Symbolism In The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams

1821 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: What are the symbols in the glass menagerie

Tennessee Williams', The Glass Menagerie, is a play that evokes great sympathy and in some cases, empathy for a protagonist who struggles to overcome two opposing forces; his responsibilities and his desires. There are many symbols and non-liner references that contribute to the development of characterization, dramatic tensions and the narrative. This essay will examine in detail, the aspects of the play that contribute to the development of the above mentioned elements.

In Tom's opening addresses, he explains to the audience that the play's fifth character is his absent father –present only in the form of a picture that hangs on the wall. This picture that looms above the dining room table makes the reader visualize the Wingfield apartment as a shrine to deadbeat fatherhood. The father's presence in the Wingfield family is sustained only by a tangible medium [the portrait] while in actuality, he is no longer apart of the family. As is seen in the scene where Tom leaves home, the male figures are the ones to leave while the women stay behind where remembering becomes all that is left.

Tennessee Williams makes reference to Guernica and the tension and growing turmoil in Spain. This allusion, juxtaposed to the uneasy peace in America at the time, establishes the tense atmosphere that the play is constructed around. The Americans of the thirties lived in relative peace after recovering from World War One and already experiencing the worst of the Great Depression. However, the audience of the time would see the thirties as the calm before the storm of World War Two. This allusion –the bombing of Guernica by the Nazis, serves as a reminder that war would soon be coming to everyone; various countries all over the world. Likewise, the...

... middle of paper ...

...ls them when he leaves. Just as we cannot live without light, Laura especially, cannot live without Tom. Hence, she blows the candle out to signify that through Tom's new beginning will come her end.

Tennessee Williams uses many techniques which capture the identity of his characters and the meaning of the plays theme in tangible ways. Many of the objects and non-linear references are closely connected and have deeply rooted meaning to the characters that possess them. They are in fact, exactly like the characters who posses them. The characters and different situations throughout the scenes, embrace the theme and help exploit the hidden meaning behind their existence. Williams is careful to place each and every specific reference diligently so that it may mirror its respective character or give colour to a picture [concept] that may be seemingly hard to understand.

Show More
Related

  • Laura In Tennessee William's The Glass Menagerie

    1667 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Glass Menagerie is a play about the character Tom trying to escape his living situation that traps him. He is doing to best to cope with his dependent, demanding mother Amanda and take care of his quiet sister Laura. Amanda and Laura solely depend on Tom’s income from his warehouse job, but Tom is desperately wanting to leave both his mother and sister to lead his own adventurous life. Laura is mainly embodied by her precious glass menagerie and Jim O’Connor’s nickname for her, “Blue Roses.” Her livelihood revolves around taking care of her glass animals and protecting them, and in doing so, she isolates herself from the normal world around her. In Tennessee William’s play The Glass Menagerie, symbolism is use to uncover the unearthly beauty and delicacy of Laura and to portray Tom’s need to escape from his oppressive responsibilities.

    Read More

  • Free Glass Menagerie Essays: Parallels to Williams' Life and Symbolism

    627 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Essay on The Glass Menagerie and the Life of Tennessee Williams

    945 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Use of Metaphor in Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie

    841 Words  | 2 Pages

    In The Glass Menagerie, by Tennessee Williams, the glass menagerie is a clear and powerful metaphor for each of the four characters, Tom, Laura, Amanda, and the Gentleman Caller. It represents their lives, personality, emotions, and other important characteristics.

    Read More

  • Free Glass Menagerie Essays: The Destruction of Laura

    1116 Words  | 3 Pages

    Every time the family comes to a confrontation someone retreats to the past and reflects on life as it was back then, not dealing with life as it is for them today. Tom, assuming the macho role of the man of the house, babies and shelters Laura from the outside world. His mother reminds him that he is to feel a responsibility for his sister. He carries this burden throughout the play. His mother knows if it were not for his sisters needs he would have been long gone. Laura must pickup on some of this, she is so sensitive she must sense Toms feeling of being trapped. Tom dreams of going away to learn of the world, Laura is aware of this and she is frightened of what may become of them if he were to leave.

    Read More

  • Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie

    1061 Words  | 3 Pages

    The lacking of a positive male role model can be very troublesome for any family; especially during the mid-thirties. Prior to the Second World War, women did not have significant roles in the workforce and depended on their husbands or fathers to provide for them financially. There were limited government assistance programs during the era of The Great Depression, and it was up to the families to provide for themselves. The absence of Mr. Wingfield placed enormous strains on the physical as well as mental wellbeing of his family. The effects the abandonment of their father had on the Wingfield family from Tennessee William’s The Glass Menagerie are undeniable.

    Read More

  • glass

    781 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Glass Menagerie is a play about the memories of a young man named Tom Wingfield. Tom dreams of escaping his complicated and completely dependent family. Tennessee Williams uses symbolism to emphasize Tom’s yearning to leave. The first symbol of this the fire escape which serves as a bridge to reality from the illusive wo...

    Read More

  • The Working in Man in Tennessee Williams´ The Glass Menagerie

    691 Words  | 2 Pages

    Tennessee Williams’ play, The Glass Menagerie, depicts the Wingfield family in a naturalistic viewpoint that highlights the importance of a man in the life of a woman. Without a husband in the play, Amanda’s son Tom is rendered as “the man of the house.” Williams attributes the monetary stability of the Wingfields entirely to Tom. Williams stresses the necessity of a working man through Tom so that women and children can be financially stable. As a naturalist, Tennessee Williams illustrates the characters’ reactions to various events and circumstances in accordance with man’s natural instincts of survival. Williams reveals Amanda in this approach, and he portrays naturalistic tendencies in her personality and character, her relationship with her son, and her connection with her hopeless daughter, Laura. Amanda is trying to survive and raise her children without a husband to support her economically.

    Read More

  • Tennessee Williams and His Message in "The Glass Menagerie"

    681 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Theme Of Anxiety In The Glass Menagerie

    1538 Words  | 4 Pages

    The family in Tennessee Williams’ play, The Glass Menagerie, faces various dilemmas. One of the most prominent is the issue of anxiety. Throughout the play, the family focuses their attention mainly on Laura and her struggle with both her physical disability and social anxiety. However, closer analysis reveals that Laura is not the only character suffering, each family member displays signs of being affected by anxiety. Their interactions with one another trigger feelings of nervousness, unhappiness, and anger. The issue of anxiety extends beyond Laura, affecting the whole family, and ultimately leads to tragedy.

    Read More

  • Glass Menagerie: Symbolism of Laura’s Fragility and Escapism

    935 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Free Glass Menagerie Essays: The Characters

    2168 Words  | 5 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Symbolism in "The Glass Menagerie"

    2047 Words  | 5 Pages

    Symbolism is a type of literary device authors use to add special effect and meaning to their stories. According to The American Heritage Dictionary, symbolism is “The practice of representing things by means of symbols or of attributing symbolic meanings or significance to objects, events, or relationships (“symbolism”).” Objects, people, actions, and words often are used to symbolize a deeper meaning throughout the text of a story. As one reads a story, they must realize that each sentence they are reading could have a double meaning; this means that further thought is often necessary, on the part of the reader, to better understand the whole effect the author was trying to portray. Tennessee Williams wrote The Glass Menagerie in a somewhat complex and confusing manor; if the reader does not read into the meaning of the symbols that are scattered throughout the text, the story is misunderstood.

    Read More

  • The Glass Menagerie Symbolism Analysis

    790 Words  | 2 Pages

    It’s his window to the outside world, his escape. Often choosing to return back home after his late night movie excursions, the fire escape represents both the exit and entrance into the Wingfield family (25). Tom’s decision to return is shown through the fire escape. In order to fully live, to seek adventure and change, Tom must stop seeing the fire escape as an entrance and only view it as an exit, an escape. When Tom finally chooses to put himself first and leaves for good the fire-escape’s symbolic meaning transforms (67). No longer representative of the decision Tom needs to make, the escape now represents freedom from the chains of his past. The fire escape represents freedom and opportunity to Tom.

    Read More

  • Symbolism in The Glass Menagerie

    1021 Words  | 3 Pages

    Symbolism is an integral part of every play. The author uses symbolism in order to add more depth to the play. In Tennessee Williams’ play, The Glass Menagerie, he describes three separate characters, their dreams, and the harsh realities they face in a modern world. The Glass Menagerie exposes the lost dreams of a southern family and their desperate struggle to escape reality. Everyone in the play seeks refuge from their lives, attempting to escape into an imaginary world. Williams uses the fire escape as a way for the Wingfields, the protagonists of the play, to escape their real life and live an illusionary life. The fire escape portrays each of the character's need to use the fire escape as a literal exit from their own reality.

    Read More

More about Symbolism In The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams

Open Document