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.
The fire escape is mentioned in the first scene which shows its importance to the play. Williams describes the fire escape as 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” (Williams 27). This depiction of the fire escape is exactly what it means to the Wingfield family. The fire escape symbolizes a tendency to escape to illusion when reality is not wanted. Of the Wingfield family members, none like living in the apartment. The only reason that they must live in this cramped apartment is because of their poverty. Their apartment does not even have a door which conveys their desire to escape and the way that they are held captive in their own apartment. The concept of escaping their own lives and retreating into an illusion world has entered each of the character's minds. Escaping from this lifestyle, this apartment, and these relationships is a significant theme throughout...
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...ecords” (Williams 66). It is apparent that Laura is socially disabled and cannot deal with the outside world. The fire escape sets apart the unfamiliar life outside of her shielded life.
Wiliam’s use of symbolism in The Glass Menagerie adds a lot of meaning to the play. The fire escape has important meanings for each of the characters. For Tom, the fire escape is the way out of the world of Amanda and Laura, and an entrance into a world of adventure. For Amanda, the fire escape is perceived as a way for gentlemen callers to enter their lives. She is also trying to escape her own vacant life. And for Laura, the fire escape is a way into her own world where nobody else can invade. The fire escape portrays the escape from reality into a world of illusion for each character.
Works Cited
Williams, Tennessee. "The Glass Menagerie". New York: Random House, 2009.
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.
Donald Spoto described the new apartment building that Williams and his family relocated to in St. Louis, Missouri as having only two small windows, one window in the front of the apartment and another in the rear. A fire escape blocked the smoky light that might have come in from the window facing the back alley (16). In The Glass Menagerie, the apartment was described as facing an alley. Meyer brought to my attention that the entrance to the apartment was actually a fire escape. There was no front door in the apartment of The Glass Menagerie, only a fire escape to enter and exit through (1865). This omission of a front door represents the feeling that Tennessee Williams had that he could not leave his family and strike out on his own in a normal fashion as most children do. Tennessee Williams felt that he had to literally escape in order to follow his own dream of writing as Tom too felt in the play. John Fritscher points out in his dissertation that Tennessee and Tom both were torn between their mother's interpretation of responsibility and their own instinct (5).
The masterful use of symbolism is delightfully ubiquitous in Tennessee Williams’ “The Glass Menagerie.” He uses a collection of dim, dark and shadowy symbols that constantly remind the audience of the lost opportunity each of these three characters continually experience. This symbolism is not only use to enlighten the audience to their neglected opportunities to shine, but it is also repeatedly utilized to reinforce the ways in which the characters try in vain to cross over turbulent waters into a world of light and clarity. It is thematically a wrenching story of life gone by, and the barren attempts to realize another reality that is made more poignant by symbolic language, objects, setting, lighting and music. The characters are trying to escape their own reality, and continue desperately to grasp at real life. The powerful use of symbolism in The Glass Menagerie exaggerates their missed opportunities, and their inability to step into a new reality. Through the use of symbolism, Williams continually illuminates the attempts of each character to break their bondage, and cross their own personal Rubicon into another reality. Because of his expert use of symbolism the audience can assuredly feel the full weight and impact of their imprisonment and actions.
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.
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.
how society forced them to change and Laura to lose her status in order to fit
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.
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.
In Williams, Tennessee’s play The Glass Menagerie, Amanda’s image of the southern lady is a very impressive. Facing the cruel reality, she depends on ever memories of the past as a powerful spiritual to look forward to the future, although her glory and beautiful time had become the past, she was the victim of the social change and the Great Depression, but she was a faithful of wife and a great mother’s image cannot be denied.
In Tennessee Williams' play, The Glass Menagerie, each member of the Wingfield family has their own fantasy world in which they indulge themselves. Tom escaped temporarily from the fantasy world of Amanda and Laura by hanging out on the fire escape. Suffocating both emotionally and spiritually, Tom eventually sought a more permanent form of escape.
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.
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.
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...
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 for Tom. Tennessee Williams uses the fire escape to symbolize an escape from the dysfunction and frustration of the Wingfield family. The escape serves as an exit in the play, it is both a literal escape out of the apartment and a metaphorical escape from the Wingfield family.
If we take a look at the different symbols used throughout the play, I think that the most important one when it comes to escape is the fire escape. It is in the center from the very beginning, when Tom makes his opening addressing to the audience from it. To understand the role of the fire escape one has to see that it serves a different purpose for each of the characters. In general we can say that it represents the borderline between freedom and imprisonment. Apart from this, the different characters see it in different ways. For Tom, the fire escape is an opportunity to get away from the apartment and his nagging mother. For Amanda, on the other hand, it's a door through which gentleman callers for Laura can come into their apartment / into their world. For Laura, even though she's been outside, it's the border between the safe and the dangerous, between the known and the unknown.