The Glass Menagerie

Written by Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie is a masterpiece and it passes as a memory play for it exposits Tom Wingfield’s thoughts. A wishful poet, brother to Laura, and son to Amanda and ever absent Mr. Wingfield; Tom works hard in a shoe store to provide for his mother and sister. Amanda on the other side is a complicated mother who regales her children in this moment and scolds them in the next.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on The Glass Menagerie specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Amanda plays important role in Laura’s reticence and pathological shyness. While she cannot be blamed for making her shy in the first place, she is to blame for making Laura’s continued shyness. Instead of supporting Laura emotionally, she goes out to look for quick fixes and material gains. First, she enrols her in a business school for her to earn some good fortune. After realizing Laura’s weakne ss has kept her out of school, she does not care to investigate the problem and settle it amicably; on the contrary, she resorts into finding her a fiancà ©. These are uninformed decisions and she is to blame for Laura’s continued shyness. If only Amanda were supportive, Laura would probably gain self-confidence and have high self-esteem. Amanda’s reminiscences on her youth in the South are not reliable. They are too overstated to be true. How can someone get seventeen callers in one afternoon? This is unrealistic; therefore, judged from this platform, Amanda’s reminiscences are treacherous. Throughout this play, there are different forms of music, movies, and legends. These elements create emotional impact in the play. The audience can connect with the main characters. For instance, the music and lightning used make the audience connect with Laura’s shortcomings, Amanda’s indifference, and Tom’s struggles. This play suggests a repressed desire boiling under the surface. Tom holds this burning passion; he wants to get out there and explore the world. This burning desire explains why Tom visits a witchdoctor and finds a way of getting out of a coffin without the hustle of pulling any nail. He coffin here represents Wingfield’s home. The object of Tom’s longing is to explore the world out there and this is why he plans to accompany Merchant Seamen to get out and explore the world. He says, â€Å"I am tired†¦movies tranquilize people, making them content to watch other people’s adventures without having any of their own†¦plan to join the Merchant Seamen† (Tennessee 62). This trip would finally quench Tom’s desire to explore the world.Advertising Looking for essay on american literature? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Absence of Mr. Wingfield affects his children and wife greatly. Tom has to work for the family whilst Laura knows only a nagging mother. Perhaps she would gain self-confidence and self-esteem if she had her father around her. Amanda is ever worried because of her fatherless family. She is too concerned about her family’s financial security that she would not let Tom leave without getting Laura a suitor who would provide for her. To counter her fears, Amanda enrols Laura in a business school hoping that she would be stable; provide for her self and probably for the family. This stems from the fact that she fears without a father; her family would be insecure. If only Mr. Wingfield were around, she would be financially secure. Jim O’Connor is a â€Å"nice, ordinary, young man† (Tennessee 5). These adjectives come out clearly in the context of the play. Due to his ‘ordinary’ nature, he manages to win Laura’s confidence, dances with her, and finally kisses her. His ‘niceness’ drives away Laura’s fears and low self-esteem and she opens up to him. As the play closes, Tom tells Laura, â€Å"Blow out your candles, Laura–and so good-bye† (Tennessee 97). Audience may respond to this statement by concurring to it. Laura has to blow out her candles and reach for the lighting that lights the world nowadays. Tom is the protagonist in this story. Tom is the most crucial to the play’s dramatic action because everything revolves around him. Without him, the Wingfields would not be, Jim would be unknown, and the central theme of illusions would not be realized. Works Cited Tennessee, Williams. â€Å"The Glass Menagerie.† Oxford; Heinemann Educational Publishers, 1968. This essay on The Glass Menagerie was written and submitted by user Dorothy Hart to help you with your own studies. You are free to use it for research and reference purposes in order to write your own paper; however, you must cite it accordingly. You can donate your paper here. The Glass Menagerie 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.Advertising We will write a custom term paper sample on The Glass Menagerie specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More 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 si milar 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 arriv es 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,Advertising Looking for term paper on art and design? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More â€Å"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 fiancà ©e. 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 fiancà ©e. As they argue, Tom shouts: â€Å"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 place d 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).Advertising We will write a custom term paper sample on The Glass Menagerie specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More 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 Menag erie 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.Advertising Looking for term paper on art and design? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More 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. This term paper on The Glass Menagerie was written and submitted by user Sofia Martinez to help you with your own studies. You are free to use it for research and reference purposes in order to write your own paper; however, you must cite it accordingly. You can donate your paper here.