Tennessee Williams Symbolism

Tennessee Williams was born Thomas Lanier Williams on March 26, 1911, in Columbus, Mississippi, the second of Cornelius and Edwina Williams' three children. Raised predominantly by his mother, Williams had a complicated relationship with his father, a demanding salesman who preferred work instead of parenting. After college, he moved to New Orleans, a city that would inspire much of his writing. On March 31, 1945, his play, The Glass Menagerie, opened on Broadway and two years later A Streetcar Named Desire earned Williams his first Pulitzer Prize. Many of Williams' plays have been adapted to film starring screen greats like Marlon Brando and Elizabeth Taylor. Williams died in 1983.
Williams described his childhood in Mississippi as pleasant …show more content…
Tom one of the main characters narrates the play in a way in which he remembers it. Throughout “The Glass Menagerie” Tennessee Williams creates an intricate dynamic between the three main characters, as well as symbols and symbolic language in- order to exemplify the fragility of livelihood. Without the life style of the other members of the Wingfield family, the other’s lives would be dramatically different. The collection of glass menagerie would not be the same collection with one of the pieces missing. The presence or absence of one item can drastically change the value of the whole collection. As with a family unit, one member affects the others, they form an identity they become accustomed to and often cling …show more content…
Unlike her children, she wants to live in the real-world, wants social and financial success. But her attachment to these values and wants is exactly what prevents her from getting many truths about her own life. Amanda can’t accept the fact that she is or should be anything other than the pampered belle she was brought up to be. Laura speculates, that Tom could be a buddy businessman and wondered if she might herself be responsible ways for the sorrows and flaws of her children. Amanda retreats into illusion is in many ways more pathetic than her children, because it is a wistful distortion of reality. The Glass Menagerie identifies the conquest of reality by illusion as a huge and growing aspect of the human condition in its time.
The plot of the Glass Menagerie is structured around a series of abandonments. Mr. Jim Wingfield’s desertion of his family determines their life situation. Jim’s desertion of Laura is the center of the plays dramatic action; his abandonment of his family gives him the distance that allows him to shape their story into a