The Metamorphosis of Tom in The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams
In Tennessee William's play, The Glass Menagerie, the character of Tom is both a son and a brother. Tom has also been forced into the role as the man of the house because of his father's departure. He is very unique and somewhat unpredictable in his words and actions. Tom is selfish, yet caring, and he has a strong need for adventure. Without doubt, Tom is the most round and dynamic character in the play.
Tom's role in his household is to provide for his sister and mother by working at the shoe warehouse. He basically gives up his life so his family can live. So how can one say that Tom is selfish? The reader has to look further than skin deep. Tom works at the warehouse but he truly despises it, because in scene three he said, "I'd rather somebody picked up a crowbar and batter out my brains than go back mornings."(Williams 1036).
Also, it seems Tom does not care if he gets fired or not judging by the amount of time that he spends writing poetry at work. Tom does not appreciate what he has or that his family is provided for. Tom also shows a hint of selfishness when he tells Amanda that there is nothing in that house that he can honestly call his own. Tom also goes to the movies or gets drunk almost every night and he knows that Amanda and Laura are worried about him but that changes nothing. He still goes out without thinking of how it affects his mother or sister.
To escape from his slow life while he was at home Tom goes to the movies almost every night. It is at the movies that Tom can drink and somehow live his adventurous life through his imagination and the characters in the movies. The movies only satisfied Tom's thirst for adve...
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Works Cited
Bloom, Harold Ed. Modern Critical Views: Tennessee Williams. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987.
Fordyce, William. "Tennessee William's Tom Wingfield" Papers on Language and Literature 34.3 (Summer 1998): 250-272. ProQuest. Jacobs Library, Oglesby, IL.
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Jolemore, Nancy. "Lecture Notes and Study Guide Questions for Tennessee William's The Glass Menagerie." Old Dominion University. 18 January
2000. 29 June 2001. <http://courses.lib.odu.edu/engl/njolemor>.
Reser, Rob. "A Touch of Glass." 29 June 2001. <http://www.filmspot.com/glassmenagerie.html>.
Williams, Tennessee. The Glass Menagerie. Literature and The Writing Process. 5th ed. Elizabeth McMahan, Susan X. Day, and Robert Funk. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice, 1999. 693-734.
At the beginning, Tom is very self-centered and preoccupied with his work. He finds what he wants to do more important than what his wife wants to do that night. Once faced with the reality of death, he realizes how important his wife is to him. This forces him to be strong and stay alive, for her sake. The only reason he made it back into his house was because of how much he cared for her. Tom then decides to go find her at the movies, which shows that he has become less self-centered and more aware of his wife’s feelings.
...do. As a child you are always thinking about yourself even if you aren’t selfish. The thought process of “how will this affect the people around me” just does not compute or even show up in younger people and Tom’s actions definitely show that he does think about it more as he matures.
The red hue is conjointly used in The Book of Revelations as the color of the seven headed dragon. “Then another sign appeared in heaven: and behold, a great red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads were seven diadems” (Revelation 12:3). This dragon represents evil and esoteric darkness. The tenebrous serpent is Jane’s burden due to her extreme passions and unpleasant aunt. While crimson is not traditionally associated with light-dark imagery, the red room was selected to illustrate both Jane’s passion as a child and as the color of war and bloodshed. At this moment in the novel Jane is bleeding from the violent head wound she received from John Reed, this physical blow only begins to scratch the surface of the horrible war Jane has been fighting. The psychological and even sometimes physical war is fought for Jane’s equality and the right to love and be loved. Brontë progresses to illustrate the vile sanguine room. “Out of these deep surroundings shades rose high, and glared white, the piled-up mattresses and pillows of the bed, spread with a snowy Marseilles counterpane. Scarcely less prominent was an ample cushioned chair near the head of the bed, also white, and looking as I thought, like a pale throne” (Brontë 17). The white chair is symbolic of justice and the victory of incorruptibility. The allusion to the stark white demonstrates the innocence of Jane, against those charges vehemently thrust upon her by John Reed. This is further affirmed with the mention of the snowy throne. “And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God...And the sea...
Tom is perhaps the most vain and inhuman of the characters, always lusting after more of the forbidden fruit, never having his full share. Even when the knowledge of it reaches his wife, Tom still returns to his cuckolding ways. Early in the book when Daisy explains how unhappy her life truly is, she describes the feeling she had after the birth of her first daughter saying, “Well, she was less than an hour old and Tom was God knows where. I woke up out of the ether with an utterly abandoned feeling...” (31). In that moment readers are finally privy to the ugly, greedy, truth that is Tom, out philandering for pleasures purely his own, while his wife gives birth to their child.
From an early age Jane is aware she is at a disadvantage, yet she learns how to break free from her entrapment by following her heart. Jane appears as not only the main character in the text, but also a female narrator. Being a female narrator suggests a strong independent woman, but Jane does not seem quite that.
Jane Eyre, a conscientious young governess, tells her master, Mr. Rochester, that she dislikes speaking nonsense. Mr. Rochester tells her quite frankly, "If you did, it would be in such a grave, quiet manner, I should mistake it for sense...I see you laugh rarely; but you can laugh very merrily: believe me, you are not naturally austere" (141). In this way is the inner struggle between feelings and judgment recognized and revealed. In Charlotte Brontë's novel, Jane Eyre, Mr. Rochester, St. John Rivers, and Jane Eyre all struggle with feelings versus judgment.
Because of him working in the warehouse and having to put his dreams on hold, it seems to make him bitter and rude to his mother. His mother puts a lot of pressure on him with working and making the money to pay the bills. Also his mother is always getting mad when he goes out. In the play Tom snaps at his mother one night after she’s nags him about going out, some of the stuff he said wasn’t necessary, but we all say things we don’t mean when we are upset. His mother does work by trying to sell magazines, but during this time period the Great Depression was going on so it was hard on everyone with money.
A particularly strong theme in The Glass Menagerie is not being able to accept unfortunate reality or escape it. This theme is shown with the symbols of the movies and the fire escape which connect to Tom. Tom, who aspires to be a poet, is unhappy with his dull, suffocating life and his job at a warehouse in order to maintain the family. He longs for adventure and excitement in his life, yet he is constantly frustrated and argues with his mother frequently. In order to escape this, he ...
At this point, Tom becomes a more selfish character. There is less sympathy given in his direction. In fact, this is probably where we feel a little more sorry for Amanda. Amanda has probably not done everything right for her family, but her intentions have always been good. Tom has lost patience and wants to pursue his journey away now.
Tennessee Williams’ play, “The Glass Menagerie”, depicts the life of an odd yet intriguing character: Laura. Because she is affected by a slight disability in her leg, she lacks the confidence as well as the desire to socialize with people outside her family. Refusing to be constrained to reality, she often escapes to her own world, which consists of her records and collection of glass animals. This glass menagerie holds a great deal of significance throughout the play (as the title implies) and is representative of several different aspects of Laura’s personality. Because the glass menagerie symbolizes more than one feature, its imagery can be considered both consistent and fluctuating.
Tom can now start to show his maturity everywhere, including at home. In the beginning, Tom is running from Aunt Polly's punishments, hurries through chores, and plays hooky from school. When he convinces kids to do his job of whitewash the fence for him, it shows immaturity. Also when he runs away from home to the island, he doesn't leave a note.
The third and final reason Tom is unhappy and wants to leave, is due to his dreams being put on hold to support his family. Tom envisions a life of adventure, something of which he feels his life is meaningless without. After his father leaves, though not his obligation, Tom takes over the role as the man of the house. Tom feels that he is now responsible for taking care of his mother and sister. Even though Amanda and Laura need him, Tom decides anyway to leave them in search of his own adventures. Tom does not necessarily want to be unlike his father, he thinks of his wanting leave as a gene of sorts, a destiny, something he is supposed to do. When Tom’s coworker, Jim, is invited to dinner, Tom even confides in Jim that Tom is “like my [his] father” and that he is “the
Williams, Tennessee. The Glass Menagerie. In Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing, 4th ed. Ed. Edgar V. Roberts and Henry E. Jacobs. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1995. 1519-1568.
Tennessee Williams of Columbus, Mississippi, and author of the play The Glass Menagerie creates a well-rounded character by the name of Tom Wingfield. The author reveals many aspects of this character throughout the play, which focuses on the memories of the three main characters that live in a St. Louis apartment in the late 1930s. As the story progresses, the reader observes how each of the characters unravel and unfold to their needs and wants. Tom is displayed as a character who lives in a world that is different from reality, so, therefore, he behaves in a fashion that makes him seem falsely selfish, creative, and adventurous.
The Victorian era was a time when women's emotions were repressed. This gave expression to the belief that men were emotionally superior to women. Brontë challenged this view by instilling "a picture of passion" in Jane Eyre. This emotion and passion would have not been tolerated by others in Victorian society. Jane was often "roused to something like passion" when she was younger. This was evident in her confrontation with John Reed; "You are like a murderer - you are like a slave-driver". Women, let-alone young girls, in Victorian society, did not usually exhibit such anger. Brontë believed that the expression of women's emotions was crucial.