Comparing the Life of Tennessee Williams and Glass Menagerie

Parallels in the Life of Tennessee Williams and The Glass Menagerie

Tennessee Williams is one the major writers of the mid-twentieth century. His work includes the plays, The Glass Menagerie and A Streetcar Named Desire. One theme of The Glass Menagerie is that hopeful aspirations are followed by inevitable disappointments. This theme is common throughout all of Williams' work and throughout his own life as well. It is shown through the use of symbols and characters.

"I have only one major theme for my work, which is the destructive impact of society on the sensitive non-conformist individual (Williams Netscape)." Symbols help to show the dreams and desires that the characters long for and also the restrictions that keep them from fulfilling those dreams. In The Glass Menagerie, the fire escape symbolizes the way for Amanda Wingfield to bring a man into the house to save her and her daughter. To Tom, the fire escape is a means of escape from the house that traps him- a path to the outside world (Susquehanna. "New Critical"). Rainbows in The Glass Menagerie symbolize hope and are associated with hopeful situations (Susquehanna. "New Critical.) When Tom Wingfield receives a rainbow-colored scarf at the magic show, he is amazed at the fact it turned a bowl of goldfish into flying canaries. Just like the canaries, Tom hopes to fly away- fly away to escape his imprisonment (Susquehanna. "New Critical"). At the end of the play when Tom looks at the "pieces of colored glass, like bits of a shattered rainbow (Williams 137)", he remembers that he has left his sister behind and prays that he will be able to move on without her. Even though the rainbows appear to be positive signs throughout the book, they eventually all...

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...s something they can relate to. His honesty through his writings brings hope to people looking for it.

Works Cited

Haley, Darryl. "Certain Moral Values: A Rhetoric of Outcasts in the Plays of Tennessee Wililiams." 1997

< http://www.angelfire.com/al/haley002/Proctectus.html >

Susquehanna University. "New Critical." Online Posting.

< http://www.susqu.edu/ac_depts/arts_sci/english/lharris/class/williams/new.htm >

Susquehanna University. "Biographical Criticism." Online Posting.

< http://www.susqu.edu/ac_depts/arts_sci/english/lharris/class/williams/auto.htm >

"Biography of Tennessee Williams : Playwright, Poet, and Screenwriter." American Decades CDROM 1.0. Detroit: Gale Research, 1998

Weales, Geralt. "Tennessee Williams." Scribner Writer Series, Comprehensive Edition. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1997.