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In The Glass Menagerie, the self-induced isolation of Laura stands in parallel to the mostly perceived isolation of Tom. These siblings suffer from symbiotic emotional illnesses that, if we are to understand Williams' works taken together, are indicative of a home itself shrouded in an unhealthy blanket of stunted relationships and the chilling void of empathy.
The Glass Menagerie would be the first of his plays to achieve widespread critical and popular success, with a series of Pulitzer Prize and Drama Critic Circle recognitions distinguishing his period of greatest literary achievement. Ultimately though, the text seems through the actions of a character such as Tom, to function as a statement of resistance against the ordinary confines which his family life seemed to have thrust upon Williams. In The Glass Menagerie Williams provides a narrative that is deeply tied to the static moments defining the despairingly mundane lives of its primary characters. Its approach to the family of three, whose broken home would itself be indicative of its social context, renders a unit of individuals insulated within their respective psychic conflicts. Laura's crippling insecurity, Amanda's pitiable illusions of refinement and Tom's genuine detachment from his family conspire to form a brutal picture of the fractured family unit. This is perhaps best contended by the notation in Pagan's text, that "at the end of The Glass Menagerie, Tom cannot help thinking of the life that he left behind as 'the cities...
For Williams, whose own family life would be a direct influence on the emotional sicknesses described in his work, the relationship between society's ills and the individual's faults would be inextricable. It would be in this manner that the author's work would be a bridge, linking the preceding realist movement to his naturalist work. Where the former discipline centered its investigation of the human experience upon the archetypal individual and his internal crisis, we have already discussed briefly the manner in which Williams would contextualize the realist probing of the individual's psyche as an elemental piece of evidence pointing to society's malice.
Works Cited:
Holditch, K. & Leavitt, R.F. Tennessee Williams and the South. University Press of Mississippi.
Pagan, N. (1993). Rethinking Literary Biography. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press.
O'Connor, J. (1997). Dramatizing Dementia: Madness in the Plays of Tennessee Williams. Bowling Green State University Press.
Williams, Tennessee (1944). The Glass Menagerie. New Directions Publishing Corporation.
Works Cited:
Holditch, K. & Leavitt, R.F. Tennessee Williams and the South. University Press of Mississippi.
Pagan, N. (1993). Rethinking Literary Biography. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press.
O'Connor, J. (1997). Dramatizing Dementia: Madness in the Plays of Tennessee Williams. Bowling Green State University Press.
Williams, Tennessee (1944). The Glass Menagerie. New Directions Publishing Corporation.
Tom states that the events are based on a "working memory" thus suggesting that aspects of the story are exaggerated. Williams works to point out that the story will not follow the conventions of conventional theatre which is evident in the narrator addressing the audience directly. 3. Describe the contrast between Amanda's perception of the night Jim comes to visit, and Laura's perception of the same evening. What does this
86). Jim symbolically inspires Laura to accept her individuality and to see that beneath her outstanding traits she is no different from anyone else. His gentility and kindness, borne of Southern culture, help Laura come to terms with herself and her social awkwardness. Laura's personality transformation through Jim's kindness paralleled her symbolic transformation through the unicorn. Had the unicorn not been made of glass, its horn would not have so
Glass Menagerie: An Uncertain Reality This essay will examine the ways in which the three main characters in "The Glass Menagerie" soften with harshness of day-to-day living with an insulating blanket of self-deception. This play is one of Tennessee Williams's earliest and most biographical plays (Patterson, 27). "The Glass Menagerie" was written by Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams (1911-1983) in 1944, incorporating his short story "Portrait of a Girl in Glass" with the unproduced
Glass Menagerie Tennessee Williams, His Mother and the Glass Menagerie Tennessee Williams is among the most celebrated playwrights of the 20th century. His family portraits, set to the backdrop of a deteriorating Southern tradition, are a window into human foibles like vanity, insecurity, detachment and personal disappointment. All of these themes are in full display with Williams' breakthrough work, 1944's The Glass Menagerie. A peering insight into the unhappy lives of the
Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams Humankind's destiny has always been driven by fate and circumstances and in dealing with these two, people have ways of changing the outcome while others simply accept what comes their way. Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie is a play that portrays the manners by which the characters handle their situations in life. What they have are not the best of circumstances especially since the play was
Towards the play's end, Tom tells his audience/readers: "Oh Laura...I tried to leave you behind me, but I am more faithful than I intended to be! I reach for a cigarette...anything that can blow your candles out!" This passage from the play showed how, in his fear for his sister and attempt to shield her from the harshness of life, Tom wanted to "blow (Laura's) candles out," an act