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Tennessee williams life and work
Essay on tennessee williams
Tennessee williams life and work
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The Glass Menagerie was written by Tennessee Williams; he was born in Columbus, Mississippi, and he spent his childhood in St. Louis. He graduated from the University of Iowa with a major in playwrighting. His first successful play was the Glass Menagerie. It is a play based on the memory of Tom Wingfield; it is set in St. Louis, Missouri around the year 1937. It is about Tom’s family and their struggles to survive after his father left them behind with no help. Tom, who is unhappy with his job at the factory, tries to support his sister, Laura, and his mother, Amanda. Laura has a physical disorder that she is very self-conscious about, and Amanda tries throughout the play to get Laura a gentleman caller. She does not associate well with the opposite sex because she has no confidence in herself. Tom finally gets his friend, Jim, to eat dinner with the family. Jim turns out to know Laura from high school, and they have a long, deep talk about Laura and her ailment. He eventually leaves and goes home to his fiancé; Tom also decides to leave his family behind because he wants adventure, not a boring life. Tom, his family, and even the gentleman caller all have a hard time accepting reality because they are trying to comfort themselves within their own little worlds.
Even though one would not expect the mother to have issues with reality, Amanda had those types of problems. She was always concerned with being liked and wanting Laura to be liked. She put on an act for the gentleman caller when he came over; she tried to act very nice and polite, more than what was considered the norm. She was also stuck in the past; she often told Tom and Laura about all of her past experiences, including her many gentleman callers. She did not e...
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...d Laura. The good thing was that Laura finally grasped the concept of reality at the end of the play; her talks with Jim, even though he left, really changed her outlook on life. When they were dancing, Jim accidentally knocked her favorite glass animal over and broke it; he thought that she was going to get mad, but she did not care. She actually gave it to him as a souvenir when he left. Jim lost his grasp on reality, but he quickly regained it. The sad part of this play was that Tom and Amanda stayed in their little fantasy worlds. Amanda never changed throughout the whole play; Tom finally left his family behind at the end of the play to pursue his adventure that he thought would fulfill him. He still thought about Laura from time to time, but he did not pay it much attention. The character with the worst sense of reality turned out to have the best in the end.
The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams is a touching play about the lost dreams of a southern family and their struggle to escape reality. The play is a memory play and therefore very poetic in mood, setting, and dialogue. Tom Wingfield serves as the narrator as well as a character in the play. Tom lives with his Southern belle mother, Amanda, and his painfully shy sister, Laura. The action of the play revolves around Amanda's search to find Laura a "gentleman caller. The Glass Menagerie's plot closely mirrors actual events in the author's life. Because Williams related so well to the characters and situations, he was able to beautifully portray the play's theme through his creative use of symbolism.
Amanda Wingfield is mother of Tom and Laura. She is a middle-aged southern belle whose husband has abandoned her. She spends her time reminiscing about the past and nagging her children. Amanda is completely dependent on her son Tom for finical security and holds him fully responsible for her daughter Laura's future. Amanda is obsessed with her past as she constantly reminds Tom and Laura of that " one Sunday afternoon in Blue Mountain when she once received seventeen gentlemen callers" (pg.32). The reader cannot even be sure that this actually happened. However, it is clear that despite its possible falsity, Amanda has come to believe it. Amanda also refuses to acknowledge that her daughter Laura is crippled and refers to her handicap as " a little defect-hardly noticeable" (pg.45). Only for brief moments does she ever admit that her daughter is crippled and then she resorts back into to her world of denial and delusion. Amanda puts the weight of Laura's success in life on her son Tom's shoulders. When Tom finally finds a man to come over to the house for diner and meet Laura, Amanda blows the situation way out of proportion. She believes that this gentlemen caller, Jim, is going to be the man to rescue Laura. When in fact neither herself nor Laura has even met this man Jim yet. She tries to explain to Laura how to entertain a gentleman caller; she says-talking about her past " They knew how to entertain their gentlemen callers. It wasn't enough for a girl to be possessed of a pretty face and a graceful figure although I wasn't slighted in either respect.
The Glass Menagerie, written by Tennessee Williams in 1944, tells a tale of a young man imprisoned by his family. Following in the footsteps of his father, Tom Wingfield is deeply unhappy and eventually leaves his mother and sister behind so he may pursue his own ambitions. Throughout the play, the reader or audience is shown several reasons why Tom, a brother to Laura and son to Amanda, is unhappy and wishes to leave his family. However, the last scene describes Tom’s breaking point in which he leaves for the last time. Amanda tells Tom to “go to the moon,” because he is a “selfish dreamer.” (7. Amanda and Tom) The reasonings for Tom’s departure are due to his mother’s constant nagging, hatred for
The Glass Menagerie is a play written by Tennessee Williams. It involves a mother, Amanda, and her two children, Tom and Laura. They are faced with many problems throughout the play. Some of these problems involve: Amanda, the mother, only wants to see her kids succeed and do well for themselves. How does her drive for success lead the book?
Amanda is also well characterized by the glass menagerie. The glass sits in a case, open for display and inspection for all. Amanda try’s to portray herself as a loving mother, doing everything she can for her children, and caring nothing for herself, when in fact, she is quite selfish and demanding. Amanda claims that she devotes her life to her children, and that she would do anything for them, but is very suspicious of Tom’s activities, and continually pressures Tom, trying to force him in finding a gentleman caller for Laura, believing that Laura is lonely and needs a companion, perhaps to get married. Like the glass, her schemes are very transparent, and people can see straight through them to the other side, where ...
Laura's mother and brother shared some of her fragile tendencies. Amanda, Laura's mother, continually lives in the past. Her reflection of her teenage years continually haunts Laura. To the point where she forces her to see a "Gentleman Caller" it is then that Tom reminds his mother not to "expect to much of Laura" she is unlike other girls. But Laura's mother has not allowed herself nor the rest of the family to see Laura as different from other girls. Amanda continually lives in the past when she was young a pretty and lived on the plantation. Laura must feel she can never live up to her mothers expectations. Her mother continually reminds her of her differences throughout the play.
Amanda a loving and caring mother devoted her life for her childern .she is abondaned by her husband,the only one she loved deeply.She struggles to secure her children`s lives and when she is overwhelmed by despair she resorts to her memories.
The three family members are adults at the time of this play, struggling to be individuals, and yet, very enmeshed and codependent with one another. The overbearing and domineering mother, Amanda, spends much of her time reliving the past; her days as a southern belle. She desperately hopes her daughter, Laura, will marry. Laura suffers from an inferiority complex partially due to a minor disability that she perceives as a major one. She has difficulty coping with life outside of the apartment, her cherished glass animal collection, and her Victrola. Tom, Amanda's son, resents his role as provider for the family, yearns to be free from him mother's constant nagging, and longs to pursue his own dreams. A futile attempt is made to match Laura with Jim, an old high school acquaintance and one of Tom's work mates.
Generally when some one writes a play they try to elude some deeper meaning or insight in it. Meaning about one's self or about life as a whole. Tennessee Williams' "The Glass Menagerie" is no exception the insight Williams portrays is about himself. Being that this play establishes itself as a memory play Williams is giving the audience a look at his own life, but being that the play is memory some things are exaggerated and these exaggerations describe the extremity of how Williams felt during these moments (Kirszner and Mandell 1807). The play centers itself on three characters. These three characters are: Amanda Wingfield, the mother and a women of a great confusing nature; Laura Wingfield, one who is slightly crippled and lets that make her extremely self conscious; and Tom Wingfield, one who feels trapped and is looking for a way out (Kirszner and Mandell 1805-06). Williams' characters are all lost in a dreamy state of illusion or escape wishing for something that they don't have. As the play goes from start to finish, as the events take place and the play progresses each of the characters undergoes a process, a change, or better yet a transition. At the beginning of each characters role they are all in a state of mind which causes them to slightly confuse what is real with what is not, by failing to realize or refusing to see what is illusioned truth and what is whole truth. By the end of the play each character moves out of this state of dreamy not quite factual reality, and is better able to see and face facts as to the way things are, however not all the characters have completely emerged from illusion, but all have moved from the world of dreams to truth by a whole or lesser degree.
...d intentions for Laura and Tom, she tried to go all about everything in the wrong way. Being a good mother isn’t always about loving your children. But having to encourage them for the best for themselves, their happiness comes first, working hard to maintain them, and letting them follow their dreams. Amanda didn’t possessed in neither of these qualities as a good mother. Amanda was just an old woman wanting to be in a young women’s body, she obviously wasn’t successful in her life so she was lost in her past and what she could have been. She was an irresponsible mother who didn’t let her children to make their own choices in their lives. The best way to describe Amanda is Domineering, to summarize it all up, Amanda Wingfeild was not such a good mother, expecting to much. Not just accepting her children for who they were and loving them for being all they could be.
The Glass Menagerie is a play written by Tennessee Williams in 1945. The play takes place in the Wingfield’s apartment in St. Louis. Tom is the protagonist in the play and he stays at home with his mother Amanda and his sister Laura. Tom’s Father left the family when he was younger leaving him as the man of the house. His mother Amanda expects him to do everything a man would do. This included working, paying bills, and taking care of herself and Laura. Laura is disabled and she doesn’t work therefore Tom is left providing for his whole family. Being abandoned by Mr. Wingfield left the family distraught. No one seemed to be able to cope with the fact that he was gone even though he left many years ago. Amanda is constantly treating Tom like a child. She tells him how to eat, when to eat, and what he should and should not wear. Tom eventually gets fed up with everything. He can’t stand his factory job, the responsibility of being the man or being treated like a child by his mother. Tom decides to follow in his father’s footsteps and leave the family. It seems as if Tom thinks that running away from his problems will make them go away but things didn’t turn out that way. Although the play was written many years ago, young adults in this day and age can relate to Tom and his actions. The main theme in the play is escape. All of the character use escape in some way. Laura runs to her glass menagerie or phonographs when she can’t handle a situation, Amanda seems to live in the past, and Tom constantly runs away when things aren’t going his way. Escape is a short term fix for a bigger problem. Running away may seem like the easiest thing to do, but in the end the problem is still there and it may be unforgettable. As time goes on esc...
Amanda loves her children and tries her best to make sure they do not follow her path to downfall. Unfortunately, while she is trying to push her children toward her ideals of success, she is also pushing them away. Amanda Wingfield is a kind woman stuck in the wrong place and time; she is trying to make her children’s life perfect while attempting to get a re-do on her love life with Laura and forcing Tom to fill the role that her husband abandoned. Amanda Wingfield was never meant to be in the situation that she finds herself in.
In Tennessee Williams' play, The Glass Menagerie, each member of the Wingfield family has their own fantasy world in which they indulge themselves. Tom escaped temporarily from the fantasy world of Amanda and Laura by hanging out on the fire escape. Suffocating both emotionally and spiritually, Tom eventually sought a more permanent form of escape.
Laura spends most of her time caring and cleaning her collection of glass menagerie. Tom works in a shoe factory where he despises every second of his time. He uses his free time to go to the movies and write poetry. At the beginning of the play, Amanda is directing Tom on how to eat his dinner, that he responds with anger. Shortly after, Amanda learns that Laura has dropped out of school and becomes infuriated.
Her constant cautious choice of wording shines light on the ideals she wants to place on her children. Amanda’s intense nostalgia is due to the fact that she has been unsuccessful in the modern world, therefore causing her to distract herself with memories. The first time she met Jim as he came to dinner she brings up how her life changed quickly from a that of a southern belle to a husbandless housewife. In describing her days in the south, Amanda acquires a girlish tone and southern charm. She describes the many 'gentleman callers' she experienced, and in turn implied to Jim specifically what she expected out of the dinner. Williams uses Amanda's constant fluctuation between reality and illusion to portray just how far one will go to escape reality. Anytime she is presented with harsh realities she turns her mind to a childhood memory to avoid thinking. It is obvious that one cannot live in the past to escape the present, which is why Amanda's use of fabrications to fill boredom and void within her life pushed her son away in the