Comparing The Glass Menagerie and the Life of Tennessee Willliams

Parallels in The Glass Menagerie and the Life of Tennessee Willliams

In Tennessee Williams's drama The Glass Menagerie the setting and dramatization in the play are used to convey each member of the family's hopes, desperations, and fears. He uses symbols throughout the story to add a deeper meaning and give his characters a sense of mystery. Also, though maybe inadvertently, The Glass Menagerie actually parallels the people and events in Tennessee Willliams's life.

The setting in this drama plays a major role in the story's symbolism. It is set in a small apartment ,"The apartment faces an alley and is entered by a fire escape, a structure whose name is a touch of accidental poetic truth, for all of these huge buildings are always burning with the slow and implacable fires of human desperation." The fire escape is used to show the desperations of all the characters in this play. "The fire escape represents exactly what the name implies: an escape from the fires of frustration and dysfunction that rage in the Wingfield household." (Haley) Laura, early in the story, on her way to get her mother some butter, trips and falls going down the escape. This was only foreshadowing the story to come "highlighting her inability to escape from her situation" (Haley) and showing that her gentleman caller would not be her savior. Tom, after being fired from the warehouse for writing a poem on a shoebox, descended the fire escape for the last time and did exactly what the name signified, he escaped. Even when he was sharing his plans with Jim he looked out over the balcony staring off of what seemed to be his only barrier, but yet his only way to freedom. He said, "I descended the steps of this fire escape for a la...

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