Tennessee William’s “The Glass Menagerie” and John Updike’s “A & P” are both tales of anguishing confinement and eventual escape. Tom and Sammy are trapped in a place where they work away their existence, unable to abscond from their miserable conditions due to an opposing force holding them captive. Their families rely on them to bring in what income they can, and neither Sammy nor Tom wishes to let down those dependent upon him. Both have jobs which are stable and potentially life-long; however, they desire excitement and freedom rather than the perpetual routines to which they are bound. The men are despondent in the circumstances to which they are confined, and it requires a catalyst to spark the ambition to become independent. Undergoing a change which opens their eyes to a world that lies beyond the limited lives of oppression they previously led, they make the difficult transition to greater personal freedom. Complete liberty is only achieved by Sammy, however; Tom is physically free yet left with the memory of his dear sister Laura, forever binding his heart to the home he once knew. Sammy and Tom are constrained to monotonous jobs which lack gain or reward; their disgust of the work environment and those who hold them hostage is evident. Sammy lacks respect for the customers, whom he appraises to be “sheep pushing their carts down the aisle” (Updike 1493). He describes his boss, Lengel, as a “very patient and old and gray” (Updike 1496) man who is “pretty dreary” (Updike 1495) – a manager with a dry personality which matches that of the store itself. The A & P is a store which runs on policy, like a clock whose gears are expected to interlock and click away steadily but are of no value individually. Feeling ... ... middle of paper ... ...u behind me, but I am more faithful than I intended to be! I …[do]…anything that can blow your candles out!” (Williams 97). While he has achieved a freedom in the sense of space and finances, he is still pulled back home by the constant though of his sister whom he loved deeply. He feels a sense of remorse for being yet another man to abandon Laura, a burden that Sammy does not carry because he left only a job, not his family. Both Sammy and Tom are liberated from the desolate situations they find themselves in, though Sammy finds his actions to lead to a more optimistic future while Tom can only dwell in the past. They learn that life cannot be lived based completely on the desires of others, nor can an occupation be solely for monetary gains; there must be goals toward which to stride. Only when they realize this are they able to find true freedom in life.
“A&P” tells a story about a young cashier who starts out being prejudice and bias, but then realizes he is just like the others he had been judging all day, and decides to prove he is different and gets caught up underneath everyone. In John Updikes “A&P”, the young cashier who is the main character, becomes the victim of his own opinionated statements. Sammy, a young cashier at a local market shows his very biased opinions when he describes the three girls walking around the store, when he talks about his fellow co-worker, Stokesies life, and when his manager, Lengal, comes into the scene to kick the girls out of the store.
The author of A & P, John Updike, uses the grocery store as a vehicle to represent conformity present in the 1950’s, and to show how the main character Sammy, and the three girls breaks this barrier of conformity. The story takes place within a small-town grocery store called A & P during a period where conformity is at an all-time high- which is shown throughout the various observations and decisions Sammy makes at work. Seeing how three girls were uninfluenced by society sparks Sammy’s intuition.
In Williams, Tennessee’s play The Glass Menagerie, Amanda’s image of the southern lady is a very impressive. Facing the cruel reality, she depends on ever memories of the past as a powerful spiritual to look forward to the future, although her glory and beautiful time had become the past, she was the victim of the social change and the Great Depression, but she was a faithful of wife and a great mother’s image cannot be denied.
Tennessee Williams employs the uses of plot, symbolism, and dialogue to portray his theme of impossible true escape, which asserts itself in his play, The Glass Menagerie. Each of his characters fills in the plot by providing emotional tension and a deep, inherent desire to escape. Symbolism entraps meaning into tangible objects that the reader can visualize and attach significance to. Conclusively, Williams develops his characters and plot tensions through rich dialogue. Through brilliant construction and execution of literary techniques, Williams brings to life colorful characters in his precise, poignant on-stage drama.
Oscar Wilde once said, “Everything in the world is about sex except sex. Sex is about power.” The content of this quote embodies A Doll’s House and The Glass Menagerie because of the sexual control in both the plays. A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen and The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee William, the characters, although from different time periods, face the hardships of sexual control through the men they admire. Nora is written as the naive protagonist of A Doll’s House, who embodies the themes of the novella as she matures throughout the play. Nora learns that her husband, Torvald, uses her as a doll for his own pleasure and does not truly care for her. In The Glass Menagerie, Laura, the main character, is also
In the story, “A & P”, John Updike differentiates the views of Sammy and the store with many eye-catching techniques. By presenting the store as the antagonist, the reader gains Sammy sense of view about things through his close detail and humor of situations. Well before the dramatic opportunity presents itself for Sammy to quit his job, his narrative voice has established his individualism, imagination and his subversive sense of humor that already set him at odds with his jobs dull routine.
Dysfunctional. Codependent. Enmeshed. Low self-esteem. Emotional problems of the modern twenty-first century or problems of the past? In his play, The Glass Menagerie, Tennessee Williams portrays a southern family in the 1940's trying to deal with life's pressures, and their own fears after they are deserted by their husband and father. Although today, we have access to hundreds of psychoanalysis books and therapists, the family problems of the distant past continue to be the family problems of the present.
The beginning of “A & P” starts with the main character, Sammy, at work when three girls in nothing but bathing suits walks in. According to Lawrence Dessner, the A & P check out counter showed Sammy a sample of insult and indignity of ordinary people (317). He may not have liked the people that shopped there, but he received insight of the real world. A woman that was currently at Sammy's counter was middle aged and brought Sammy no sympathy to the shoppers; he sometimes mention them as sheep. His names of the shoppers also include insight of Sammy's view of the ordinary shoppers; Sammy did not care much for others.
In John Updike’s 1959 short story “A&P”, the protagonist, Sammy, makes an abrupt decision to quit his job as a cashier after his boss, Lengel, embarrasses a group of girls for being indecently dressed. Although the decision was unplanned, Updike makes it a point to inform the audience about Sammy’s negative and unpleasant outlook on his occupation. To do this, he illustrates some of the incidents that may have contributed to Sammy quitting his job, most of which are rather ironic and unusual. Sammy quit his job because he did not view it as a permanent occupation, he wanted to make an independent decision without the guidance of his parents, and he wanted to impress the group of girls that had been embarrassed by Lengel due to their immodest
The unlikely pair of “The Glass Menagerie” by Tennessee Williams and “A Doll House” by Henrik Ibsen do share multiple similarities in their domestic situations and in the things they chose to do. . When comparing these two plays you also have to keep in mind about how that both the plays were done in different time periods. Therefore things are going to be different when it comes to the roles of the women. With the “The Glass Menagerie” and “A Doll House” all the characters have flaws, lived in different time period, felt like they were trapped in ways, and reacted to things differently.
Tom clearly does not believe that staying at home with his mother and sister is worth the unhappiness he feels. A common issue that arises in The Glass Menagerie is Tom’s nightly trips to the movies. When asked about his frequent trips to the movies, Tom describes that “adventure is something I [he]” doesn’t “have much of at work.” (4.Tom) Living vicariously through the movies he sees, remains one of Tom’s only true sources of happiness.
Society as a gilded cage refers to people living a life with boundaries. The people living this type of life don’t live life to its full potential because they feel as though there are limits to what they can do. Two examples of individuals living this type of life would be Tom from a “Glass Menagerie” and Nora from “Doll House”. Both these individuals had the opportunity to live a free life but felt as though they had limits causing them to live a restrained life. Although both individuals seemed to be complete opposites they shared similar characteristics.
Everybody has something about them that makes them unique, but sometimes they tend to not realize how special they are because of it. In the play, The Glass Menagerie, Laura possesses a collection of glass figurines that symbolize how others see her despite her limp. She has allowed her limp to define who she is, as well as play a major part in the way that she acts around other people. Laura’s limp has restricted her life in certain ways and because of it, she has become a delicate, radiant, and unique individual.
The Fantasy World of The Glass Menagerie In The Glass Menagerie, Tennessee Williams creates a world in which the characters are disillusioned by the present. Amanda, Tom, and Laura achieve this disillusionment by resorting to separate worlds where they can find sanctuary. Each character develops their own world, far away from reality. Amanda frees herself from the harsh realities of life by constantly reminding herself of the past. To begin with, she continuously repeats the story of the "one Sunday afternoon in Blue Mountain" when she received seventeen gentlemen callers (1195).
The Glass Menagerie, by Tennessee Williams, is a prime example of a classic drama, infusing powerful themes with compelling characters to draw the reader in and allow them to connect. William’s character Laura plays a large part in accomplishing this, particularly in Scene VII, when she converses with Jim. This scene is especially important to the story as a whole, and helps develop Laura’s character and the theme of conformity. This theme, that to be accepted by society one must conform, is prevalent throughout the story, but centers around this portion of the play specifically. The conversation between Laura and Jim is a pivotal part of the drama that is very impactive and provides substance for the theme and character development in the rest of the drama.