Finding the Ultimate Reality

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.