Madison Richard Mrs. McGuire English III The Glass Menagerie Response Questions 1.What is your favorite scene? Describe it and explain why it was your favorite. The scene I most enjoyed in The Glass Menagerie was the scene between Laura and Jim when we learn that Jim has been “going steady” with a girl named Betty. This revelation comes right after Jim kisses Laura, who is crushed by this news. Laura conceals her feelings from Jim and immediately refocuses her attention on her glass. This scene is my favorite because it was the first time since the start of the play I even considered it wouldn’t end in a happily ever after. This scene jolted us from the fantasy of the play and brought us back to reality. This scene really reminds the audience that this is a memory play and that in reality things don’t always end happily ever after. 2. Explain how might relate this play to their own lives. This play illustrates a lot of the struggles of family life and relationships between family members. In The Glass Menagerie we get to see how a girl deals with her handicap and how it changes how she views herself and the world. The play also shows a relationship between a vastly different mother and son and how, while she is well intentioned, sometimes it is best to …show more content…
take a step back and stop meddling. We also get to observe a very loving sibling relationship that, while strained at times, continues throughout the play. Lastly, we get to observe through Tom the struggles one faces when they feel trapped or obligated to stay in their current life when they would like to pursue something different for themselves. 3. Compare one theme or idea in this play to another that you have encountered in other books. One theme that is present in both The Glass Menagerie and The Catcher in the Rye is loneliness and isolation.
Laura is isolated from the outside world and while her mother believes that socialization would be good for her, Laura gets a sense of security from being alone. Laura is painfully shy and would prefer to stay inside her comfort zone rather than socialize and perhaps become happier. Holden Caulfield is a teen who is very cynical about the world, adult life especially. Throughout the book he pushes most everyone away in attempt to protect his individuality and prevent his growing up. Holden also feels a sense of security in his loneliness, often ruining his own attempts at ending his
loneliness. 4. Explain why you would or would not recommend this book to someone else. I would definitely recommend this play to someone else. I enjoyed this play immensely and I think others will too. The Glass Menagerie has characters that are all very relatable and portrays very realistic family dynamics. The play is written so well and is just so heartbreaking, that you really feel for the characters. The play shows hardships that many people face such as struggling with your obligations when you wish to pursue a dream or dealing with a handicap and how it affects your life.
The Glass Menagerie is a play about the character Tom trying to escape his living situation that traps him. He is doing to best to cope with his dependent, demanding mother Amanda and take care of his quiet sister Laura. Amanda and Laura solely depend on Tom’s income from his warehouse job, but Tom is desperately wanting to leave both his mother and sister to lead his own adventurous life. Laura is mainly embodied by her precious glass menagerie and Jim O’Connor’s nickname for her, “Blue Roses.” Her livelihood revolves around taking care of her glass animals and protecting them, and in doing so, she isolates herself from the normal world around her. In Tennessee William’s play The Glass Menagerie, symbolism is use to uncover the unearthly beauty and delicacy of Laura and to portray Tom’s need to escape from his oppressive responsibilities.
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.
In Tennessee William's play, The Glass Menagerie, the character of Laura is like a fragile piece of glass. The play is based around a fragile family and their difficulties coping with life.
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.
Did you know that most of the plays written and performed in twentieth century America where based off of what was happening in the world at that time? The Great Depression, new inventions, and The Great War influenced the ideas of plays. The twentieth century American history takes a role in the ways of life in The Glass Menagerie which is set after the Great Depression in the late 1930’s.
The Glass Menagerie is an eposidic play written by Tennesse Williams reflecting the economic status and desperation of the American people in the 30s.He portrays three different characters going through these hardships of the real world,and choosing different ways to escape it.Amanada,the mother,escapes to the memories of the youth;Tom watches the movies to provide him with the adventure he lacks in his life;and laura runs to her glass menagerie.
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.
Tennessee Williams’ play, “The Glass Menagerie”, depicts the life of an odd yet intriguing character: Laura. Because she is affected by a slight disability in her leg, she lacks the confidence as well as the desire to socialize with people outside her family. Refusing to be constrained to reality, she often escapes to her own world, which consists of her records and collection of glass animals. This glass menagerie holds a great deal of significance throughout the play (as the title implies) and is representative of several different aspects of Laura’s personality. Because the glass menagerie symbolizes more than one feature, its imagery can be considered both consistent and fluctuating.
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.
The Glass Menagerie is set in the cramped, dinghy apartment of the Wingfield family. It is just one of many such apartments in this lower-class neighborhood. Not one of the Wingfield family members desires to live this apartment. Poverty is what traps them in their humble abode. The escape from this lifestyle, this apartment and these relationships is a significant theme throughout the play. These escapes may be related to the fire escape, the dance hall, the absent Mr. Wingfield and Tom's inevitable departure.
Much of the events in The Glass Menagerie is expressionistic and this is clear in the description that in the production reviews that that play is a memory play. The belief in the play being one related to memory suggests that the major characters display mental processing of situations instead of a realistic presentation of the events that impact their lives. From a psychoanalytic perspective, one sees that Amanda’s inner visions form the foundations of the expressionistic drama and is in fact a psychoanalytical representation of the
In The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams, the theme of abandonment is salient to the play. Throughout most of the play, Tom contemplates whether he should stay with his family doing something he hates or leave them and follow his dream. His yen to be happy controls his decision in the end. Through Tom's actions, thoughts, and the negative imagery of his father, Williams proves that abandonment is a viable solution in the escaping challenges and reality, if it is tenable.
Tennessee Williams’ play, The Glass Menagerie, is referred to as a memory play, centered around the Wingfield family. Many consider it autobiographical, as the characters strongly reflect Williams’ own troubled family. The play is set during the late 1930s, a time period characterized by the Great Depression. The hardships that resulted from this era took their toll on the American people, and many chose to live vicariously through entertainment, imagination, or memory. Tennessee Williams uses symbolism in The Glass Menagerie to depict the fantasies the Wingfield family members create to escape reality.
The Glass Menagerie takes place in the 1940s, but the play is a flashback of the narrator’s, Tom, life in the 1930s. Tom Wingfield lives with his mother, Amanda Wingfield, and old-fashioned older sister Laura Wingfield in a small depressing apartment. Tom’s father left when Tom and his sister were young children and has not returned since then. With his father gone, Tom is now the man of his house and provides the main income for his family. Not only is Tom forced to work, but he also has to deal with his mother always nagging him about every little thing from why he goes out to helping getting his sister a man.