Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie

The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams is a character driven play, which follows Tom’s recollection of his dysfunctional family. Throughout the story Tom pursues a since of freedom and his mother, Amanda, pursues stability for her daughter but the daughter, Laura, herself is more concerned with keeping the peace in her family. While Laura doesn’t want to fall into hardships without the support of her brother and mother, she can’t seem to find the courage and confidence to ascend from her imaginary world that she has created to cope with life. Tom and Amanda are never really on the same page. Making matters worse is the fact that Amanda is a very powerful, strong willed character, which seems to provoke Tom’s desire to leave.

Their mother Amanda, is absolutely a lunatic. She is obsessive and controlling to her children, because she wants them to live the life she wanted to live. While Tom works hard to support his family, and has a strong care for Laura, he feels trapped and confused. After working long hard days, Tom has to come home to the reality of his critical mother, his poor helpless sister, and their tiny, cramped apartment. Tom feels a lot of resentment towards his father for abandoning the family.

The second was obviously Laura learning about Jim and being let down. Amanda’s dreams are shattered with both times since her dream is to make her children happy even if she tries to do this by living through

Amanda is the superior parent because she is trying to release her children as compared to Troy, who attempts to contain his loved ones within his fence. To start, Amanda Wingfield displays different characteristics from Troy. Amanda lives with her son and daughter who are in their 20’s and are supposed to be starting their lives. Amanda wants Laura to succeed in life and be a remarkable wife to one of her future gentleman callers. When Amanda discovers Laura has stopped going to her typewriting class, Amanda realizes her dreams of Laura succeeding are flickering away, “My hopes and ambitions for you”(Williams 14).

Mothers are undoubtedly the most critical figure in a family’s life. In the charming play The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams, a very unusual family takes center stage. The lacking “head” of the clan is Amanda Wingfield. As an older woman abandoned by her husband, she lives trapped in the past, and tries desperately in this play to manipulate her children to how she would like them to be. For her son Tom, the breadwinner, she often finds herself in arguments over staying out late and extracurricular activities.

Reading Brecht’s stage directions is almost as entertaining as reading the play itself. They are specific and often humorous. This however, is an element of comedy that will only be apparent to the person reading the script as opposed to the usual multimedia elements that are used to alienate the audience. Not always but frequently the reader of a Brecht play is someone who has read other plays and is familiar with typical stage directions. These typical stage directions habitually consist of “spins around in chair” (Wilder 69) and “going back to his bench” (Shaffer 68), while as in The Good Woman of Setzuan they can be long paragraphs and are often snarky.

While at the same time, extinguishing any hopes and dreams Tom has for his own future (1646; sc. 4). Amanda’s main goal is to find someone to care for her emotionally fragile daughter (1638; sc. 3). Perceived to be a nurturing mother, she uses guilt to guide the very existence of her children.

Amanda knew Laura sensitive, fragile, she was always in the care and encourages her daughter. Because of her shortcomings, Laura sometimes frustrated and Amanda immediately replied that "I 've told you never, never to use that word. Why, you 're not crippled, you just have a little defect". Amanda for the care of the children was more reflected a mother 's strong from the play that Amanda paid money to send Laura to typing school. She hoped daughter have a better future and married a good man to take care of the family, and encouraged her daughter, prompting her to go out of the glass menagerie to experience her real life, but Amanda placed more expectations for his son Tom because her husband left home, Tom is the only man and the mainstay of the family.

Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie We all have illusions. We can hardly live without them. Most of the time they are harmless thoughts about things that are usually unattainable. An example would be when a person sees something that they want and then dreams of having it. Whenever someone holds an opinion based on what they think is true, or in some cases what should be true, rather than what actually is true, then that is an illusion.

Amanda entwined every aspect of her children’s life into her own, she relied on them for assurance, and to keep what little material values that she had. She was living through them in a sense. Tom wanted so much more from life, but has stuck around for the sake of his sister. Laura is a slightly crippled young woman in her mid-twenties, shy to a fault, and consumed by self-doubt and fear. Her mother constantly berates her about the lack of gentleman callers.