The Wingfield Family In Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie

Tennessee William’s play “The Glass Menagerie” gives readers a look into the everyday strife of the dysfunctional Wingfield family. At first glance, it seems that their lives are quite abnormal, but Amanda’s “impulse to preserve her single parent family seems as familiar as the morning newspaper” (Presley 53). In reality, the Wingfields are the archetypal family doing whatever it takes to get by. The Wingfields complications, however, arise from their inability to properly converse with each other. Instead of calmly resolving their differences, the Wingfields instead resort to desperate acts such as by taking themselves out of reality; whether it is by living in the past, or escaping altogether. The Wingfields have found themselves living in a fallacy, which ultimately prevents them from living a prolific, and fulfilling life together. Amanda Wingfield, the …show more content…
Unable to battle her crippling social anxiety, Laura decides to escape from reality itself. To the viewer's eye, Laura’s entire “existence revolves around her collection of transparent glass animals, which she can order and control” (Presley 40). Laura becomes so delusional that she starts to think the contents of her glass menagerie are real. Laura is so deep in her own fantasy, she starts to think her ornaments possess emotions, stating that “they all like a change of scenery once in awhile”(Williams 729). Another way of escaping reality for Laura, is her Victrola. When Jim arrives for their date, Laura without hesitation “darts to the Victrola, winds it frantically and turns it on” (Williams 717). By doing so, Laura finally obtains the courage to let Jim inside the Wingfield household. These two items, the glass menagerie and the Victrola, are the main culprits to Laura’s desire to escape reality. Without them, Laura would lose her last bit of sanity, resulting in yet another casualty to the