Category: The Glass Menagerie

Introduction

The Glass Menagerie play was written by Tennessee Williams. Born in 1911 in Mississippi, Williams lived in Tennessee as well as Mississippi until their family moved to St. Louis. The play seems to draw parallel with Williams’ own family, whose lifestyle was almost like that of the Wingfield family.

During his time as a writer, Williams received various awards especially in this play, The Glass Menagerie. Among his awards was the prestigious New York Drama Critics Circle, which he won four times (The Book of the Dead Man 109-110).

His play, The Glass Menagerie gained popularity throughout United States. The play portrays Williams’ use of thematic devices and production values. It is based on a melancholic family that struggles with several issues in life ranging from single parenthood to family conflicts and financial support. This paper will analyze Tennessee Williams’ play with much focus on how Laura’s relationship with Jim changed the tone of play (Williams 155).

The Glass Menagerie

The whole drama takes place in St. Louis, at narrator’s family home (Tom). Tom lives in a small apartment with his mother and sister. The latter is crippled on one of her legs and is disillusioned by her glasses. Tom’s father, Mr. Wingfield is said to have deserted the family for a long period and the play does not go on explain why he left, although he sends greetings postcard to his family, he disappears from the scene. Tom’s mother Amanda or Mrs.

Wingfield is depicted as persistently reprimanding Tom over almost all issues of his life, ranging from his personality to eating habits, among others. The Family struggles both financially and emotionally given the disappearance of Tom’s father. Amanda is more sociable compared to her daughter Laura who is very shy and delicate.

Tom works to support his family but is divided on whether to pursue life far away from his family, so he plots to desert them and eventually does. Jim is Tom’s friend and was in the same school as Laura, he is engaged and when he tells this to Laura on their first meeting after school, she is heartbroken because she loved him. The story ends in disharmony when Tom finally decides to abandon his family obligations and never to return (Bradford 1-2).

Character analysis

In Tennessee Williams’ play, The Glass Menagerie, four characters are well brought out, that is Tom, his mother Amanda, Sister Laura and friend Jim. The characters meet together on the day Tom invites Jim to their house, and Laura’s mother thinks she has got a suitor for is her daughter.

Tom Wingfield

Tom Wingfield is the only son of the Wingfield family; He lives with his mother Amanda and sister Laura. His father deserted them and so he carries on, his responsibility by providing for the family, he later leaves the family never to return.

He is frustrated with life and wants to leave for a strange adventure. This comes out clearly when he talks to Jim about his future at their house and even leaves the family. Tom also performs as the narrator in the play.

Laura Wingfield

Laura is Tom’s sister and has been out of high school for six years. She is shy and only focuses on her glass figurines. She is crippled and loves Jim so much but gets disappointed when Jim tells her he is engaged. She is described as losing touch with reality and as fragile as her glass collections. She is tender, especially in the way she deals with Jim. Laura is lonely and this is conveyed when her mother tries to find a suitor for her. She is also cheerful as she receives Jim, her dream man, into the house and even faints for Joy.

Amanda Wingfield

Amanda is both Tom and Laura’s mother. She is depicted as loving; this is conveyed in her love for them. She keeps track of her children’s emotional and physical status, for instance, she reprimands Tom for bad eating habits as well as the job he does.

She tries to help Laura gain confidence and even tries to find a suitor for her in Jim. She is also temperamental especially towards Tom; she expects too much from her son and is greatly disappointed in Him. Laura is caring, she wants good things for her children and keeps them on course where possible, and this she does when she prepares Laura for Jim. Amanda is also lonely, for she is single and deserted by her husband, frequent quarreling in the house also keeps her lonely (Bradford 1-2).

Jim

Jim is Tom’s friend at work and they were in the same high school with Laura. He is described as a well mannered, handsome and polite young man who studies public speaking so as to become an executive. He is empathetic; this is seen in how he encourages Laura to be confident and even dances with her. Jim is also truthful, this is seen in the way he tells Laura that he is engaged to be married.

How Laura’s relationship with Jim changed the tone of the play

Earlier in the play, we are told that Laura was shy and delicate just like her glass figurines. Her mother had tried to cheer her and find her a suitor to no avail. She could not go out like the others ladies, instead she remained fixed on her glass figurines.

Jovial Tone

Just before Jim came into the house, expectation was high; Amanda was trying all her best to prepare Laura for her suitor Jim. Everyone was cheerful, expectant and hoping for the best except Jim who had intentionally defaulted in paying electricity bill. Jim seemed not to care much for her sister Laura as he kept dragging his feet on bringing her a suitor.

We are told that Laura and Jim were in high school together, along with Tom. Laura had a childhood dream, to get married to Jim; he was the most handsome boy that had ever happened to her.

Aggressive Tone

When Jim entered the house, he was perplexed as to the welcoming he received. Everything was ready and Amanda was cheerful, Laura on the other hand, was both surprised and excited as to the scene that was presented before her. She even fainted at the thought of meeting her dream man.

The tone of play changes when Jim reveals to Laura that he is engaged. Laura had hoped to finally find her man Jim, especially when he made the initiative to talk to her, but this did not work out, she was disappointed and dejected for the man was never going to be with her.

Aggressive tone is quite rampant towards the end of this play as Amanda furiously demands answers from Tom as to why he had brought someone’s fiancée. Anger flares in all direction from Amanda, while Laura cries uncontrollably. Tom decides to desert the family. He leaves his mother and sister helpless and jobless. This sentiment is shared by Amanda when she flares her anger at Tom towards the end of the play.

Sad tone

Laura is on a sad note having missed the opportunity to have her man. She is dejected and disappointed in what has happened. Amanda on the other hand is very much disappointed and regrets having spent a lot of cash on preparation of Laura for an engaged person. The tone is sad and everything looks gloomy as Tom leaves home for an adventure.

Angry Tone

The story ends in an angry tone as anger flares everywhere, Amanda is very annoyed by Tom’s behavior of bringing an engaged friend to meet her sister. This enrages her and breaks the family code that was already loose and unstable due to hardships and conflicts. Tom therefore decides to leave her family and never returns (Bradford 1-2).

Conclusion

The play starts in a melancholic state and continues as family members struggle with hardships, Amanda is expecting too much from her children; Laura is very shy and delicate, while Tom is fantasizing about the world.

These young adults need to make it in life, the mother tries to make them so but they seem unprepared, the tone of the play starts in mild state, moves through a jovial state when Amanda and Laura meet Jim, but the tone moves back to an aggressive, angry as well as sad tone.

This is because of their disappointment in Jim and Tom who had brought him, the family breaks from Tom as he escapes and leaves his responsibilities (Pretorius 339-3560).

Works Cited

“The Book of the Dead Man (The Red Wheelbarrow).”Boulevard. 109-110. OpoJaz, Inc., 2010. Literary Reference Center.EBSCO. Web.

Bradford, Wade. “The Glass Menagerie.” About.com Guide. 2011. Web.

Pretorius, Elizabeth J. “Issues of complexity in reading: Putting Occam’s razor aside for now.” Southern African Linguistics & Applied Language Studies 28.4 (2010): 339-356. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web.

Williams, William Carlos. “The Red Wheelbarrow.”Literature: Craft & Voice. Eds. Nicholas Delbanco and Alan Cheuse. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2009.155. Print.

Introduction

Amanda, Tom, and Laura are the principal characters in Tennessee Williams’ play “The Glass Menagerie.” The three of them are the remaining members of a small family who have been deserted by a wandering yet a charming father. Amanda is the mother, raised in the Old South, who finds it difficult to accept both her age and her current financial position.

Although Tom is the younger of the two children, he is mostly responsible for the family as the only male.

The play opens with him working at a job he detests while dreaming of traveling and being a writer. His frustration is expressed through his drinking and going to the movies in the evenings and reading and writing poetry on the job. Both of these characters revolve around Laura, the extremely shy sister. She suffers from a crippling disease (pleurodesis) which forces her to wear a brace on her leg and walk with a limp, and she spends her time dreaming about her glass figurines. Although they each do it differently, all three of these characters are guilty of escaping into a world of illusion to avoid reality.

An illusion of Tom’s mind

Tom’s first words reveal that the entire play is an illusion. His first words are “the play is a memory” (I, 145).

Tom keeps separating himself from the action of the play from time to time to narrate and point to specific ideas or events or make other comments, which reminds the audience that the play is an illusion of Tom’s mind. By keeping the concept that almost the entire play is a memory belonging to Tom in clear focus, Williams can illustrate how memory has become Tom’s illusion, something he can’t help escaping to no matter where his travels take him. Tom tells the audience at the end of the play that he followed “in my father’s footsteps, attempting to find in motion what was lost in space. I traveled around a great deal … I would have stopped, but I was pursued by something” (VII, 237).

That something turns out to be the memories he has shared through the course of the play. Rather than helping him hide from reality, his memories serve to force reality upon him at odd moments throughout every day.

Laura’s world of illusion

Laura lives in the most obvious world of illusion as she drifts through life in a cloud of disconnection.

She associates the classical music of her records with a happier time in her life while she associates her school days with the ‘thunder’ of her leg brace as she struggled into her music room late day after day. Her past has a huge significance to her present state of apathy, she dropped out of high school because she “made bad grades on my final examinations” (VII, 219) just as she couldn’t go back to business school because “I couldn’t go back there. I – threw up – on the floor!” (II, 155).

Unable to face her reality, Laura fills her time listening to her radio and playing with her glass figures. Her illusion is that time is not passing, that her hopes and dreams of long ago will still be attainable if she can ever move beyond her shyness. Her dreams are echoed in her cherished yearbook in which she still knows how to find the picture of the one boy she liked in high school, Jim O’Connor because he gave her a pet name that didn’t sound like a slur of some sort. “When I had that attack of pleurodesis – he asked me what was the matter when I cam back.

I said pleurodesis – he thought that I said, Blue Roses! So that’s what he always called me after that” (II, 157). She imagines that if she could have gained the attention of Jim O’Connor in high school, her life would be much different. Although Laura allows her memories of the past to paint a picture of the present that is more acceptable than reality, her encounter with reality in the form of the living and breathing Jim O’Connor allows her to realize that her trap is large of her imagination.

Memories of Amanda

The character who lives most within the illusions created by her memory is Amanda, the mother. Her first words in the play indicate her inability to leave her past in the past as she instructs Tom in the proper forms of eating and then tells stories of her immense popularity as a Southern belle in the Old South.

Although she takes on odd jobs to try to earn enough money to pay for the little extras around the house, she does not have the skills to take on a regular out-of-the-home job nor, as a proper Southern belle, would she consider it. Her refusal to exist in the present is also demonstrated in her dedication and devotion to the DAR. She even points out Laura’s attributes in terms of old values, “It’s rare for a girl as sweet and pretty as Laura to be domestic! But Laura is thank heavens, not only pretty but also very domestic.

I’m not at all. I never was a bit. I never could make a thing but angel-food cake. Well, in the South we had so many servants … I wasn’t prepared for what the future brought me” (VI, 204). Her memories of herself at her daughter’s age have her expecting Laura’s life to begin echoing her own. Not even the brace on her daughter’s leg or the frank comments of her son can wake her up to the facts. However, the shock of Jim’s engagement announcement is seen to have perhaps shaken her out of her imaginary world momentarily at least as expressed in the last image the audience is given of her: “Now that we cannot hear the mother’s speech, her silliness is gone and she has dignity and tragic beauty … Amanda’s gestures are slow and graceful, almost dancelike, as she comforts her daughter” (VII, 236).

Conclusion

Through the action of the play, all three characters experience at least a temporary reality check from the illusory worlds they live in as a result of the power of their memories.

For Tom, the play itself becomes the release of his memory that allows him to find a sense of temporary closure on his past. For Laura, stuck in a steady haze in the present, the realization of her thwarted hopes and dreams from the past allows her to consider new ideas brought in by the hero she envisioned, although not in the way she had imagined. For Amanda, the wake-up call doesn’t come until the end of the play, when she finally acknowledges the truths of the present, “Don’t think about us, a mother deserted, an unmarried sister who’s crippled and has no job!” (VII, 236).

While the duration of this reality check may not be measured in the play or real life, the suddenness of it, for all the characters occurring in the final scene of the play, serves as a wake-up call for the audience as well, to start examining the various areas in which their nostalgic dreams of the past are clouding their perception of the present or the future and preventing them from truly and effectively addressing the issues of the day.

Works Cited

Williams, Tennessee. “The Glass Menagerie.” The Theatre of Tennessee Williams. Vol. 1. New York: New Directions Books: 1971.

Analysis

In Tennessee Williams’ play “The Glass Menagerie,” the story is told of a small family. The father of the family deserted them many years ago and the mother, Amanda, from old Southern genteel stock, finds it nearly impossible to accept her current conditions, instead constantly talking to her children about the good old days when she was popular and surrounded by beaus. The son, Tom, is the younger of the two children and the play opens with him working at a job he detests as a means of supporting his female relatives while secretly dreaming of traveling and being a writer.

However, he knows he will never accomplish his dreams while he is supporting his mother and sister and his frustration is taken out in drinking and going to the movies, which disgusts his mother who feels he should be spending his time in loftier pursuits. Finally, there’s Laura, a young woman who is extremely shy, partly because of her crippling disease (pleurosis) which forces her to wear a brace on her leg and walk with a limp. Too shy to attend the business school her mother enrolled her in and without any friends of her own, Amanda decides marriage is the only answer for Laura and forces Tom to find a beau for his sister. Unfortunately, the one he finds, while perfectly acceptable to both Laura and Amanda, is already engaged and leaves Laura with a broken heart, symbolized by the broken unicorn Laura encourages him to keep as a souvenir. The play is a tragedy because Laura, having already had the opportunity to learn from her past, continues to live in a dream-world of her own creation. She does this by failing to recognize the real strengths and weaknesses of her children and in encouraging her daughter to live the same way.

Throughout the play, Amanda regales her children with stories about when she was young, in the process pointing out the various ways in which Laura is a failure as a daughter. Although this is not necessarily done in a mean way or with deliberate intentions, as she discusses her own days of youth, Amanda continuously points out the various ways in which Laura does not measure up to her expectations. She indicates girls in her time “knew how to entertain their gentleman callers. It wasn’t enough for a girl to be possessed of a pretty face and a graceful figure – although I wasn’t slighted in either respect. She also needed to have a nimble wit and a tongue to meet all occasions” (I, 148).

It is noticed that while Laura has the pretty face, she does not possess the graceful figure her mother deems important thanks to the braced leg nor does she have the sparkling personality her mother lists, being too shy to mumble more than a word or two when confronted by strangers. Amanda’s imagined world is made obvious as the family finishes dinner and Amanda sends Laura out into the family room to prepare for the “flood, there must have been a tornado” of gentlemen callers prepared to spend the evening vying for Laura’s attention rather than recognizing and working with Laura’s true nature. Laura’s feelings of inadequacy are captured with her response to her mother’s preparations, “It isn’t a flood, it’s not a tornado, Mother. I’m just not popular like you were in Blue Mountain” (I, 150). Rather than focusing on the strengths actually possessed by her daughter that can be utilized to help ease her out into society, Amanda insists there is only one way of accomplishing her goals and that is through determined charm and wit, attempting to force Laura into behavior that is completely alien to her and erasing any source of self-confidence Laura might have had.

Like her blind spot regarding Laura’s shyness, Amanda is equally unaware of Tom’s limitations and lack of friends. She’s constantly angry with him for first not bringing home enough money so that she is forced to work on the phone and then for his tendency to go out at night as the only way he can work out his frustrations. Her expectations for him seem to go well beyond the possible for anyone as they are often contradictory or insist upon extreme self-denial. When she asks him to find a gentleman for Laura, the pressure is not just to find someone for Laura to meet, but to find someone willing to marry Laura immediately. Although she tells him she wants him to “Find out one that’s clean-living – doesn’t drink and ask him out for sister … To meet! Get acquainted!” (IV, 176), Tom realizes that a simple acquaintance is not what his mother is seeking. While it seems to Amanda that Tom is putting off inviting someone to dinner, it emerges in scene six that Tom is nearly as friendless as Laura. “I had known Jim slightly in high school … He was the only one at the warehouse with whom I was on friendly terms” (VI, 190). That he genuinely tried to find someone for Laura is evidenced in his recollection that Laura had known Jim in high school and had spoken “admiringly of his voice” (VI, 191). However, his “best friend down at the warehouse” (VII, 235) has a surprise Tom didn’t know about, that he was getting married in June, which Amanda uses to blame Tom for once again thinking only about himself, making the scene even worse for Laura as the play comes to an end.

Although she has had plenty of opportunity to learn how devastating living in a dream world can be, Amanda is constantly building up Laura’s hopes and dreams for a brighter future by washing her in waves of make-believe. Laura simply does not have the same personality that her mother was given, nor does she have the luxurious entertainment space or the opportunity for attending social events that her mother evidently enjoyed. Thus, she cannot possibly meet the number of men Amanda apparently had opportunity to know, nor would she feel comfortable talking with them. Despite this, Amanda continues to encourage her to hold out hopes for a good marriage. This starts with her own recitation of the quality of her suitors, “My callers were gentlemen – all! Among my callers were some of the most prominent young planters of the Mississippi Delta – planters and sons of planters” (I, 148).

As she talks about them, it emerges that about the only one that didn’t amount to anything was the one she married. Immediately upon Tom telling her that he has a friend coming over for dinner, Amanda already considers him her daughter’s future husband. Tom tries to reign her in by stating “Lots of fellows meet girls whom they don’t marry” (V, 184), but Amanda just tells him to “talk sensibly.” She instills in Laura the sense that without a husband, she will be worth nothing and will end up living a worse life even than the one she lives now. She builds up Laura’s hope and secret belief that the boy her brother is bringing home will ‘take her away from all this.’ When it is discovered that the boy is the same boy Laura had a deep crush on in high school, this dream bursts into full flower only to be completely crushed as the family discovers Jim is already planning to be married to someone else very soon.

Conclusion

Throughout the play, it can be seen that Amanda has little idea of how to handle having two children who don’t share her same outlook on life or outgoing personality. She is incapable of seeing how their desperate living conditions, as well as physical conditions in the case of Laura, have affected her children, causing them to be closed off to the outside world. This is made worse by her constantly informing her children of their own failures – Tom’s in not being the inhuman paragon of strength she expects him to be and Laura by not being the vivacious thing Amanda herself used to be in her own youth. By failing to take their individual personalities into consideration, she forces a situation in which both children are sure to fail, proving herself to be, ultimately, the cause for Laura’s broken heart by the end of the play.

Works Cited

Williams, Tennessee. “The Glass Menagerie.” The Theatre of Tennessee Williams. Vol. 1. New York: New Directions Books: 1971.

One of the reasons why Tennessee Williams’s play The Glass Menagerie continues to be referred, as such that represents a particularly high literary value, is that the themes and motifs, contained in it, are discursively relevant. That is, by being exposed to how the play’s characters address life-challenges, viewers do recognize these characters’ innermost psychological anxieties, as such that relate to the ones of their own.

In my paper, I will explore the validity of this suggestion at length, while focusing on the significance of the motif of an existential alienation, which I believe is being prominently featured, throughout the play’s entirety.

Even though that there are a number of clearly defined modernist overtones to how the play’s plot unravels out on the stage, due to the plot’s structural simplicity, grasping it mentally does not represent much of a challenge. In essence, it can be outlined as follows. The character of Amanda Wingfield, who shares a household with her son Tom and her daughter Laura, tries her best to help Laura to find a man who would be willing to marry her.

This, however, is not easily accomplishable, due to both: Laura’s physical deficiency (she limps) and the fact that she happened to be an unnaturally shy individual, afraid of socializing with ‘strangers’. The character of Tom (narrator) temporarily works at a shoe-warehouse, while striving to support his mother and sister.

However, being endowed with artistic aspirations, he finds the routine of addressing his professional duties increasingly unbearable – hence, Tom’s tendency to overindulge in drinking. Being emotionally involved with Laura, Tom also tries to set her up with a potential husband – he invites his coworker Jim to a family-dinner, so that he would be able to get to know Laura better, and eventually to decide to marry her.

Despite her shyness, Laura does become relaxed in Jim’s presence and begins to experience the sensation of being romantically attached to him. However, it does not take too long for her to find out that Jim plans to marry another woman, which results in Laura having sustained yet another emotional blow. The play’s ending implies that Laura effectively gives up on her hope of being able to lead a conventional lifestyle, and becomes socially-withdrawn for the rest of her life.

Thus, it will only be appropriate to suggest that the very subtleties of the plot create objective preconditions for viewers to perceive the play’s characters, as such that do not quite ‘fit’ into the reality that surrounds them. This simply could not be otherwise, because, as the earlier provided outline of Williams’s play implies – these characters never ceased experiencing the sensation of an existential alienation.

The manner, in which the character of Amanda goes about trying to exercise a parental authority within the family, illustrates the legitimacy of this statement perfectly well. For example, in her conversations with Tom and Laura, Amanda never ceases to promote the so-called ‘traditional values’, deeply imbedded in the notion of religion.

Hence, Amanda’s insistence that it is not only that people must utter a prayer, before they have a dinner, but that neither of the household members may skip attending this ritual: “Amanda: We can’t say grace until you (Tom) come to the table!” (Williams 753). Apparently, it never occurred to Amanda that the very realities of living in the early 20^th century’s America were exposing the sheer erroneousness of Biblical fables.

This is why the Amanda’s traditionalist approach to parenting could not prove effective, by definition. As a result, Amanda was becoming increasingly frustrated with her inability to instill Laura and Tom with ‘proper morals’, which in turn was causing her to suspect that she probably was not a ‘good mother’, after all.

It is needless to mention, of course, that this could not result in anything else, but in making Amanda ever more psychological uncomfortable with the surrounding socio-cultural environment.

This is exactly the reason why Amanda would never skip an opportunity to reflect upon how things used to be back in the past: “Amanda: One Sunday afternoon in Blue Mountain – your mother received – seventeen gentlemen-callers! We had to send the nigger over to bring in folding chairs from the parish house” (754).

The very delight, with which Amanda expounds on her memories of the past, leaves no doubts as to the fact that, psychologically speaking, Amanda was growing increasingly tempted to submerge into the ‘reality’ of the past, while ignoring the actual reality of the present (Bluefarb 513).

Essentially the same thesis applies to the character of Laura, even though that, unlike her mother, she was not overly fascinated with the ‘good ole’ days’. Being an emotionally sensitive girl, who used to experience the sensation of inferiority (due to having to wear braces on her leg), Laura could not help creating her own ‘world’ of little figurines of exotic animals, made out of glass, among which she felt thoroughly comfortable.

As time went on, Laura was becoming progressively withdrawn, while preoccupying herself with taking care of her beloved figurines. This, of course, used to cause Amanda a great deal of worry: “Now all she (Laura) does is fool with those pieces of glass and play those worn-out records. What kind of a life is that for a girl to lead?” (758).

Nevertheless, contrary to what Amanda used to believe, her daughter’s mental condition could hardly be remedied by the mean of encouraging Laura to socialize more. Apparently, Laura’s obsession with the ‘glass menagerie’ extrapolated her cognitive and emotional incompatibility with the functioning of the American materialistic society.

Hence, the symbolical significance of Jim’s rhetorical question: “Unicorns, aren’t they extinct in the modern world?” (774) – without intending to do it rationally, Jim did hint that individuals like Laura (the ones that indulge in a socially withdrawn daydreaming) will never be able to adjust to the real world.

Therefore, there is nothing utterly surprising about the fact that, throughout the course of the play’s entirety, Laura is being represented as an individual, whose biological vitality has been irrevocably undermined. In its turn, this explains why, as opposed to what it happened to be the case with her mother, the Laura’s sense of existential alienation has strongly defined tragic undertones to it.

Even though that, formally speaking, the play’s narrator (Jim) does not appear to experience the sensation of a societal alienation, this is far from being the actual case. This is because, despite the fact that Jim does tend to indulge in a number of different socialization-related activities, without seeming to suffer any emotional damage, as a result, he finds it increasingly difficult adjusting to his social role of a warehouse-worker.

There is a memorable scene in the play, where Jim comes up with the emotionally-charged speech, on the subject of his deep-seated incompatibility with the idea that working at a warehouse accounts for his ‘true calling’: “You think I’m crazy about the warehouse? You think I’m in love with the Continental Shoemakers?

You think I want to spend fifty-five years down there in that – celotex interior! with – fluorescent – tubes! Look! I’d rather somebody picked up a crowbar and battered out my brains – than go back mornings!” (757). Apparently, being an idealistically-minded young man, Tom could never adjust to the prospect of spending the rest of his life, working as a manual laborer.

This is the reason why, throughout the play, Tom acts as a socially alienated individual, who strives to overcome the sensation of being ‘unfit’ to lead the conventional lifestyle of a laborer by the mean of uttering sarcastic remarks, every time he finds it appropriate.

As King (1973) noted: “Tom toys with the same madness in which his sister Laura is trapped but saves himself with irony” (209). Therefore, just as it happened to be the case with the earlier mentioned characters, Tom appears to have suffered from his deep-seated suspicion of himself being not quite ‘normal’ – hence, the clearly defined motif of alienation to the manner, in which this particular character addresses life-challenges.

Even the play’s most conventional character Jim, also seems to be affected by his realization of the fact that he is not quite as successful, as he hoped he would be: “I hoped when I was going to high-school that I would be further along at this time, six years later, than I am now” (778).

In fact, this appears to be the actual reason why he was able to get along with Laura right away – apparently, Jim was no stranger to the sensation of being a ‘loser’, which is why he could well relate to the Laura’s emotional state of being. However, unlike what it was the case with Tom, Jim never had any aspirations of grandeur, which is why he was able to successfully deal with his alienation-related anxieties (Cluck 87).

The deployed line of argumentation does substantiate the idea that, in The Glass Menagerie, it was specifically the main characters’ subtle understanding that they do not quite belong to this world, which prevented them from being able to enjoy their lives to the fullest. Therefore, it would only be logical to assume that in Williams’s play, the theme of alienation affects plot’s developments more than anything else does.

Given the fact that, it was implied earlier, the realities of a post-industrial living do cause more and more Americans to grow increasingly detached from the classical (euro-centric) conventions of what should be considered one’s ‘purposeful life’, there is nothing too surprising about the cult-status of this particular Williams’s play.

After all, just as it was the case with the characters of Amanda, Tom and Laura, many contemporary Americans (particularly Whites) do realize themselves being in no position to be able to keep up with the pace of a social progress – hence, their tendency to choose in favor of socially-withdrawn lifestyles. I believe that this conclusion fully correlates with the paper’s initial thesis.

Works Cited

Bluefarb, Sam. “The Glass Menagerie: Three Visions of Time.” College English 24.7 (1963): 513-518. Print.

Cluck, Nancy. “Showing or Telling: Narrators in the Drama of Tennessee Williams.” American Literature 51.1 (1979): 84-93. Print.

King, Thomas. “Irony and Distance in ‘The Glass Menagerie’.” Educational Theatre Journal 25.2 (1973): 207-214. Print.

Williams, Tennessee 1945, The Glass Menagerie. Web.

Introduction

The Glass Menagerie is a play that was written by Tennessee Williams and debuted in Chicago in 1944. It won a New York Drama Critics Award a year later. The Glass Menagerie propelled Williams to higher circles in the literary industry and established him as one of the most articulate playwrights in America.

Plot

The Glass Menagerie has three major characters, Tom Wingfield, his mother, Amanda and his sister, Laura. Tom is an upcoming poet and works in a warehouse. His father abandoned them some years back and, apart from one postcard, has not communicated with the family since. Tom’s mother is from a genteel southern ancestry and frequently narrates the stories of her youth to her children and the number of suitors who wanted her. She is upset that her daughter, who is agonizingly shy, does not draw a similar number of suitors.

Amanda takes her daughter to college hoping that she will have her own family and an occupation. However, she discovers that Laura’s extremely shy behavior has made her to drop out of college and spends her days roaming in the city all by herself. Laura’s only comfort seems to come from her music records and a set of small animal statuettes.

Tom hates his job and is dying to leave the family in order to have fun in the outside world, he frequently stays out late and claims to have been at the movies. In one of the disagreements with his mother, he unintentionally breaks Laura’s animal statuettes.

Amanda tells Tom to find suitors for Laura at the workplace and Tom chooses Jim O’Connor, his friend, and asks him for dinner at their place. We learn that Jim went to the same school as Tom and Laura. Before Jim’s arrival, Laura makes Amanda to wear a new dress while she wears a beautiful gown to remind her of her youth.

Jim arrives and is let in by Laura, but she leaves, leaving the two men alone. Tom informs Jim that he used the electricity bill to join the merchant marine and intends to leave the family, Jim informs about his aspirations to become an executive. The lights go out as the characters are still having dinner and are forced to light candles. Amanda persuades Jim to entertain Laura as she and Tom clean up.

Laura is initially too shy to converse with Jim, but his friendliness soon warms her up to him. She admits that she knew and developed a crush on Jim but was too shy to talk to him. They talk fondly about their schooldays for some time. Laura then decides to show Jim her favorite animal figurine, a unicorn, but he unintentionally knocks it and its horn breaks, making it resemble other horses. Shockingly, she forgives him and laughs off the occurrence. It is obvious she likes him. Eventually, Jim tells her,

“Somebody needs to build your confidence up and make you proud instead of shy and turning away and—blushing—Somebody ought to—ought to—kiss you, Laura!” (Williams, scene 7). He kisses her but swiftly withdraws, apologizes, and mentions that he has a fiancée. Laura presents him with the broken animal as a memento.

As soon as Jim leaves, Amanda reprimands Tom for bringing home an engaged man for a suitor. Tom had not known that Jim had a fiancée. As they argue, Tom shouts:

“The more you shout about my selfishness to me the quicker I’ll go, and I won’t go to the movies!” (Williams, scene 7).

Tom becomes the narrator at this moment as he was at the opening of the play and explains how he left his family and ran away, just as his father did. He spent many years journeying overseas, but something still bothered him: he is unable to forget the guilt that Laura placed on him.

Characterization

Tom Wingfield

Tom acts as the author’s mouthpiece in some scenes. He provides a separate explanation and evaluation of what is taking place. He also acts in the play. This duality in role makes Tom’s position confusing to the audience, as we do not know whether to trust the role he plays as a character in the play or that of being a narrator. However, The Glass Menagerie is partially an autobiography and Tom is Tennessee William’s mouthpiece, therefore we can learn of William’s experience in his own youth through Tom (Heintzelman & Howard, pp. 182).

Tom is full contradictions, on one hand he reads books, writes poems, and wishes he could escape the family and have adventure, but on the other hand, he appears to be inextricably attached to the nasty, paltry world of the Wingfield apartment. We know that he studies D. H. Lawrence’ works and tracks the politics of Europe, but we do not know his intellectual ability. Besides, we have no knowledge of the genre of his poetry. All we know is his thoughts on Laura, Amanda, and his job- exactly the things he wants to flee.

Tom’s position on his mother and sister is clearly puzzling. While he evidently cares for them, he is often unconcerned and even mean to them. His closing speech shows how strongly he feels for Laura, yet he abandoned her (Bloom, pp. 57).

Amanda Wingfield

Amanda has a hard time measuring up to her role as a single parent. She is frequently nagging Tom and refuses to recognize Laura’s shy behavior. She also reveals a readiness to sacrifice herself for her children. Fro example, she engages in the embarrassing labor of subscription sales to increase Laura’s chances of landing a suitor, she does it without ever complaining.

Similar to Laura and Tom, she pulls out of reality and engages in fantasy: she frequently tells her children of the number of suitors that came after her, and wishes the same for Laura. However, she feels she is not doing enough and involves outsiders. Her numerous monologues with her children plainly reveal her moral and psychological failures, but they are also some of the most vivid and memorable statements in the play.

Laura Wingfield

The emotionally disabled Laura is the only character that never upsets anyone. Despite having a heavy burden, she demonstrates deep kindness and empathy: she sheds tears due to her brother’s unhappiness despite the egotistic and resentful acts that typify the Wingfield household (Williams, scene 4). She has the least role in the play among the Wingfields, yet everything in the play revolves around her. The major symbols in the play- blue roses, the glass unicorn, the complete glass menagerie- all seem to characterize her (Bloom, pp. 74).

Everyone in the play sees Laura as one who can assume whatever role they wish, similar to a transparent glass that takes on any color going through it. Her mother uses her to stress how glamorous she was during her youth days while Jim and Tom view her as an exotic being, very different from others.

Themes

The Impossibility of True Escape

Tom amuses his sister with the story of a magic show in which the magician escapes from a nailed coffin. He pictures his life at home and at the workplace as a confinement. The desire to escape haunts him throughout the play and in the end, he opts to free himself by running away from his mother and sister.

This escape haunts him wherever he goes and leads to questions of morality. How does an able-bodied young man leave his struggling mother and a sister behind for reasons only beneficial to himself? Leaving home is no true escape for him and no matter how far he wanders, memories of home still linger in his mind.

Difficulty of Accepting Reality

One feature of characters in The Glass Menagerie is their difficulty in accepting the truth, especially Amanda. Laura’s keeps glass animal figurines- items that are fanciful and precariously fragile. Tom is a realist: he has a job and makes friends with other people, be eventually succumbs to fantasies written in books and the trance offered by alcohol, he runs away from home to seek adventure.

Amanda’s relationship with reality is the most distant if the three: she desires to achieve financial and social success and wishes the same for her daughter. She cannot come to terms with the realities of life, for example, she refuses to accept that Tom is not an upcoming businessman, that Laura is unique, and that she might be to blame for some of her children’s failures (Heintzelman & Howard, pp. 257).

Works Cited

Bloom, Harold. Bloom’s Modern Critical Interpretations. New York: InfoBase Publishing, 2007.

Heintzelman, Greta and Howard, Alycia Smith. Critical Companion to Tennessee Williams. New York: Facts on File, Inc., 2005.

Williams, Tennessee. The Glass Menagerie. New York: Random House, 1945.

The Glass Menagerie is a beautiful and appealing play written by Tennessee Williams in 1944. The story provides an insight into one unhappy family, in which each member feels lonely and wasted upon. Among the main topics involved are the beauty and its vulnerability, the balance between social obligations and personal freedom, parental authority, memories of long ago, and escaping from reality.

The Play

The most notable feature of the play is its symbolism, which is demonstrated by the author in a variety of ways. The glass is the most important symbol, as the name of the play suggests. Laura’s glass collection represents fragility and beauty, but it has no practical point. The broken piece stands for the broken heart of the girl. Another symbol for Laura’s ephemerality is her nickname “Blue Roses,” which Jim gives her in the following words, “They are common as – weeds, but you – well – you’re – Blue Roses!” (Tennessee 87). Laura strongly depends on her family and lives in isolation like a ghost. The fire escape symbolizes getting away from reality, and the narrator’s monologues take place there. Finally, the act of blowing out the candles probably means the end of all hopes for Laura and the end of the old life for Tom.

The Characters

Amanda Wingfield used to be the reigning beauty of a small town, but now she is an abandoned spouse living on the memories of long ago. Amanda can hardly accept her present position, and as a devoted mother, she is fully committed to her children. However, her efforts to make them succeed in life turn to unbearable pressure for both Laura and Tom.

Laura is timid and unsocial due to physical disability. The outside world frightens the girl, and her way of escaping from reality is the glass collection. However, she is not dead inside and has feelings towards a young man.

Tom is committed to poetry, but he has to work in a shoe warehouse to support his family. He feels imprisoned both at work and home. “I know I seem dreamy, but inside — well, I’m boiling!” he exclaims (Tennessee 62). Night movies are his escape. Amanda wants Tom to demonstrate “Spartan endurance!” (Tennessee 32), and to find a husband for Laura. Once her future is safe, he may have a chance to start a new life. Finally, Tom chooses freedom and leaves home. As abandoned Laura and Amanda could die in poverty, it must be a tough decision.

Jim is the long-awaited potential husband for Laura. He is vivid, enthusiastic, and charming, but not willing to marry. After making advances to Laura, he confesses that he is engaged. The girl is hurt, of which the play hints: “Glass breaks so easily. No matter how careful you are” (Tennessee, 86). Maybe the engagement does not exist, but it makes an excellent excuse for Jim.

One more character is the absent Amanda’s husband, who left his family years ago looking for freedom and life pleasures. However, he seems still to belong to the family, which “struggles against hopelessness that threatens their lives” (Nalliveettil and Sobhi 201). The ex-husband remains an authority for Amanda and influences her decisions.

Conclusion

None of the characters in the play is completely good or bad, and the author managed to avoid any black and white coloring. That is why the heroes really seem living and appealing, and one can easily associate himself with any of them. Amanda is tough, but she is a devoted mother, while nice and pretty Laura is a burden to her family. Although the plot and the characters of the play reflect the social background of the middle of the past century, the problems raised by the author are supertemporal and remain challenging for many people in the contemporary world.

Works Cited

Nalliveettil, George, and Mahmoud Sobhi. “Discourse Analysis of Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie.” Advances in Language and Literary Studies, vol. 7, no 3, 2016, pp. 201–10.

Tennessee, Williams. The Glass Menagerie. New Directions, 1999.

Dramatic elements are present in any narrative, whether assembled in a literary form or a cinematic or, traditionally, constituting a theatrical performance. These elements, constituting parts of any well-written narrative, are working towards captivating the audience’s attention and enhancing the story, making it engaging and comprehensible. In that sense, The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams excels by a number of criteria. While each of the dramatic elements serves its own unique purpose in relation to the story, there are ones that are imminently more pronounced than others, which can be owed to Glass Menagerie’s own specificity. Conflict, contrast, and tension are the ones that protrude the most – while at the same time serving the play and its reception remarkably well.

Tension is the first thing one is met with when watching the film. While the opening scene features Tom taking the stance of a dispassionate narrator, later on, it is unveiled by him that he, too, is a character with deep involvement with the story. As soon as it appears clear – the fact that the play’s author is engrossed in the action – the audience experience the first display of tension. The feeling of tightness and lack of physical and emotional freedom is pervasive throughout the play. It is particularly evident when Tom says in a rush of anger that “he has got nothing in his life to call his own”, which is characteristic of a feeling when one is desperate and cornered (Williams 17). In the film, tension is intensified by the dimly lit apartment and repetitive shot angles – the importance of the setting is accentuated. The setting is immensely important as it sets the tone – and it is “critical for interpreting the meaning” (Elements of Drama). Via these visual choices, the audience is able to comprehend the inner world of the characters in full detail.

However, the most prominent dramatic element of The Glass Menagerie is, undoubtedly, its inflating conflict – Amanda’s and Tom’s, and Laura’s ones. Along with tension, conflict is one characteristic that is particularly clear in the play. While Laura’s internal conflict remains to be one of the main driving forces of the narrative, Tom’s and Amanda’s, and even Jim’s, are of importance, too. Tom is indulging in various forms of “compensation for lives passing by without any change,” his mother is being nostalgic for her youth, and Laura is living inside her head (The Glass Menagerie). All of the characters appear to be broken, each in their own way. It is the unique apposition of the trauma of all of those people that makes this conversational play, limited to the setting of their decaying apartment, so interesting to follow.

Interestingly enough, it is Jim, the last character to appear, who allows for one of the most outstanding features of the play to shine in its full glory. Contrast, as it appears in the dialogue between Laura and Jim, is crucial to demonstrating conflict and engaging the viewer’s attention. What happens after Laura has reached a level of intimacy with another person as she has never done before – a moment that is an apex – crushes the audience’s hopes for her fulfilling her romantic dreams. The fact that the only man she has ever loved is engaged to another woman is truly tragic, especially in Laura’s position, which makes it an outstanding example of the use of contrast. Multiple layers of it can be distilled from the text – from the appalling news that Jim has for Laura to the casual behavior that he adopts right after such an intimate, important moment.

Finally, it is essential to note that the usage of the dramatic elements is at its finest in both the play and its cinematographic rendition. Although there are a number of other elements, the building tension, contrast, and conflict are the most characteristic and the most well-executed. With the help of those dramatic devices, the audience is able to see deeper into the different manifestations of human nature and ultimately, themselves.

Works Cited

Williams, Tennessee. The Glass Menagerie. Penguin Books, 1988.

“The Glass Menagerie”, YouTube, uploaded by FilmRise Movies, 2020, Web.

“Elements of Drama.” Lumen, Web.

The Play’s Analysis

It is considered as a memory play. It can therefore be exhibited with rare independence of convention. Owing to its noticeably subtle or questionable content, environmental inferences and finesses of direction take up a very pertinent role. Expressionism as well as other untraditional approaches in drama possesses just a single valid goal which is a quicker methodology to realism or truth.

When a playwright chooses to use exceptional methods in writing his play, it is not thought or should not be in a bid to elude its mandate of countenancing reality or inferring knowledge, but it should be a process of trying to get an easy way to show or clear way to express issues as they exist.

Music, screening, and lighting are important factors of consideration when developing a play and should be well done. All these are achieved in the play as one experiences reading through its plots and lines.

Tom Wingfield

Tom takes a double role in this play. The first role is that of a character having memoirs that the play writes about. The second role is that of a character who mainly acts bound by these very memoirs. It is these double roles which underpin the tension in the play pulling between dramatic realism shown in the play and recollection’s disruption of realism.

There are moments in the play when Tom speaks directly to the audience in a bid to offer a more isolated clarification and evaluation of events that have occurred on stage. The other characters do not do this. Nevertheless, at the same moment, he exhibits actual and at times infantile sentiments as he participates in the acts within the play.

This kind of dualism can upset our consideration of Tom since it is difficult to come to conclusion whether he is that kind of person whose evaluations should be taken seriously or a character who permits his feelings to dent a blow to his personal judgment. In addition it shows the way recollection is intrinsically challenging. This is because memory is normally incorporated to deal with a past where an individual was not as virtuous as he may be at present.

Even when considered as the only character within the play, contradiction seems to fill his life. On one side of the coin, he immerses himself into reading literature, writing poetic contents, and hopes for the better things in life. However, on the other side of the coin, Tom appears intricately bound for the grotesque, simple environment of the Wingfield family.

Amanda Wingfield

One distinct character which marks the play’s dramatic plot can be said to be that of a faded southern belle. Wingfield clearly represents this attribute. Typically, the playwright’s faded belle is one from a well-known community or family from the south, has been brought up in a conservative way, and has gone through the pains of dealing with a reverse of financial as well as social well-being at one time in life.

Just like Wingfield, such ladies have all gone through a difficult time in appreciating the new status that they enjoy in the society and particularly with the new society which fails to take into consideration the social differences which they were taught to hold dear. How they relate with men as well as their families is quite problematic, and they strictly conserve the norms of their past.

As it is with Wingfield, their conservation of proper conduct in very impolite environments may be seen as disastrous, amusing, or totally ugly. Amanda Wingfield comes across as the most vociferous as well as theatrical actor, and one among the contemporary American drama most admired female characterization.

Laura Wingfield

Laura is physically as well as emotionally deprived as can be seen from the play. She is also the only actor within the play who avoids doing deeds that might be hurtful to others. Despite the fact that she faces too much trouble handling her personal challenges, she exhibits true kindness. This is evident when she cries and feels sad because Tom is not happy as told by Amanda in the fourth scene.

This attribute is contrastingly different as with the rest of the family members within the Wingfield family who are characterized by extreme selfishness. One cannot help but also notice that Laura similarly has the fewest lines in the entire play to stage. This indeed plays a big part why she is considered more selfless than everyone else.

However, she remains the center where the whole plot of the play focuses on. The most conspicuous signs in the play such as the blue roses, the glass unicorn as well as the glass menagerie seem to in a big way refer to her character. She is as uncommon and strange as a blue rose or a unicorn. She is also considered as delicate as a figurine made from glass. The last character is Jim O’connor who is considered as a very good gentleman.

In conclusion, the play has been developed well to encompass all the attributes of a well written play. Characters are properly molded to represent distinct characters of their own and matched with the correct personalities as intended by the playwright. Lastly, it is easy to identify themes within the play that are quite connected to the playwright’s life.

Introduction

Tennessee Williams, a prominent playwright of his own epoch was born on 26 March 1911 in Columbus where he lived with his family consisting of his grandfather who was a religious man in the church, his father who was a salesman who travels a lot working in trade, his mother who was an aggressive woman and his sister Rose who was suffering from a mental disease. He also had a brother whose name was Dakin but he was away from that relationship.

From the very beginning, he had a talent in writing, he began to write poetry while he was in high school, he published his early writings and so he got lots of admiration and prizes, then he joined the University of Iowa, working menial jobs and traveling from city to city. He continued to work on drama. During the Second World War he worked as a scriptwriter, but he despised it. He decided to submit his own work entitled “The Glass Menageries” It becomes one of the most beloved plays of that time.

Main body

His famous play «The Glass Menageries” acquired William most of his fame. It was a kind of personal or autobiographical play.

One important key to the play is that it’s highly connected with William’s own life. The character of Amanda is related to his own mother, and the physically handicapped Laura is based on his sister Rose. In addition during Williams lift he felt guilty to leave his ill sister to live far from her brother and to die. The same happens in the play the hero Tom feels as if he is betraying his sister by leaving home.

More over the character of Tom is based on the character of Williams whose first name was Thomas. Although Williams’s first professionally produced play, Battle of Angels, closed in 1940 because of poor reviews and a censorship controversy, his early amateur productions of Candles to the Sun and Fugitive Kind were well-received by audiences in St. Louis. By 1945 he had completed and opened on Broadway The Glass Menagerie, perhaps his best-known play, which won that year’s New York Critics Circle,Donaldson, and Sidney Howard Memorial awards.

Williams ‘ The Glass Menagerie is considered as a memory play as its actions are drawn from the memories of its narrator, the hero of the play” Tom”. Tom’s character in somehow fits the character of the author himself” Williams” who wrote the play as an autobiography.

Tennessee Williams claimed that all of his major plays fell in the kind of a “memory play” format he described in his production notes for The Glass Menagerie. The memory play consists of a three-part structure:

1. a character experiences something profound;
2. that experience happens what Williams terms an “arrest of time,” a situation in which time literally loops upon itself; and
3. the character must re-live that profound experience (caught in a sort of mobius loop of time) until she or he makes sense of it.

The overarching theme for his plays, he claimed, is the negative impact that conventional society has upon the “sensitive nonconformist individual.”

Quotations

“On those occasions they call me – Ell Diablo! Oh, I could tell you things to make you sleepless! My enemies plan to dynamite this place. They’re going to blow us all sky-high some night! I’ll be glad, very happy, and so will you! You’ll go up, up on a broomstick, over Blue Mountain with seventeen gentlemen callers!” Tom says this to Amanda in a fit of rage.

“But the most wonderfullest trick of all was the coffin trick…. There is a trick that would come in handy for me-get me out of this 2 by 4 situation.” Tom says this to Laura after coming back drunk from the movies and magic show.

“Laura! Why, Laura, you are sick, darling! Tom, help your sister into the living room, dear!… I told her that it was just too warm this evening, but – Is Laura all right now?” Amanda tells this to Laura, Jim and Tom at the dinner.

“You know what I judge to be the trouble with you? Inferiority complex! Know what that is? That’s what they call it when someone low-rates himself! I understand it because I had it, too. Although my case was not so aggravated as yours seems to be.” Jim tells this to Laura when they are alone together after the dinner.

Summary of the play

The play talks about the life of a middle –class family located in the south of USA. It is consists of Amanda, the mother , Tom and Laura. Unfortunately the father left he home several years ago. Laura was a handicapped girl, so she is always disappointed that nobody admire her and she will never got married. Tom was a careless guy, he didn’t care about his family especially his ill sister. He left his work to find himself in movies literature and always he returns home late at night drunk. Amanda and her son decided to help Laura to get out from her disappointment, they call a casual fried “Jim” for dinner, they intended to get Laura and the caller alone.

At the beginning she refused to sit with him but later as the dinner ended they had a chance to be alone, soon she began to get out from her shyness shell. After they spend a good time together dancing she realized that Jim is engaged. He left to meet her girlfriend. Amanda sees him off warmly but, after he is gone, turns on Tom, who had not known that Jim was engaged. Amanda accuses Tom of being an inattentive, selfish dreamer and then throws herself into comforting Laura. From the fire escape outside of their apartment, Tom watches the two women and explains that, not long after Jim’s visit, he gets fired from his job and leaves Amanda and Laura behind. Years later, though he travels far, he finds that he is unable to leave behind guilty memories of Laura.

References

“The Glass Menagerie By Tennessee Williams”. Anti Essays. 2008. Web.

J. Devlin, Albert. Conversations with Tennessee Williams. University Press of Mississippi: Mississippi, 1986.

Tennessee Williams, Harold Bloom (editor). Comprehensive Research and Study Guide Bloom’s Major Dramatists. Pennsylvania: Broomall, 2000.

The Glass Menagerie is a memory play by American playwright and screenwriter Tennessee Williams. The play is autobiographical; it was first performed in 1944. The Glass Menagerie entails various elements of theatre, which play a crucial role in delivery. The distinctive feature of the play is the unrealism of events as each character lives in two worlds: a real and an imaginary one, bringing something that reality cannot offer. At the same time, all characters are prototypes of real individuals whose figures are not created by imagination but reconstructed from the author’s memory. This dualism is achieved by three elements of theater: individual performances, sound, and lighting, which are collectively paramount in the play.

The “real” part of the play is concentrated around the relationships between members of Wingfield’s family, with the most complicated of them between Amanda and Tom. The depth and complexity of their communication are effectively delivered in the play through individual performances of the actors. They express a diverse spectrum of emotions through facial expressions and body language, and the importance of the gestures is highlighted by the author in comments supporting dialogs (Williams, 2011). Given that most scenes seem unrealistic, hyperbolized concepts constructed by creative imagination, acting is crucial to ensure an unrealistic perspective of events and maintain the wholeness of characters, who make the audience empathize and draw parallels with their own lives. The individual performances in The Glass Menagerie are key to telling a deeply personal story whereby maintaining an imaginative basis of events.

Music plays an important role in The Glass Menagerie by introducing symbolic significance and helping to convey a sense of emotion throughout the play. For example, in the fourth act, the author includes Ave Maria as a background, which is both symbolic and functional: it allows the audience to sense her pure feelings for Amanda to her daughter. Furthermore, it serves as a symbol of the Biblical image of the mother. The music follows the scenes with Laura, another character in the play, who plays music to escape reality (Williams, 2011). These examples indicate that music in the play is one of the foremost instruments that express the idea of escapism and contributes to character development.

The theme of hope and hopelessness is effectively conveyed in the play by manipulating the lighting. The lighting is decreased when characters feel miserable and increases when they find hope. It allows to keep the atmosphere of memory and increases the symbolism created using music. For example, the production notes to the scene mentioned above with Laura say that “The light upon Laura should be distinct from the others, having a peculiar, pristine clarity such as light used in early religious portraits of female saints or madonnas” (Williams, 2011). Therefore, the light is an important instrument to convey basic ideas of the play and a useful tool to visualize the importance of memory.

The Glass Menagerie entails many ideas and themes like memory, hope, and escapism, which require complex and diverse instruments for effective delivery. Acting provides means to uncover complicated relationships between characters, whereby keeping the resemble of their real-life prototypes acting in the unreal atmosphere created by the author’s imagination. Music is symbolic and helps to emphasize dramatic moments. The use of light is crucial to delivering the cloudiness of the memory and pointing to the source of events. These elements of theatre collectively helped Williams develop the complex and touching play.

Reference

Williams, T. (2011). The glass menagerie. New Directions Publishing.