The Glass Menagerie Essay

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The Glass Menagerie, written by Tennessee Williams is a very dramatic play that seems to be pretty popular in high schools all over. The Glass Menagerie does not seem to have a very clear antagonist or protagonist in its plot. The protagonist could very easily be either Tom or Amanda because both of them seem to be very important. Amanda or Tom could be the antagonist also since they seem to be the characters that keep the story moving. Laura does not seem to have as important of a role as either Tom or Amanda so she is probably not the antagonist or protagonist, but she is still important to the play The protagonist of our story could either be Tom Wingfield or his mother, Amanda Wingfield. Each of these characters plays an important role …show more content…

The antagonist of the story is normally the second main character and instead of being the good guy they are the villain or in the case of this story the antagonist is the mother of the protagonist, but she is a pain to him. Amanda Wingfield is the antagonist of this story for multiple reasons and the first reason being that she is holding Tom back from his hopes and adventurous dreams. She seems to be a very selfish person, and is trying to relive her life when she was younger through her kids that have very different ideas than she does. Amanda wants them to be like herself when she was younger and when she thinks that her kids are doing wrong she says stuff like “Why can’t you and your brother be normal people?” which is found page 1352 of The Glass Menagerie. Amanda hounds her kids into trying to be happy, but the only thing she does is make them grumpy and restless for more freedom. She evens goes as far as making fun of Tom for the small things in life that he enjoys like drinking and going to the movies so he can see his own illusional dreams. According to the article In The Glass Menagerie what conflicts does Tennessee Williams develop in the first three scenes of the play? “The tension between Amanda and Tom is introduced early in this scene as Amanda criticizes his table manners and his smoking; Tom responds in disgust.” Amanda is constantly nagging at Tom

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