or a memory and disregards the expectation of the present. Accompanying with many ideas, Williams denotes the uncomfortable situations the Wingfield family faces many times. William explores the nature of dreams, memory,

She escapes from the formidable structures of reality in many different ways with avoidance. Laura, fearful of being treated lower in status due to her inability to walk correctly, is shy and separates herself from the unsympathetic modern world. Amanda tries everything to push her into society, but her attempts are futile. In the beginning of the play, Amanda discovers that Laura had not been attending Rubicam’s Business College and when Amanda further questions her on she’s been doing, she exclaims that she “couldn’t go back up” because she “threw up- on the floor!” Laura’s fear of encountering people who have witnessed her at her worst is apparent when Amanda states that business school “frightened [Laura] so it made her sick at the stomach.”

In the play The Glass Menagerie, glass symbolizes the vulnerability of Laura's character as well as the struggle of society as a whole during that time period. Many of Amanda's illusions are geared towards the thought of money because of the poverty she and her family face. Her illusions, along with Jim's, are the embodiment of the American dream in which many Americans believe in, yet never achieve (Stein). The irony of the play lies within the fact that the characters, such as Amanda and Jim, express optimism when in reality their lives are depressing and disappointing. Religious references are alluded to throughout the play which contribute to its meaning.

As children we have our happiness put before others, such as our parents. When we are young those around us, protect us from the cruel reality of the world and the fact that not everything is sunshine and roses. Others will compromise their happiness to allow for the young to live freely and experience the world in their own happy imagination before they are forced to make compromises for others themselves. When faced with the ability to choose one's happiness over others, and vice versa, the true morals of an individual are revealed. This is shown in the play The Glass Menagerie, by Tennessee Williams. Tom, the main character in this play is given a powerful role in his family as he is the primary breadwinner of the household; as a result,

Tennessee Williams had a rough past that influenced him to write plays about the 1930s. Williams’s life was very successful in his writing making him known to many. His experiences in the 1930s affected his work. Williams’s homosexaulity made him to be seen as an outcast in American society. Tennessee Williams utilizes symbolism to express his themes throughout The Glass Menagerie.

Tennessee Williams likely based the character of Tom off of his own character, which is reflected through Tom several times during the play, such as through Tom’s disdain for factory work. It is widely believed by scholars that Tennessee Williams

Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie, is a classic drama about a young man who is tired of his dull and boring existence. Tom, the main character, struggles to deal with his family, who is apparently holding him back in life. With the use of powerful writing techniques, Williams is able to captivate his audience and create a play that has stood the test of time.

The play opens with Tom setting up the play for the observers. Tom tells of the background of the play. Seeing as how the play is set in the late 1930’s the working class is

Albert Einstein, a man of great wit and intellect is quoted as saying, “Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one”. Could he mean that the concept of reality is nothing more than an imagined arena with society and our place in it being figments of our own design? Regardless of reality’s genesis or authenticity it is indeed persistent and inescapable. In his play, The Glass Menagerie, Tennessee Williams explores this notion of reality as a painful encroachment that all humans counteract with concocted fantasies and a willingness to exist in an illusionary state. While all of William’s characters exist in their individual realms of illusion, one stands out as the most harmful and pitiful of all. Amanda, the literal mother of the dysfunctional family in the play, is also the figurative “mother” of illusionary living. Through Amanda, Williams explores the tragic character flaws and damage to the familiar unit that abound when a parent’s illusions replace their reality.

Tennessee Williams was born in 1911 and attended University of Missouri. At a young age he was inspired to become a playwright by watching Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts. As he grew older he battled with depression and addiction. He had a constant fear of going insane like his sister. That fear fueled his writing and eventually produced the play The Glass Menagerie. In this play Williams creates characters with depth and variety. All four characters have separate and distinct personalities.

In the story “The Glass Menagerie” by Tennessee Williams, it is about a dark and dreary time, with characters who are trying to escape their miserable and unhappy lives. The two who are not as straightforward about their wants and ambitions are; Laura Wingfield, the daughter, and Jim O’Connor, the gentleman caller. There are a few other characters, such as Amanda Wingfield and her son Tom, both of whom are also trying to escape their lives, but those characters are the cause of their own selfish misery. Escape can be gained through the mind, body, and soul as Laura and Jim come to understand during certain aspects of their lives. Laura and Jim are trying to escape their situations brought upon them by not only themselves, but by others too, which is why they need a stronger will to escape.