menagerie REVISED
Prince, don't ask me in a week / or in a year what place they are;
I can only give you this refrain: / Where are the snows of yesteryear?
Francois Villon, c. 1461
"Where are the snows of yesteryear?" asks Tennessee Williams in the opening screen of The Glass Menagerie (401), quoting a poem by Francis Villon. Williams explains in the production notes to this famous play that he has left in the manuscript a device omitted from the "acting version" of the play (Williams 395), a series of messages projected on screens, some verbal, some pictorial, that prompt and reflect the action on stage. Williams sums up the action in two lines before those notes as, preparation for a gentleman caller, and "the gentleman calls" (394). This summary is so understated as to suggest a possible joke, because The Glass Menagerie is such a rich a play that those lines hardly describe the complex emotions dealt with by his tormented characters. Such innovations as the screen projection or the tansparent walls Williams employs in The Glass Menagerie attempt "a more penetrating and vivid expression of things as they are" (Williams 395). The fact that The Glass Menagerie has captivated so many, called by Hale "the great American play" more performed and reprinted than most "in modern theater history" (27) indicates Williams was not alone in an obsession with a past he could never recapture, but could never fully leave behind.
This theme runs through The Glass Menagerie however the reader slices it. Key speeches and actions demonstrate how character, setting, plot and dialogue occur together to reinforce this theme of a present caught between a future that never stops arriving, and a past the characters cannot escape. Every single character looks back at a dream of the past while the future arrives faster than they would prefer and perhaps can handle. Amanda relives her girlhood through Laura's pathetic first date, while Laura herself cannot get past the often-scary dreams of adolescence. Likewise Jim finds disappointment after the triumphs of pre-adulthood, but the present for all of them is a let down from these past high points, and of course the entire story is just a memory of narrator Tom's, looked back at from a future spent running from the events unfolding on the stage.
Tom betrayed his family, just like his father did, goes the plot, but he helped achieve growth for some of his family if only by accident. Laura got her yearbook signed by the captain of the football team after all, even if this took the breaking of her favorite unicorn's horn. Jim encourages Laura to hope, and while she and Amanda return to the pantomime of their humdrum life and fade back into the unknown poor in the city all around them, Jim's encouragement achieves transformation for Laura even though this means the end of her childhood. This conflict and resolution was forced on her by her scheming mother Amanda, who is trying to find a husband better than the father who abandoned them. Nonetheless, even though growth is painful and disappointing, Laura does grow through Tom's reluctant and accidental introduction of Jim into the family scene. Beyond this glimmer of hope for Laura, every one else's future consists of looking back at better times, as life grows increasingly disappointing without much hope in sight. Amanda's fear for her children's future turns to obsessive nagging that drives Tom to abandon the family just like his father did, the only way he sees to escape a futile life working in a job with no future. Jim has a future with his absent bride to be, although his last 'engagement' was just "propaganda" (Williams 452) made up by the high school yearbook committee. Jim's enthusiasm about how he and his new fiance "get along fine" in "a great many ways" (Williams 463) is not entirely convincing. While her first date may be a dead end for Laura, Williams does not say that explicitly, and so while she and Amanda fade into the background, this does not rule out the possibility her future may be different if Jim's encouragement helps her grow beyond her fear of meeting new people. Likewise the intensity of Tom's regret must be balanced by the consideration that his disappointment might have been worse had he spent his life dispensing shoes. Williams also leaves this question unasked, but would Tom have been happier if he hadn't run away? A thorough analysis must balance these possibilities.
Glass Menagerie Tennessee Williams, His Mother and the Glass Menagerie Tennessee Williams is among the most celebrated playwrights of the 20th century. His family portraits, set to the backdrop of a deteriorating Southern tradition, are a window into human foibles like vanity, insecurity, detachment and personal disappointment. All of these themes are in full display with Williams' breakthrough work, 1944's The Glass Menagerie. A peering insight into the unhappy lives of the
86). Jim symbolically inspires Laura to accept her individuality and to see that beneath her outstanding traits she is no different from anyone else. His gentility and kindness, borne of Southern culture, help Laura come to terms with herself and her social awkwardness. Laura's personality transformation through Jim's kindness paralleled her symbolic transformation through the unicorn. Had the unicorn not been made of glass, its horn would not have so
Glass Menagerie Tennessee Williams play, The Glass Menagerie, presents the drama of three family members who live in a world whose values and supporting pillars are shaking as a consequence of the disastrous economic times people went through during the Great Depression. The lack of role models in the micro universe of the Wingfield family as well as their dissolution in the macro universe of the whole American society is deeply
Glass Menagerie Tennessee Williams's play The Glass Menagerie is about the three members of the Wingfield family, Tom, Laura, and their mother Amanda. They live together and have done so since the loss of the Wingfield patriarch. This family dynamic is very dysfunctional and the three serve to harm one another more than provide support as a family unit with the exception of Laura who tries to provide positivity in
Towards the play's end, Tom tells his audience/readers: "Oh Laura...I tried to leave you behind me, but I am more faithful than I intended to be! I reach for a cigarette...anything that can blow your candles out!" This passage from the play showed how, in his fear for his sister and attempt to shield her from the harshness of life, Tom wanted to "blow (Laura's) candles out," an act
Her expectation is anything but realistic. To deal with her mother's insurmountable expectations, Laura disappears into her own fantasy world with the sparkling, clear world of the glass animals. These unique glass figurines give her something positive and of value, which is lacking in her present life. Unfortunately, Laura, like her mother, cannot always stay in this fantasy world. She has a more difficult time staying in an unrealistic world
Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.
Get Started Now