The Opening of Glass Menagerie

The Opening of Glass Menagerie

The opening of Glass Menagerie is key in establishing themes,

relationships, dramatic conventions character symbolism and style.

Discuss.

The opening of the play ‘Glass Menagerie’ let the audience know about

various elements of the play such as themes, relationships, characters

and dramatic conventions.

This was done by detailed description of the setting and the narrator,

Tom informing the audience.

The main themes of the play could be found in the opening.

The fact that the play was about memory had been made clear in the

beginning with the line, “the scene is memory…” Once again confirmed

very clearly by Tom who said, “the play is memory.” The audience could

easily interpret that this play was Tom’s memory of his life with

Amanda and Laura in St Louis. At the end of the play the audience

found out that Tom could not erase the memory of leaving Laura. “Oh,

Laura, Laura I tried to leave you behind me but I am more faithful

than I intended to be.”

This theme of memory influenced Amanda also as the play progressed. It

became evident that she could not escape from her memories of living

in the “Blue Mountain” where she had a pleasurable and an abundant

life. Few minutes after the play began the audience already hears

Amanda babbling about it “I remember one Sunday afternoon in Blue

Mountain…” This happened throughout the play consistently. She would

talk about her life in the “Blue Mountain” whenever she got a chance

to. So it would be quite true to say that Amanda was living in her

memory, which caused her to deny the reality.

The idea of accepting the reality was also evident in the opening of

the play.

Tom spoke of gentleman caller who “is the most realis...

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...When she had

one finally, he turned out to be the greatest disappointment and left

her devastated in the end. So Amanda had to awkwardly sum the whole

incident up by saying “things have a way of turning out so badly,” and

blame it all on Tom.

The unusual dramatic conventions were set in the opening. The

narrator, Tom directly addressed the audience, “I am the narrator of

the play…” which was unusual. Also by using the screens to produce

appropriate images and music frequently, the play was made more

interesting and accessible to the audience.

The opening of the play was the key in establishing themes, characters

and their relationships and dramatic conventions as it revealed them

effectively to the audience.

So the audience could easily understand what was happening, guess what

would happen and receive the message that was meant to be delivered.