It is an innate desire of all human beings to be successful. Indeed, with success comes a feeling of personal accomplishment, fulfillment, and pride. The prospect of such a future can drive many into great lengths to achieve their goal. While the ideal images of accomplishment may differ slightly from person to person, they are all ideals constructed by society. Unfortunately, society has a tendency to idealize these standards, placing them on a level that is both unreachable and impossible to achieve. As such, these unattainable images of success have driven numerous individuals into misery and hopelessness as they desperately attempt to reach that impossible ideal. For many, their own inevitable failures ultimately result in psychological turmoil and distress. Such is the case with the Wingfield household in Tennessee Williams' play The Glass Menagerie, which illustrates an American family's vain attempt at achieving the "American Dream". Through the portrayal of the deteriorating mental conditions of the Wingfields, Williams reveals the destructive psychological consequences of failing to meet societal standards of success.
Amanda Wingfield's unconscious denial of her dismal socioeconomic position forces her to seek solace in an idealized past, which ultimately traps her within a world of illusion. Throughout the play, Amanda's only connection with the present is portrayed through her longing "for a stable family structure, that is, a stable means of support, for her daughter", one in which her daughter, Laura, will "find a suitable husband, one who will not drink excessively, who will find excitement enough in a conventional career and family" (Domina). In other words, Amanda desires to be a part of the successful American h...
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...hed from a painful reality.
Works Cited
"Defense Mechanisms." The Gale Encyclopedia of Psychology. Ed. Bonnie Strickland. 2nd ed. Detroit: Gale, 2001. 168-170. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 8 Mar 2012. .
DiYanni, Robert. "The Glass Menagerie." Literature: Reading Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. 5th ed. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill, 2002. 1780-831. Print.
Domina, L. M. "An overview of The Glass Menagerie." Drama for Students. Detroit: Gale. Literature Resource Center. Web. 6 Mar. 2012. .
Dusenbury, Winifred L. "Loneliness in The Glass Menagerie." Readings on The Glass Menagerie. Thomas Siebold. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven, 1998. 66-72. Print.
Her low self-esteem makes it difficult for Laura to interact in society causing her to be more comfortable living in her imagination. John takes note of his sister diffident personality and tries to make Amanda understand, "[…]in the eyes of others-strangers-she 's terribly shy and lives in a world of her own and those things make her seem a little peculiar to people outside the house"(Williams 47). Being so self conscious about her disability, Laura allowed herself to become distant from the world around her. Laura creates this distance by escaping “[...] into a world of glass and music. Her father 's old phonograph records provide her with escape that the unfamiliar new tunes can 't provide”(). Laura finds comfort in what she is familiar with which is why she flees into her world of imagination and memory. When Laura is unable to deal with real life issues and duties she seeks tranquility in her delicate glass figurines and the remains of her father before he choose to elude the
The text from A Streetcar Named Desire and The Glass Menagerie, both written by the renowned author Tennessee Williams, deal with the topics of life's pressures, and the desire to succeed in everything we do. Oftentimes, people place unrealistic expectations upon us and set the bar higher than we can achieve, or even want to reach. People end up developing mechanisms to deal with these stressors and tensions that have been created. We find other unhealthy habits and vices to supplant the reality we are trying to escape, that hopefully will take away this pain and suffering we are experiencing. In both of these plays, the characters are not able to live in their present realities. Two of the main characters are closely linked in their characterizations
Amanda Wingfield is an old Southern belle who came from a very prominent Southern family who loss of their money. She is a single mother of two because her husband left his family to pursue his dreams or whatever he wanted to do with his life. Kind of like Tennessee’s real mother Edwina. In play, “The Glass Menageri...
In today's rough and tough world, there seems to be no room for failure. The pressure to succeed in life sometimes seems unreasonable. Others often set expectations for people too high. This forces that person to develop ways to take the stress and tension out of their lives in their own individual ways. In the plays "The Glass Menagerie" and " A Streetcar Named Desire" written by Tennessee Williams, none of the characters are capable of living in the present and facing reality. Two of the characters are Amanda Wingfield and Blache Dubios. In order for these characters to deal with the problems and hardships in their lives they retreat into their own separate worlds of illusion and lies.
The Glass Menagerie is a play written by Tennessee Williams. It involves a mother, Amanda, and her two children, Tom and Laura. They are faced with many problems throughout the play. Some of these problems involve: Amanda, the mother, only wants to see her kids succeed and do well for themselves. How does her drive for success lead the book?
The “Glass Menagerie” by Tennessee Williams shows a family facing economic and social hardships due to the father abandoning them. The father’s absence forces the rest of the family to fill roles that they wouldn’t be obliged to face if the father remained. The mother, Amanda, is a strong single mother who pushes her kids to be economically self-sustaining individuals. Amanda tries to impose her desires for her kids in a very direct and controlling manner which causes them to dislike her initiatives. The son, Tom, is the breadwinner for the family, however is dissatisfied with his situation due to his increased responsibilities. The daughter, Laura, is handicapped and dropped out of business school. Each member of the family is limited by their ability to grow out of their negative habits, however, it is likely that these habits or characteristics came from the family situation and the roles that each member was forced to fill.
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.
We all feel unhappiness at some point in our lives. It’s human to feel like you want more or something is not good enough for you. You want more out of life. You want to do something to make you happy. In The Glass Menagerie Tom, Laura, and Amanda Wingfield all expierence unhappiness through out the play in their own way. They are a family but their goals and dreams are quite different from each other. Their dreams and goals lead to their unhappiness because they seem impossible to reach. One reason that holds them back from being happy is the decade they are living in. The story is taking place in the 1940’s right after the great depression. Times are tough so dreams and future goals have to be moved to the back of the to do list while you
...o have an employed man in her life. Amanda served as a perfect model to exemplify this belief, and the way that Williams’ makes use of naturalistic themes in his play. He proves that without a strong man in the house to support Amanda and Laura, the women would not survive. While Amanda tries to raise her children without a husband, she exhibits many naturalist mannerisms. Williams’ reveals examples of Charles Darwin’s theories of “survival of the fittest”, and of natural selection through Amanda, and her interactions with her son, her daughter, and her character and disposition. Williams’ also demonstrates the naturalistic principle that character traits and personalities are hereditary. Tom Wingfield was the main provider for the family, and when he followed his father’s footsteps and abandoned Laura and Amanda, the women were left unaided and hopeless.
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.
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.
Both William’s Amanda and Mastrosimone’s Marjorie were very strong and self-reliant women. In The Glass Menagerie Amanda was an extremely controlling mother. Her husband left the family and she was left to raise two children. The setting of the play was in the 1930s in the southern state. The challenge that a single mother faced at that time was much greater than today. However, she managed to endure the difficulties of life, taking care of her extremely shy daughter and determined son. In Extremeties Marjorie was an independent modern woman. She was an intelligent person who refused to let the rapist manipulate her and stood firm for justice. Both women stood firm even though they were confronted with extremely adversity. The continuous struggling to maintain their independence developed strong characters throughout both books.
The “American Dream” idea, born from war and depression, was the opening window to hope for Americans. This new beginning inspired change in people, and in some, inspired greed. The overconfidence and blind optimism grew in many, often in people who had already come from a place of privilege and wealth—people who expected their dreams to appear in front of them with little effort on their behalf. Williams believed these behaviors and values were destined for failure, and he successfully portrayed said beliefs through Blanche. Blanche represents the unravelling of the dream because despite her strong desire and determination, her unrealistic expectations and delusions caused her to spiral downwards into a pit of despair.
Amanda Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie furnishes an excellent example of a carefully crafted, complex character whose speech and action arise from the "psychological" being created by the playwright.
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.