Verified Document

Realism Depicted In The Glass Essay

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.…

Sources used in this document:
Work Cited

Williams, Tennessee. The Glass Menagerie. Making Literature Matter. 8th ed. Schlib, John, ed.

Boston: Bedford St. Martin's. 2009. Print.
Cite this Document:
Copy Bibliography Citation

Related Documents

Helpless Women in the Glass Menagerie Women
Words: 1848 Length: 6 Document Type: Thesis

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

Living in the Middle Ages. What New
Words: 2349 Length: 8 Document Type: Term Paper

living in the Middle Ages. What new things are available for you to experience? The prelude to modernism The history that establishes origin and evolution of the modern society has its basis from the ancient time. Initially, the world and society featured various practices that today we may perceive as being barbaric and outdated. However, it is essential to acknowledge that it is through the various ages of revolution that the

Anthropomorphic Anthropomorphism Anthropomorphic Art How
Words: 2001 Length: 6 Document Type: Essay

4. Alexandre Gabriel Decamps Figure 8. Alexandre Gabriel Decamps' "The Monkey Painter," 1833. (Source: http://dalihouse.blogsome.com/2007/04/26/beasts-get-the-babes Figure 9. ( Source: http://www.artandpopularculture.com/Image:The_Experts%2C_1837_by_Alexandre-Gabriel_Decamps.jpg) Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps was an artist who often used animals portrayed as human beings to satirize society and especially the formal artistic community of the time. He was opposed to falsity and pretentions and the often biased views of the academic art coterie of the time was a subject of some of his works. This can be

Jong, Erica. "Fashion Victim." Salon.com.
Words: 1295 Length: 4 Document Type: Term Paper

Emma likes the type of pulp, romantic and sentimental fiction condemned by Nabokov, the 19th century version of Harlequin Romances. Emma is not an artist of prose like her creator, she is a consumer of written culture in a very literal as well as a metaphorical sense, just as she consumes all sorts of material goods in her futile quest for fulfillment, and dies by consuming poison at the

Gangsters
Words: 9610 Length: 30 Document Type: Term Paper

The 1990s also saw innovative interpretation of law enforcement's role in the perpetuation of organized crime. One of the most notable examples is L.A. Confidential (1997), in which corruption has reached so deep into the Los Angeles police department that two seemingly unrelated criminal investigations both lead to the police chief. The genre also proved its adaptability and continued appeal with Heat (1995) and Carlito's Way (1993); both films starred

Waste Land French Lieutenant the
Words: 4164 Length: 14 Document Type: Essay

(Eliot, 1971). The Subjective over the Objective Modernism was a reaction against Realism and its focus on objective depiction of life as it was actually lived. Modernist writers derived little artistic pleasure from describing the concrete details of the material world and the various human doings in it. They derived only a little more pleasure from describing the thoughts of those humans inhabiting the material world. Their greatest pleasure, however, was

Sign Up for Unlimited Study Help

Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.

Get Started Now