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She tells Laura to stay "fresh and pretty for gentlemen callers" (348) because they "come when they are least expected" (348). There is no excuse for this kind of behavior, especially a mother.
Hope emerges in the play through Laura and Tom. Laura demonstrates hope when her favorite unicorn is broken. She is clearly saddened by the act but somehow, she manages to see something positive in it. She realizes the horn made the unicorn freakish and now he will fit in with the others. She tells Jim, the unicorn "will feel more at home with the other horses" (387). As she understands this, she comes to know that she might not be as freakish as she seems. Her ability to handle the situation with grace illustrates she is tougher than everyone guessed and it gives her (and us) hope that she will emerge from this changed and seek a better life. Tom also displays hope. Near the end of the play, he returns with a rainbow-colored scarf and gives it to Laura. With the mention of the rainbow, Williams brings hope into the play. When Tom is wandering the streets at the end of the play, he sees a window display that strikes him as "bits of a shattered window" (392). At this moment, he thinks of Laura but does nothing to...
Hope does exist but it has a difficult time staying alive in the Wingfield's world.
The Glass Menagerie successfully encapsulates the problems average families encountered during financially tough times in the 30s. Tom is racked with a sense of failure, which leads to his deep regret and guilt about much of his life. He was his father's son and while he did not want to be like him, he seemed to be moving in that direction everyday. Amanda was living in a state of denial by constantly reliving her life in the Old South and filling Laura's head with the notion that men simply appear at the door asking for one's hand in marriage. Laura, too, lives in denial that another world even exists outside the apartment in which she lives. Their lives are brutally ordinary and not exaggerated at all. The hope we encounter is light and fleeting and there is no promise it will save anyone or even stay for an extended period of time. While it might be a depressing account of life, the Glass Menagerie remains a realistic one.
Work Cited
Williams, Tennessee. The Glass Menagerie. Making Literature Matter. 8th ed. Schlib, John, ed.
Boston: Bedford St. Martin's.…
Work Cited
Williams, Tennessee. The Glass Menagerie. Making Literature Matter. 8th ed. Schlib, John, ed.
Boston: Bedford St. Martin's. 2009. Print.
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
Realist Painting Style and Realism The Realist style owes its existence to the Realist concept. "Realism is democracy in art," Courbet believed. (Nochlin, xiii) Taking that as the credo upon which the works of the artists were constructed, the style itself can be nothing if not anti-academic, anti-historical, anti-conservative. Indeed, whether brushstrokes or pen markings or etching into stone or metal form the image, the underlying attitude is one of freedom,
In connection with Williams' feelings vis-a-vis his sister's lobotomy, Jack Tamburri, writing in www.courttheatre.orgbelieves that the narrator in the Glass Menagerie (e.g., Williams) "...Spins a story of regret and abandonment [regarding Laura] that must have mirrored the guilt Williams felt over his own sister's situation." CONCLUSION: The helplessness of Laura as she tries to get through the pain of her physical disability, her shyness, and the razor-sharp barbs thrown at her
Helpless Women in the Glass Menagerie Women are often depicted as helpless creatures and when we look at women during the Depression era, we should not be surprised to see some women not only depicted as helpless but also see them left helpless and hopeless as the men in their lives cope with the struggling economy. The Glass Menagerie, by Tennessee Williams, reveals two female characters as helpless women, victims of
International Relations Philosophical Views: International Relations International Relations: Philosophical Views In studying International Relations, there are four philosophical schools of thought used to analyze such studies. Liberalism, realism, radical, and constructivist views have contributed to analyzing this field of study from ancient times to the contemporary era. In its simplest terms, philosophy means the quest for knowledge and truth. It is the quest for wisdom or universal knowledge of the whole. Hence, the
He also related how his small group of friends played tricks with their unwitting neighbors. His friends would set fire on alcohol, rekindled candles blown out, imitate lightning flashes or by touching or kissing and make an artificial spider move (Bellis). Using the Leyden jar, Benjamin made an electrical batter, roasted a fowl on a spit fired with electricity, ignited alcohol by electricity through water, fired gunpowder and shocked wine