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Research paper on theme of escape and abandonment in the Glass Menagerie
Sketch the character of Amanda from the Glass menagerie
Research paper on theme of escape and abandonment in the Glass Menagerie
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The Theme of Escape in The Glass Menagerie
In Tennessee Williams' play, The Glass Menagerie, Amanda, Laura, and Tom have chosen to avoid reality. Amanda continually attempts to live in the past. Laura's escape from the real world is her glass collection and old phonograph records. Tom hides from the real world by going to the movies and getting drunk. Each character retreats to their separate world to escape the cruelties of life.
Living in the past is Amanda’s way of escaping her pitiful present reality (Knorr). She never forgets to tell Laura and Tom about her receiving seventeen gentlemen callers in Blue Mountain when she was young: "One Sunday afternoon-your mother received-seventeen!-gentlemen callers! Why, sometimes there weren't enough chairs enough to accommodate them all" (Williams 26). She talks about how all her admirers turned out and even though many became successful and could have been better choices, she had chosen their father. It seems that she wants her children to know that she was different before her husband left her. She wants them to know that she was a "catch". The truth remains that she had been economically dependent on her husband. Since her husband left her, her dependency transfers to her son Tom.
She not only transferred her dependency to her son and her hopes for a gentleman caller to her daughter, but also her need of the past and her memories of the past. To Amanda, the past stands for the carefree life she led in Blue Mountain. This affects Tom and Laura greatly. Tom despises this situation and can't stand being at home. He goes to the movies and writes poetry to escape his home life and his disheartening job at the shoe factory. He believes that his home life and job affect his ...
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...t forget her. "Ironically, though the rainbows seemed to be positive signs, they all end in disappointment"(Knorr).
Even though Tom tries to escape his past, it remains with him for he is the one who tells the story of The Glass Menagerie. Though Amanda, Laura, and Jim are not real they are part of Tom's memory which reveals his pain and suffering in his ironic and humorous tone. All of the characters escape their reality that never changes.
Works Cited
Williams, Tennessee. The Glass Menagerie. Ed. James Laughlin. New York: New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1970.
King, Thomas L. "Irony and Distance in The Glass Menagerie." In Modern Critical Views: Tennessee Williams. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987, 85-94.
Knorr. Home page. http://www.susqu.edu/ac_depts/arts_sci/english/lharris/class/WILLIAMS/psy.htm
By the time he returns to King Arthur's court, Sir Gawain has experienced the weakness of human ideals in the face of nature through deceit and trickery. However, despite the weakness of these ideals, the poem does not appear to suggest that the code be rejected. Rather, the chivalric code is presented as a valuable set of ideals that mankind should strive to uphold. In the process, however, man must remain aware of his mortality and human weakness. The girdle serves as a reminder of this, as Sir Gawain explains to the Green Knight after his failure has been exposed. Even Sir Gawain, "a man most faultless by far" (Part 4) with "matchless faith" (Part 4), cannot always uphold the chivalric code. “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” is a great example for the chivalric code.
Though often extensive detail may be condemned as mere flowery language, in understanding Sir Gawain and the Green Knight one must make special emphasis on it. In color and imagery itself, the unknown author paints the very fibers of this work, allowing Sir Gawain to discern the nuances of ritualistic chivalry and truth. His quest after the Green Knight is as simple as ones quest toward himself. Through acute awareness of the physical world he encounters Gawain comes to an understanding of the world beyond chivalry, a connection to G-d, the source of truth. He learns, chivalry, like a machine, will always function properly, but in order to derive meaning from its product he must allow nature to affect him.
Borroff, Marie. Sir Gawain and The Green Knight: A New Verse Translation. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1967.
Sir Gawain is the nephew of the most famous King Arthur. Gawain being in line of the throne knew he must show his bravery and man up in front of his fellow knights. The Green Knight stormed into the king’s courts riding on a mystical horse. He taunted the men asking for the bravest knight in the kingdom to stand up and take his outrageous challenge. As the men sat quietly not knowing what to do, Sir Gawain decides t...
In the Middle Ages, a time of brave knights and fair maidens, chivalry was alive and well, and honor meant much more than just pride. A man could be expected to be as good as his word, and God was an integral part of his life. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the title character sets off on a month-long quest for the Green Chapel in fulfillment of a promise made a year earlier, knowing full well that it could mean certain death. After the knight's final days at the court of King Arthur are recounted, he sets off in "country wild" where he is "far off from all his friends" (lines 713-14). This lonely road on which he rides reflects the nature of his quest--Gawain's conflict is within himself, and is something which he must deal with on his own.
The story, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, was told in the14th century by an anonymous poet about a young knight on his first adventure. In my analysis of Part 4, lines 2358 through 2350, I will discuss the significance of the number three, the tap, the asking of the Green Knight his name, and the green belt. I will develop the theory that the author uses this story and these significant symbols to bring out his Christian beliefs about the flesh and its weakness.
Laura's mother and brother shared some of her fragile tendencies. Amanda, Laura's mother, continually lives in the past. Her reflection of her teenage years continually haunts Laura. To the point where she forces her to see a "Gentleman Caller" it is then that Tom reminds his mother not to "expect to much of Laura" she is unlike other girls. But Laura's mother has not allowed herself nor the rest of the family to see Laura as different from other girls. Amanda continually lives in the past when she was young a pretty and lived on the plantation. Laura must feel she can never live up to her mothers expectations. Her mother continually reminds her of her differences throughout the play.
A knight rides into the hall dressed entirely in green. The knight is large, well- dressed, and imposing, but he does not wear armor nor carry a shield. Rather, he holds some holly in one hand and a huge ax in the other. The Green Knight, without first introducing himself, demands to speak with whoever is the head of the court. King Arthur answers the Green Knight’s call to the head of the company and asks him to dismount and eat. However, the Knight refuses, saying that he does not intend to stay. He tells Arthur that his court is reputed to be the best and worthiest in the land, and so he has come there with a challenge. He says that he has not come in war, as proved by his lack of armor, but rather to propose a challenge. He will allow someone to strike him with his ax, as long as they agree to find him in one year to accept the return blow.
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...
...fect models for excellence for the 21st century's young citizens. They both exemplified enormous courage, leadership, determination, and most of all, honor. Both characters abided by a code of honor that they were willing to protect with their lives. Today, that trait is at the very least, rare, if not altogether absent from our increasingly materialistic and self-centered society. Both Gawain and Beowulf saw themselves as means by which the end of achieving glory for their society could be achieved. They didn't leech on to society and drain precious resources as do many of today's corrupt leaders. On the contrary, they gave back to their people and lived up to the ancient notion of the "good citizen" as first advanced by Plato. Present society would be the better for it if more people like Gawain and Beowulf were born. They were truly excellent members of society.
Hannabery, Brian. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight--The introduction. 1998. December 2, 1998. Online. Internet. Available http: csis.pace.edu/grendel/prjs3b/intro.htm
Like the glass menagerie, the only people who see her unique beauty are the ones who take the time to look at her in the right light. One of the first people outside the family to see the more vibrant side of Laura is Jim, a friend of her brother’s as well as an old high school crush of hers. While having dinner at their house, Jim takes interest in Laura’s collection of glass animals and records. They reminisce about high school and when Jim begins to understand why she is so shy, he says, “You know what I judge is the trouble with you? Inferiority complex! Know what that is? That’s what they call it when someone low-rates himself!” Seeing her now as the vibrant creature she is, Jim is intrigued by her exotic beauty. Though Laura’s entire collection represents her personality, the unicorn in particular, symbolizes her unique and rare soul. When she shows Jim her menagerie, she declares the unicorn to be her favorite. “Aren’t those extinct in the modern world?” Jim replies. He also says that the unicorn must be lonely because he is not like the other horses. It seems that the unicorn is Laura’s favorite because she can easily identify with it, its beauty, its distinctiveness, and its solitary
As Winfield 's wife, Amanda is worthy of love and respect. Amanda is a southern lady, when she was young, she had an attractive appearance and graceful in manner, and her families were also quite rich. These favorable conditions made her the admiration of many men. Still, her final choice was a poor boy. She did not hesitate and bravely to choose her own love. Though her marriage was not as good as she had imagined the happiness of life, and the husband, Winfield meager income also drinking heavily, finally abandoned Amanda and two young children, but she still remembered and loved her husband. Her husband 's weakness did not make Amanda fall down; instead, she was brave enough to support the family, raising and educating of their two young children. Daughter Laura was a disability to close her fantasy world, and she was collection of a pile of glass small animals as partners. 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. She wanted Tom to realize that is a kind of family responsibility, also is a kind of essential social
The Glass Menagerie, written by Tennessee Williams in 1944, tells a tale of a young man imprisoned by his family. Following in the footsteps of his father, Tom Wingfield is deeply unhappy and eventually leaves his mother and sister behind so he may pursue his own ambitions. Throughout the play, the reader or audience is shown several reasons why Tom, a brother to Laura and son to Amanda, is unhappy and wishes to leave his family. However, the last scene describes Tom’s breaking point in which he leaves for the last time. Amanda tells Tom to “go to the moon,” because he is a “selfish dreamer.” (7. Amanda and Tom) The reasonings for Tom’s departure are due to his mother’s constant nagging, hatred for
Williams, Tennessee. The Glass Menagerie. In Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing, 4th ed. Ed. Edgar V. Roberts and Henry E. Jacobs. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1995. 1519-1568.