Glass Menagerie and Mother

Williams and His Work

Williams used the theater as a way to vent his own heart -- as Lahr notes, the playwright produced works that allowed him "to be simple, direct and terrible" (Lahr xiv). Thus, Williams' plays were "an emotional autobiography" (Lahr xiv). Beginning with his first success, The Glass Menagerie, Williams showed that he would draw from his own life and experiences to put something dramatic on the stage to which people would respond. It was his way of talking to the world and opening up.

Some of the unique things we learn about Williams' life are the fact that the more he tried to open up and show his own heart on the stage, the more his real heart disappeared and became a "leftover" thing (Lahr 377). His writing became his real life in a sense, and his real life became a scrap -- a shell. Williams would also clash with his actors, actresses and producers. For example, with Menagerie, he complained that one of the actresses cast did not resemble his mother, who was a lady -- and later with Sweet Birth of Youth, he clashed with Kazan even as he attempted to become one with the directer so that there was no space between them and no gaps between what Williams intended and what managed to get on stage. Williams became paranoid that others were trying to subvert his work and his intentions. He wrote about characters full of self-loathing even as he loathed himself. Perhaps one of the reasons for this was his sexual life, which existed at a time before homosexuality was accepted in public.

Thus, it could be that Williams' plays really do reflect his own character, heart and mind -- for just as he struggled to understand himself and present something true on stage, his own personal life never arrived at a place where he might be happy and serene. His feeling was basically like that of Chance or Tom or any of the other characters he wrote about: all fleeing something -- some truth, some unpleasant reality -- home, life, something. Just like Tom turned his back on his home, Williams was turning his back on an idea -- an idea that he could be a real person. He sought real life in his plays, in drama, in the stage; and meanwhile real life eluded him in his own life. His experiences were empty, unfulfilling -- his ability to love, to live, to be -- all came up short.

As far as important things about Williams that should be known in terms of how they affected his career -- none is more important than his early home life, which served as the basis for his first successful play -- the play about himself, his mother and his sister. While not entirely autobiographical, there were many autobiographical elements about it, revealing the very essence of the tension in Williams' own soul. He wanted to respect and love his mother -- he understood her, what she had lost, what she wanted, why she wanted it; yet at the same time he felt the pain she caused, the agony her sister suffered as a result. He felt both emotions at once and it pulled him in two directions -- the one direction led him to New York, away from his home, where he sought to pour out his heart in every play; the other direction led him back home -- where he sent his royalties, first to his mother, then to his sister, who suffered a "lobotomy" (Lahr 362) that left her incapacitated. Williams even arranged for his estate to be used to support his sister after he died. In these two directions, the whole of Williams can be seen: one the one hand, trying to escape the past and immerse himself in his own self; on the other hand, he never lost sight of home or of those he truly loved back there.