A Recollection
There are many ways our past life experiences affect our actions. Every person in this world has a story and every person goes about his or her “story” differently. Tennessee Williams, a man from Mississippi, took his life experiences and his memories and chose to write stories and plays based on them. His stories were rooted from his troubled past. Tennessee Williams’ most famous play, The Glass Menagerie, has a full cast of characters extremely similar to his own family and a plot directly related to his life.
Tennessee Williams was born in 1911 in Columbus, Mississippi. Williams described his childhood as happy. As a teen, he and his family moved to St. Louis Missouri. Things changed for him there. Williams turned inward and a sadness took over him. As a result, he began writing. Williams was predominantly raised by his mother, Edwina. He never had a good relationship with his father, Cornelius Williams. His father was a heavy drinker and cared more about his work than he did about parenting. Also, Williams’s parents did not have a good marriage. Growing up in a tense household took a toll on him. After Williams attended college at the University of Columbia, he moved to New Orleans. There, he turned his lifestyle around and became enthralled by the city life, which inspired his work.
The Glass Menagerie, Tennessee Williams’ most famous play and success, was written in 1944. This play has many autobiographical elements and the story is more closely related to his life than any of his other pieces. Tennessee based the character Tom on himself. His mother, Edwina, was the basis for the mother in the play, Amanda Wingfield. The character of Laura Wingfield was very similar to Tennessee’s older sister, Rose....
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...d for the majority of his life. He made writing his outlet through all of his struggles. For a good part of his life, Williams needed an escape from reality and he found one. The Glass Menagerie doesn’t just tell a story of characters in a play. It tells the true story of Tennessee Williams, a man who was deeply affected by his troubled past and found no other way to escape it than to put it down on paper and tell it.
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(1500 words)
Works Cited
Williams, Tennessee. The Glass Menagerie. New York: New Directions, 1999. Print.
Leverich, Lyle. Tom: The Unknown Tennessee Williams. New York: Crown, 1995. Print.
Jackson, Esther Merle. The Broken World of Tennessee Williams. University of Wisconsin Press, 1965.
Williams, Dakin, and Shepherd Mead. Tennessee Williams: An Intimate Biography. New York: Arbor House, 1983. Print.
The family dynamics for Tennessee Williams are evident of a lifestyle of despondency and tension within the household. Tennessee Williams mother Edwina Williams she considered herself a Southern Belle, and his sister Rose Williams was a sickly adolescent whom he shared his imaginative dramatizations with as he transcribed his plays. While Williams was in graduate school at the University of Iowa, Rose was institutionalized for schizophrenia and was underwent a pre-font lobotomy. “The symbolization of lobotomy in the “Glass Menagerie” play signifies the hurt that Tennessee Williams felt by his parents by not collaborating to him that his sister underwent surgery. In the play, Williams substitutes the mental illness of his real sister, with a physical limitation “a limp” which Williams substituted for the mental illness of his real sister, Rose. Even the father’s absence reflects periods when his bullying sales man father, Cornelius Coffin Williams, would go on the road, leaving Tom, Edwina and Rose at one another’s mercies (Charles Matthews, 1996-2016).”
The Glass Menagerie closely parallels the life of the author. From the very job Tennessee held early in his life to the apartment he and his family lived in. Each of the characters presented, their actions taken and even the setting have been based on the past of Thomas Lanier Williams, better known as Tennessee Williams.
“I am the narrator of the play, and also a character in it. The other characters are my mother, Amanda, my sister, Laura'; (1147). Because Tom is the narrator, and the narrator is the one who tells the story, we can decide already that he stands for Tennessee Williams, who wrote the play and tells the story through Tom. Also for the same reason, Amanda is Williams’ mother Edwina Williams and Laura is his sister, Rose Williams.
One strong influence that is evident in Tennessee Williams' plays is his family life, which was "full of tension and despair". His father, a businessman who owned a show warehouse, was known for his gambling and drinking habits. He was often engaged with violent arguments with his wife that frightened Tennessee's sister, Rose. Williams cared for Rose most of her adult life, after his mother, Edwina, allowed her to undergo a frontal lobotomy. This event greatly disturbed him. Many people believe that Williams' first commercial success, The Glass Menagerie, was based on his own family relationships. This play tells the story of Tom, his disabled sister, Laura, and their controlling mother, Amanda, who tries to make a match between Laura and a Gentleman caller. The characters seem to resemble the people in Williams' immediate family.
Tennessee Williams was born on March 26, 1911. He was the second child of Edwina and Cornelius Coffin Williams. His father was a shoe salesman who spent most of his time away from home. Edwina was a “southern belle” she was snobbish and her behavior was neurotic. As a child, Williams suffered from diphtheria which almost ended his life. Williams attended Soldan High School, a setting he referred to in The Glass Menagerie. Later, he attended University City High School. He then attended the University of Missouri. (Tennessee)
In the study of Tennessee Willliams' plays: "Suddenly Last Summer" and "The Glass Menagerie", we can find a great deal of autobiographical connections. "The Glass Menagerie" is particularly considered the author's most biographical work. It is described by the playwright as "a memory play"; indeed, it is a memory of the author's own youth, an expression of his own life and experiences. Similarly, "Suddenly Last Summer" includes many of Tennesse Williams' real life details.
The Glass Menagerie is an eposidic play written by Tennesse Williams reflecting the economic status and desperation of the American people in the 30s.He portrays three different characters going through these hardships of the real world,and choosing different ways to escape it.Amanada,the mother,escapes to the memories of the youth;Tom watches the movies to provide him with the adventure he lacks in his life;and laura runs to her glass menagerie.
Generally when some one writes a play they try to elude some deeper meaning or insight in it. Meaning about one's self or about life as a whole. Tennessee Williams' "The Glass Menagerie" is no exception the insight Williams portrays is about himself. Being that this play establishes itself as a memory play Williams is giving the audience a look at his own life, but being that the play is memory some things are exaggerated and these exaggerations describe the extremity of how Williams felt during these moments (Kirszner and Mandell 1807). The play centers itself on three characters. These three characters are: Amanda Wingfield, the mother and a women of a great confusing nature; Laura Wingfield, one who is slightly crippled and lets that make her extremely self conscious; and Tom Wingfield, one who feels trapped and is looking for a way out (Kirszner and Mandell 1805-06). Williams' characters are all lost in a dreamy state of illusion or escape wishing for something that they don't have. As the play goes from start to finish, as the events take place and the play progresses each of the characters undergoes a process, a change, or better yet a transition. At the beginning of each characters role they are all in a state of mind which causes them to slightly confuse what is real with what is not, by failing to realize or refusing to see what is illusioned truth and what is whole truth. By the end of the play each character moves out of this state of dreamy not quite factual reality, and is better able to see and face facts as to the way things are, however not all the characters have completely emerged from illusion, but all have moved from the world of dreams to truth by a whole or lesser degree.
Williams, Dakin and Shephard Mead. Tennessee Williams: An Intimate Biography. New York: Arbor House, 1998.
Tennessee Williams is recognized as being one of America’s top playwrights during the twentieth century. His play A Streetcar Named Desire, written in 1947, tells the tale of two sisters and their struggle to find happiness. The Glass Menagerie, published in 1945, is a memory play, which profoundly impacted Williams’s career. Suddenly Last Summer, published in 1993, is a one-act play about a young girl’s horrifying experience while traveling abroad. All of these plays incorporate aspects of Williams’ own life and portray dysfunctional characters.
The Glass Menagerie, written by Tennessee Williams in 1944, tells a tale of a young man imprisoned by his family. Following in the footsteps of his father, Tom Wingfield is deeply unhappy and eventually leaves his mother and sister behind so he may pursue his own ambitions. Throughout the play, the reader or audience is shown several reasons why Tom, a brother to Laura and son to Amanda, is unhappy and wishes to leave his family. However, the last scene describes Tom’s breaking point in which he leaves for the last time. Amanda tells Tom to “go to the moon,” because he is a “selfish dreamer.” (7. Amanda and Tom) The reasonings for Tom’s departure are due to his mother’s constant nagging, hatred for
Williams, Tennessee. "The Glass Menagerie." The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. Michael Meyer. 5th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's. 1999. pp.1865-1908.
The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams is a touching play about the lost dreams of a southern family and their struggle to escape reality. The play is a memory play and therefore very poetic in mood, setting, and dialogue. Tom Wingfield serves as the narrator as well as a character in the play. Tom lives with his Southern belle mother, Amanda, and his painfully shy sister, Laura. The action of the play revolves around Amanda's search to find Laura a "gentleman caller. The Glass Menagerie's plot closely mirrors actual events in the author's life. Because Williams related so well to the characters and situations, he was able to beautifully portray the play's theme through his creative use of symbolism.
The Glass Menagerie is a play written by Tennessee Williams in 1945. The play takes place in the Wingfield’s apartment in St. Louis. Tom is the protagonist in the play and he stays at home with his mother Amanda and his sister Laura. Tom’s Father left the family when he was younger leaving him as the man of the house. His mother Amanda expects him to do everything a man would do. This included working, paying bills, and taking care of herself and Laura. Laura is disabled and she doesn’t work therefore Tom is left providing for his whole family. Being abandoned by Mr. Wingfield left the family distraught. No one seemed to be able to cope with the fact that he was gone even though he left many years ago. Amanda is constantly treating Tom like a child. She tells him how to eat, when to eat, and what he should and should not wear. Tom eventually gets fed up with everything. He can’t stand his factory job, the responsibility of being the man or being treated like a child by his mother. Tom decides to follow in his father’s footsteps and leave the family. It seems as if Tom thinks that running away from his problems will make them go away but things didn’t turn out that way. Although the play was written many years ago, young adults in this day and age can relate to Tom and his actions. The main theme in the play is escape. All of the character use escape in some way. Laura runs to her glass menagerie or phonographs when she can’t handle a situation, Amanda seems to live in the past, and Tom constantly runs away when things aren’t going his way. Escape is a short term fix for a bigger problem. Running away may seem like the easiest thing to do, but in the end the problem is still there and it may be unforgettable. As time goes on esc...
Williams, Tennessee. The Glass Menagerie. Masterpieces of the Drama. Ed. Alexander W. Allison, Arthus J. Carr, Arthur M. Eastman. 5th ed. NY: Macmillan, 1986. 779- 814.