The Glass Menagerie Archetype

The typical plot format of literature and theater is comparable to an equation. Calculate the humble introduction of a hero plus the malicious obstacles set forth by a villain. Multiply this by a series mental and physical strife, such as the loss of an arm or respect. Once you have this product, add a suspenseful climax and subtract by a tension relieving resolution. For purposeful reason, this equation’s answer cannot be found within the plot of The Glass Menagerie. Tennessee Williams establishes a setting of familial dysfunction, free of heros and villians. Some argue that Laura’s disability grants her the label of the hero. However, the unhealable wound archetype in this case is not a symbol of a low point present in the “hero’s journey”,

Time progression, education, and social justice movements have weakened the grasp of female oppression. Yet, the wounds of inequality are continuously bleeding, despite having years to heal. Modern women face unequal pay in the workforce, little representation in congress, female genital mutilation in 29 countries, a lack of education, etc. Laura’s unhealable wound is representative of this truth. Interestly, Laura’s character is not an empowering feminist hero, as her situation and disability suggest. There are no heroes or villains within this story as Lori Leathers Single argues in Flying the Jolly roger: Images of Escape and Selfhood in Tennessee William’s The Glass Menagerie, “Because the play is about familial dysfunction, there are no heros or villians in The Glass Menagerie. In order to understand the truth beneath the surface, the audience needs to maintain its objectivity.” (152 Single). Literary heros customarily gain unhealable wounds during an encounter with “hell”, or a low point in their journey. The wound allows the hero to become wiser, mature, and strong. Laura’s wound does not lead to these positive traits however. Alternatively, the unhealable wound eats Laura alive, drowning her in the typical psyche of an oppressed woman. As Robert J. Cardullo introduces in the academic journal entitled Liebestod, Romanticism, and Poetry in The Glass Menagerie, “Laura Wingfield of The Glass Menagerie (1944) hardly qualifies as a Romantic superwoman, a majestic ego to transcend the “mereness” of mundane human existence.” (Cardullo 76). Laura does not defeat the malevolent presence of female oppression, but instead embraces it through the victimization of