We live in a world where millions of people live their daily lives relying on their family, friends, and education. But most importantly, people tend to rely on their hopes and dreams of achieving a better life for themselves and/or for their families. Hope is what drives people to obtain a better life, but sometimes this “light,” or hope, can be put out by obstacles as it was done in Tennessee Williams’ play, The Glass Menagerie. Williams characterizes Tom Wingfield as the narrator, as well as an actor of the play in order to assist in the transition of the tone throughout the play. Tom’s narration at the beginning is characterized with nostalgic regret and tender memory, which then transitions to irony and bitter sarcasm. This shift of ambivalence …show more content…
The play takes place in the thirties in the city of Saint Louis, Chicago where Tom had grown up most of his life, as well as Williams. Tom sets up the social background of the play by mentioning that “in Spain, there was Guernica…, [and in America] there were disturbances of labor, sometimes pretty violent, in otherwise peaceful cities such as Chicago, Cleveland, [and] Saint Louis.” In these times, Americans were just recovering from the Great Depression which had occurred in 1929. This reveals that people of these times were struggling to maintain their families and even keep a job, but working hard to provide a better future for them themselves and their families. Tom also revealed some memories such as those of his father, which in truth are not very tender since he had abandoned him and his family. His father would be considered as an example of the few people who were able to get by past the Great Depression since he was able to follow his dreams by moving to Mexico, far away from those obstacles that may have prevented him from moving forward in his life. He also touches on how this play is fully based on his memories, becoming the man of the house and providing for his sister Laura and his mother Amanda. Although he has dreams of his own, he cannot pursue them since he has the obligation to continue taking care of his family. Tom’s dilemma is very similar to those who have high hopes of becoming something more in the world, but when reality kicks in, their high hopes come crashing down taking all their dreams along with
While Tom’s role in the plot of the novel is small, his contribution to the overall message is integral. His nonsensical antics and wild imagination provide for amusing scenes and moments, however they share a deeper meaning that Twain means to convey to his audience. Representing the juxtaposition of a privileged man in Southern Antebellum society in the character of a young boy contributes to the satiric nature of the novel by providing a certain hilarity to the seriousness of Tom’s cruel
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.
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
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.
The family dynamics for Tennessee Williams are evident of a lifestyle of despondency and tension within the household. Tennessee Williams mother Edwina Williams she considered herself a Southern Belle, and his sister Rose Williams was a sickly adolescent whom he shared his imaginative dramatizations with as he transcribed his plays. While Williams was in graduate school at the University of Iowa, Rose was institutionalized for schizophrenia and was underwent a pre-font lobotomy. “The symbolization of lobotomy in the “Glass Menagerie” play signifies the hurt that Tennessee Williams felt by his parents by not collaborating to him that his sister underwent surgery. In the play, Williams substitutes the mental illness of his real sister, with a physical limitation “a limp” which Williams substituted for the mental illness of his real sister, Rose. Even the father’s absence reflects periods when his bullying sales man father, Cornelius Coffin Williams, would go on the road, leaving Tom, Edwina and Rose at one another’s mercies (Charles Matthews, 1996-2016).”
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.
... he still feels guilt for leaving Laura behind. Tom cannot ignore his feelings towards Laura and accept letting her go. Tom is physically able to flee from his past and reality, but is unable to escape emotionally. Also, even a new life, filled with opportunities and self goals has troubles. Tom says that he does anything to keep busy so he can forget what he left behind. He is still not fully content with his life.
In The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald, dreams, goals, and ambitions have a way of enticing and enchanting the characters. A goal becomes more than a goal; it becomes something into which the characters submerge themselves and by which they define themselves. These dreams then set up impossible expectations which are detached from what can realistically be achieved. Gatsby dreams of love with Daisy, a dream which eventually consumes his life. It seduces him into giving himself up entirely for its attainment. Similarly, Tom's ambitions to control every aspect of his life end up consuming him. It might be considered this fundamental tendency of human dreams to seduce the dreamers into dedicating themselves completely to those dreams which constitute their dangerous nature.
...life disintegrates rapidly until George Wilson terminates him, signaling the death of the American Dream. George Wilson’s suicide demonstrates that there is no hope for the future of the American Dream. Despite the tragedy, Tom and Daisy survive, signaling that corruption and materialism will live on in the American Dream. “It was after we started with Gatsby toward the house that the gardener saw Wilson’s body a little way off in the grass, and the holocaust was complete.”(162)
...ent efforts, or men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air” (23). Here, The Valley of Ashes is regarded as complete destitution and hopelessness. The people known as the lower class do not wish to live in the valley of ashes. This is why people, like Myrtle try to do anything to get away from it but instead it becomes unachievable for them. When Myrtle tried to escape from the ashes by trying to be with a rich man like Tom, she dies. This embellishes how The American dream is unattainable. When Tom goes and sees George, you can see how the higher classes look down on the lower classes because of their different social positions. The higher-class people such as, Tom, Daisy, and Jordan represent the unstructured bodies of ashes within the valley. They are inconsiderate and conceited people arising from the dead ashes, changing the American Dream.
The family in Tennessee Williams’ play, The Glass Menagerie, faces various dilemmas. One of the most prominent is the issue of anxiety. Throughout the play, the family focuses their attention mainly on Laura and her struggle with both her physical disability and social anxiety. However, closer analysis reveals that Laura is not the only character suffering, each family member displays signs of being affected by anxiety. Their interactions with one another trigger feelings of nervousness, unhappiness, and anger. The issue of anxiety extends beyond Laura, affecting the whole family, and ultimately leads to tragedy.
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 American dream described in the play can be achievable, but Willy’s ways of achieving that American dream leads him to a failure. According to an article published by the South Atlantic Modern Language Association, the play builds the idea of American dream that it is harmful and immoral as long as it is based on selfishness and greediness. However, the dream us described realistic when it is achieved on values that ar...
The role of abandonment in The Glass Menagerie can best be described as the plot element that underlies the overall tone of despondence in the play because it emphasizes the continuous cycle of destruction and hardship that the Wingfield family experiences; indeed, abandonment in the play is a reiterative element that strips the excesses from the three main characters in the play and leaves them in their barest forms, united by a sorrowful reality and clutching each other through the ever-present need to sink into a self-constructed oblivion. The first, and perhaps the most notable and most frequently discussed, example of abandonment in the play would be that of Amanda Wingfield’s husband’s abandonment of his family; he left them at an unspecified time in the past because “he fell in love with long distances,” and evidently forsook any obligations and emotional affiliations that he may have had with his wife and offspring (Williams 5). Having been abandoned by a man who was both husband and father affected Amanda, Tom, and Laura in that it established many of their familial dynamics...