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Analysis on the glass menagerie tennessee williams
Tennessee Williams the Glass Menagerie and how it relates to his life
Critical analysis of glass menagerie
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The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams had ordinary people in an ordinary life that closely resembled the influences of Williams’ personal life while having reoccurring themes and motifs throughout the story. The play has been done by many with some variations in the scripts and setting while still clinging to the basic ideas of the original play.
Amanda Wingfield was a complex character that encompassed many facets of her personality. She longed to have the life she had as a girl and young woman with gentleman callers and being the center of attention; her reality though, was a much more dismal existence with a son who worked at a factory making little money at a job he despised and a daughter that was as emotionally and physically as fragile the glass figurines her daughter collected. She was a caring mother that wanted to see her children succeed and lead what she believed to be a meaningful and secure life, although her techniques and visions in achieving this were misguided and overbearing. During the play’s snapshot of life, the Great Depression had taken its toll on the family which made Amanda reminisce about her past as a southern belle to escape the pain she felt in her present. She was in constant denial of her daughter’s defect and personality (Roberts). She could not grasp why her daughter was not more like herself in her younger years. She continually badgered Tom to become what she envisioned a man to be and not to chase what she considered silly dreams of adventure. She also had unrealistic expectations that would not be realized for Laura by expecting her to be an outgoing person with a steady stream of gentleman callers (Odak). Amanda’s consistent high expectations made the situation the family was en...
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...elia. Study the Character of Amanda Wingfield in the Glass Menagerie. 4 November 2013. .
Roberts, James L. CliffsNotes on The Glass Menagerie. 04 November 2013. .
SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes on The Glass Mnagerie. Ed. SparkNotes Editors. 2003. 30 October 2013. .
The Biography Channel website. Tennesse Williams.biography. 2011. Website. 6 November 2013. .
The Glass Menagerie. By Stewart Stern and Tennesse Williams. Dir. Anthony Harvey. 1973.
Williams, Tennessee. "The Glass Menagerie." McMahan, Elizabeth, et al. Literature and the Writing Process. Boston: Pearson, 2014. 767-807.
Amanda is also well characterized by the glass menagerie. The glass sits in a case, open for display and inspection for all. Amanda try’s to portray herself as a loving mother, doing everything she can for her children, and caring nothing for herself, when in fact, she is quite selfish and demanding. Amanda claims that she devotes her life to her children, and that she would do anything for them, but is very suspicious of Tom’s activities, and continually pressures Tom, trying to force him in finding a gentleman caller for Laura, believing that Laura is lonely and needs a companion, perhaps to get married. Like the glass, her schemes are very transparent, and people can see straight through them to the other side, where ...
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.
Did you know that most of the plays written and performed in twentieth century America where based off of what was happening in the world at that time? The Great Depression, new inventions, and The Great War influenced the ideas of plays. The twentieth century American history takes a role in the ways of life in The Glass Menagerie which is set after the Great Depression in the late 1930’s.
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.
Williams, Tennessee. The Glass Menagerie. The Bedford Introduction to Literature: Reading, Writing, Thinking. 5th ed. Ed. Michael Meyer. Boston: Bedford, 1999.
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.
The Glass Menagerie reflects Williams's own life so much that it could be mistaken as pages from his autobiography. The characters and situations of the play are much like those found in the small St. Louis apartment where Williams spent part of his life. Williams himself can be seen in the character Tom. Both worked in a shoe factory and wrote poetry to escape the depressing reality of their lives, and both eventually ended up leaving. One not so obvious character is Mr. Wingfield, who is the absent father seen only by the looming picture hanging in the Wingfield's apartment. Tom and Williams both had fathers who were, as Tom says, "in love with long distances." Amanda, an overbearing mother who cannot let go of her youth in the Mississippi Delta and her "seventeen gentleman callers" is much like Williams own mother, Edwina. Both Amanda and Edwina were not sensitive to their children's feelings. In their attempts to push their children to a better future, they pushed them away. The model for Laura was Williams' introverted sister, Rose. According to Contemporary Authors "the memory of Rose appears in some character, situation, symbol, or motif in almost every work after 1938." Edwina, like Amanda, tried to find a gentleman caller for Rose. Both situations ended with a touching confrontation with the caller and an eventual heartbreak
The three family members are adults at the time of this play, struggling to be individuals, and yet, very enmeshed and codependent with one another. The overbearing and domineering mother, Amanda, spends much of her time reliving the past; her days as a southern belle. She desperately hopes her daughter, Laura, will marry. Laura suffers from an inferiority complex partially due to a minor disability that she perceives as a major one. She has difficulty coping with life outside of the apartment, her cherished glass animal collection, and her Victrola. Tom, Amanda's son, resents his role as provider for the family, yearns to be free from him mother's constant nagging, and longs to pursue his own dreams. A futile attempt is made to match Laura with Jim, an old high school acquaintance and one of Tom's work mates.
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.
The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams is through Tom’s recollection of memory. Tom recalls their conflicts, family dynamics, inner feelings, and struggles. Unwillingly able to accept life’s conflicts the Wingfield’s were forced to face different aspects of life causing them to enter into an unrealistic world of illusions that demonstrated a paranoid effect, an infatuation, or a feeling of entrapment. The plays setting is in the Wingfield’s apartment and “At the rise of the curtain the audience is faced with the dark grim rear wall of the Wingfield tenement.” The apartment faces a dark alley and it is entered by a fire escape.
When encountering uncomfortable or undesirable situations, many people escape either physically or mentally. One of the most important themes within The Glass Menagerie, a classic play written by Tennessee Williams, is the difficulty the characters have facing and accepting reality. The play begins inside the Wingfield tenement apartment, where Amanda lives with her two children, Laura and Tom. The American drama takes place during the Great Depression, a time when families barely scraped by. The family’s lives are not without struggle, and everyone is forced to make sacrifices.
Tennessee Williams’ play, The Glass Menagerie, depicts the Wingfield family in a naturalistic viewpoint that highlights the importance of a man in the life of a woman. Without a husband in the play, Amanda’s son Tom is rendered as “the man of the house.” Williams attributes the monetary stability of the Wingfields entirely to Tom. Williams stresses the necessity of a working man through Tom so that women and children can be financially stable. As a naturalist, Tennessee Williams illustrates the characters’ reactions to various events and circumstances in accordance with man’s natural instincts of survival. Williams reveals Amanda in this approach, and he portrays naturalistic tendencies in her personality and character, her relationship with her son, and her connection with her hopeless daughter, Laura. Amanda is trying to survive and raise her children without a husband to support her economically.
Contemporary physiologist and parenting expert, Shefali Tsabary, states, “When you parent, it’s crucial you realize you aren’t raising a ‘mini me,’ but a spirit throbbing with its own signature… When we know this is in the depths of our soul, we tailor our raising of them to their needs, rather than molding them to fit out needs.” Being a strong parent involves a person focusing on the needs of their children, even if they need to sacrifice their own desires too. In the play, The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams, Amanda does not adhere to this philospohy of parenting.
How Far She Has Fallen At first glance, Amanda Wingfield from Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie seems like a selfish woman stuck in her past. In some ways this observation is correct; however, she is much more than that. Her kind and caring nature, and her insatiable love for her children, has been overshadowed by her brash and insensitive dialogue. Her character is extremely complex and each one of her actions reveals more of her overwhelming personality.
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.