The Glass Menagerie is a play written by Tennessee Williams in 1944. It is a semi-autobiographical work that tells the story of the Wingfield family, a family of four living in a small apartment in St. Louis during the Great Depression. The play's title refers to the collection of delicate glass animal figurines that the family's daughter, Laura, keeps in a glass cabinet.
The play is narrated by the son, Tom, who is also a character in the play. Tom is a young man who is struggling to find his place in the world and to escape from the confines of his family's small apartment. He is torn between his desire to leave and his sense of duty to his family, especially his disabled sister Laura.
Laura is a shy and fragile young woman who is physically disabled and has a difficult time interacting with others. She finds solace in her collection of glass animals, which she cares for and treats as if they were real. The glass menagerie represents Laura's fragile and delicate nature and her desire to find beauty and meaning in a world that can often be harsh and unforgiving.
The play also features the Wingfield's mother, Amanda, who is a former southern belle struggling to come to terms with the reality of her current situation. She is desperate for Laura to find a husband and is constantly trying to push her daughter into the world, despite Laura's reluctance.
The Glass Menagerie is a powerful and poignant exploration of family, loss, and the search for meaning and purpose in life. Through the characters of Tom, Laura, and Amanda, Williams presents a moving portrayal of the struggles and triumphs of ordinary people trying to find their place in the world. The glass menagerie serves as a metaphor for the fragility and vulnerability of the human condition, as well as the enduring power of hope and the human spirit.
The Glass Menagerie Essay Examples
Amanda has the most obvious inability to accept reality. A teacher there informed her that Laura has not come to class since the first few days, when she suffered from terrible nervousness and became physically ill. Also: a place or building in which such a collection is kept. But I am the opposite of a stage magician. They stride along these streets, in single file, a dozen in a train, with heavy loads on their backs, and a fancy-looking negro in Turkish costume, or an Arab, preceding them on a little donkey and completely overshadowed and rendered insignificant by the huge beasts. Not the moments of falling into the momentary type of escape — but the actual, physical permanent type of escape.
In the short story, Tom says about Laura, She made no positive motion toward the world but stood at the edge of the water, so to speak, with feet that anticipated too much cold to move. His mother Amanda, whose husband deserted her years ago, keeps house for Tom and his gawky and crippled 24-year-old sister Laura. University of Chicago Press. Tom, who feels stifled in both his job and his family life, writes poetry while at the warehouse. And one can only image the countless nights the author had to agonize over his memories and deal with the realism of what truly took place. When her mother discovers Laura hasn't been going to school, her hope for their future is destroyed, and she becomes obsessed with the idea of Laura marrying some nice man to take care of the family.
Glass Menagerie Definition. The meaning of Glass Menagerie
Laura tries to play it off as if being a horse will make him feel 'less freakish', and Jim comments on how she is special and that someone should kiss her. Critics raved about the play, and it slowly rose in popularity as people went to see what everyone was talking about. As opposed to the fact that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. For example, Tom sees past as physical and emotional events that prevent him from living his life. She also appears to have strong mental vulnerabilities. Thus, the title of The Glass Menagerie helps to bring to the front the themes of illusions and impossible dreams. When Amanda learns that Jim is to be married, she turns her anger upon Tom and cruelly lashes out at him, although Tom did not know that Jim was engaged.
In Tom's opening addresses Irony Essay: 'The Glass Of Menagerie' Amanda Wingfield 4. Unable to bear any more pressure from life at home, Tom goes to sea, but cannot forget his unfortunate sister. Louis in the nineteen-thirties. Amanda calls Tom to the dinner table and, once he sits down, repeatedly tells him to chew his food. Tom is in no way secretive about how he feels with regard to his living arrangement.
The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams Plot Summary
It is a bitter-sweet recollection of his own youth and, while the scenes of dialogue are to be acted naturalistically, Williams makes use of narrator's commentary, mimed action, cutaway sets, atmospheric music, lighting, and the symbolism of the fragile glass animals, reflecting the theme of illusion and reality in the dreams and aspirations of the family. This just escalates the tensions within the family unit and heightens the frustrations between Tom and Amanda. After a shaky start, it was championed by Chicago critics The Glass Menagerie was Williams' first successful play; he went on to become one of America's most highly regarded playwrights. The Glass Menagerie, written by The glass animals are symbolic of Laura's physical and emotional fragility. Laura escapes into the delicate, fragile world of her glass menagerie. Jim decides to kiss Laura, and after they kiss, she is bewildered as Jim frets and apologizes, explaining that he is actually engaged to marry someone else.
Amanda asks her if she has ever liked a boy. It is learned early on in the play from Tom that the father had abandoned the family and that the father had sent a postcard one time. Selected Letters of Tennessee Williams. Being shy has made Laura an introvert, she has dropped out of typing classes and has a nonexistent social life. Amanda is a genteel southern woman with what she paints as a glamorous past.
Although each character is unhappy with their lives, each rationalized with themselves to normalize the situation. Laura shows Jim her glass collection and lets him hold the glass unicorn, her favorite. Amanda lights candles, and Jim joins Laura by candlelight in the living room. This title also helps to draw attention to the symbolism of the fragile glass animals who come to represent anything that is too delicate to last in the day-to-day outside world. On the one hand, he reads literature, writes poetry, and dreams of escape, adventure, and higher things. Although she is a survivor and a pragmatist, Amanda yearns for the comforts and admiration she remembers from her days as a fêted debutante.
She has tremendous amounts of regrets and constantly discusses her numerous past paramours. Louis apartment with her son Tom, in his early 20s, and his slightly older sister, Laura. Even though Tom did not know that Jim was already betrothed. Laura is horrified to discover that he is the high-school boy on whom she once had a crush, but they share a certain intimacy and even dance together and kiss, causing a glass unicorn's horn to get broken off. Unlike the other characters, Tom sometimes addresses the audience directly, seeking to provide a more detached explanation and assessment of what has been happening onstage. After dinner, Laura overcomes her shyness to sit alone with Jim on the couch in the living room and reminisce about high school, and she shows him her glass animal collection. Memories often are biased to what people want to remember, or how they want to remember.
Williams describes her in the play as being 'like a piece of translucent glass touched by a light, given a momentary radiance, not actual, not lasting. Initially, Tom's desire to travel and write are thwarted by his obligations to stay and take care of his mother and sister, Laura's desires are unmet as Jim is engaged to marry someone else and Amanda's desire for a better future for her family is unmet, as both her husband and son abandon her. Tom works in a warehouse to support his mother, Amanda, and his sister, Laura. She comments 'Oh, be careful!. Tom Wingfield, the narrator of the play, explains that In memory, everything seems to happen to music Williams, 5. The In 1987, a The New York Times reviewer noted it "starts stiffly and gets better as it goes along, with the dinner-party sequence its biggest success; in this highly charged situation, Miss Woodward's Amanda indeed seems to flower.
Wingfield was a handsome man, full of charm, who worked for a telephone company and eventually "fell in love with long-distance," abandoning his family 16 years before the play's action. Williams indicates that even though sometimes people realize what the reality is, they try to escape and look for comfort in their private world of illusion. Amanda is disappointed when Laura, for what appears to be the umpteenth time, says that she will never receive any gentleman callers. Laura represents, in some ways, an even more romantic portrayal of the Southern belle. However, he sees Laura in everything and everywhere he goes.
