The Glass Menagerie Essay

In “The Glass Menagerie” by Tennessee Williams, the Wingfield family is a very broken one. The Wingfield family represents the average family living in St. Louis at the time of 1937. They consisted of the mother, Amanda, the older daughter, Laura, the younger son, Tom, and the nameless father. In the beginning of the play the father is absent and represented by a picture on the wall. He would “stay out late” and drink and one day he never came back (940). The reader gets a feeling that the…

Tom is Human: an Analysis of the Character Tom from Williams ' The Glass Menagerie The character of Tom in The Glass Menagerie, by Tennessee Williams, polarizes opinions among readers of the play. Some readers sympathize with Tom, seeing him as a victim of circumstance who is justified in pursuing his own happiness, even at the possible expense of his family 's well being. On the other hand, some readers see Tom as worthy of scorn for his selfishness and disregard for his responsibilities.…

There are many symbols in classic literature, but those used in The Glass Menagerie, are particularly unique. The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams is a play about the reflections of Mr. Wingfield, a man who abandoned his family in order to pursue his own future. In the play, Williams uses many symbols that signify many different things. Many of the symbols used in the play are used to symbolize some form of escape or distinction between reality and illusion. The entire play is centered…

playwright The Glass Menagerie, each character has their own way of escaping from reality and finding a way to cope with their chaotic life. Since every character has his/her own way of somewhat abandoning the problems in life, Williams made the mother Amanda’s the least evident. She finds a way out of the troubles in her life by throwing herself into her children’s even though they are uneventful.…

In Fences by August Wilson and in The Glass Menagerie, by Tennessee Williams, fathers play a very large role, along with their relationships being affecting and what they want for their children. In Fences the main character, Troy Maxson and one of his family members, Cory are always head to head with one another. Cory and Troy seem to go head to head starting from how Troy’s father would treat him when he was younger. In The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams Amanda Wingfield is a single…

The Glass Menagerie, a play by Tennessee Williams, is a memory play set in St. Louis in 1937 just at the start of the Great Depression in America. The Glass Menagerie focuses on three completely different characters, their dreams, and each individual’s inner struggle to face reality. Laura Wingfield and Tom Wingfield obtain certain weaknesses, which include self-consciousness and the incapability of making the decision to remove oneself from their current circumstances which ultimately inhibits…

Tom from The Glass Menagerie is a character who develops success as the play runs its course. He starts out very unsure of what he wants to do and how he is going to achieve it. Tom can be seen developing into the person he wants to be as the play goes on. Using his strengths as an independent person who is not afraid to speak his mind, he is able to overcome the constant pressure put on him by Amanda. A weakness that Tom had shown constantly throughout the play was how he couldn't be happy…

The Truth Behind the Object: Symbolism in The Glass Menagerie and Lives of the Saints Symbolism is an extremely powerful literary tool that many authors use to emphasize important themes and motifs. This is evident in both The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams and Lives of the Saints by Nino Ricci. Both authors use, what seem to be, ordinary objects as an avenue to symbolize various reoccurring themes throughout the story. Although the symbols used in each novel differ greatly from each…

Williams’s notable works A Streetcar Named Desire and The Glass Menagerie provide us with main characters who embody this notion of reality displacement and denial. The character Amanda Wingfield from The Glass Menagerie as…

In Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie, (rpt. in Greg Johnson and Thomas R. Arp, Perrine’s Literature: Structure, Sound, and Sense, 12th ed. [Boston: Wadsworth, 2015] 1136-1185) each individual character thrives to make their fantasy reality. The story takes place around the same time frame as The Great Depression making the Wingfield’s dreams almost impossible to come true. Amanda, Laura, and Tom Wingfield are defiantly different, however the family all share the aspiration of a fantasy…