FREE ESSAY ON GLASS MENAGERIE

GLASS MENAGERIE

The Glass Menagerie 
Tennessee Williams won two Pulitzer Prizes for A Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on A Hot
Tin Roof. Many others believe that The Glass Menagerie deserved one as well. The Glass
Menagerie (memory play) won the New York Drama Critics' Circle's award as the best play
of the season. Williams was born in Columbus, Mississippi, on March 26, 1911. His full
name was Thomas Lanier Williams. He spent most of his youth in St. Louis, Missouri.
During the Depression Williams worked as a factory hand. After attending the University
of Missouri and Washington University he graduated from the University of Iowa in 1938.
Writing under his nickname, Tennessee, he began his career auspiciously with a group
theater award for four one act plays later published under the title American Blues.
The action in The Glass Menagerie takes place in the 30's in St. Louis Missouri in an
apartment facing an alley.
The set consisted of 3 bedrooms, one room for each person, (Tom, Laura, and Amanda) a
kitchen, a dinning room, and a living room, each room would be filled with old antique
furniture. The color of the furniture; dark colors like gray, brown, and even black.
Curtains hung over the windows, and the lighting was very dim, and a picture of their
father hanging on the wall.
Antagonist
 Amanda Wingfield (the mother)
A little old woman confused vitality clinging frantically to another time and place. She
is not paranoiac but her life was paranoia. She may be cruel at times but there is
tenderness in her personality. She was kind and some kind of a hero.
Protagonists
 Tom Wingfield (Amanda's son)
He is the narrator of the play. He was a poet with a warehouse job. His nature is
notremorseless, but to escape from a trap he has to act without pity. Tom is very
rebellious, outspoken, and independent.
Neutrals
 Jim O'Connor (the gentleman caller)
He is a nice, ordinary, young man. Jim is very outgoing, friendly, happy, and talkative.
 Laura Wingfield (Amanda's daughter)
A childhood illness has left her crippled, one leg slightly shorter than the other, and
held in a brace. She was like a piece of her own glass collection, too exquisitely
fragile to move from the shelf. Laura is very shy, quiet, withdrawn, and lonely.
In Toms opening monologue he describes each character Amanda, Laura, himself, and Jim.
There is a fifth character in the play who doesn't appear except over the manel, who was
they're father, he was a telephone operator who fell in love with long distances, he left
them and never came back. Amanda, Laura, and Tom were eating dinner, without any
conversion, until Amanda started bugging Tom about how to eat. They got into this huge
argument and Tom left to the movies. 
Deception is the initial incident. Amanda has found out that Laura has dropped out of her
Rubicans Business College. Amanda had no idea that Laura has been telling her every day
for 6 months that she has been going to her business college. Instead had been going out
walking in the park, to the museums, and to the zoo. Amanda as furiously talking to Laura
and asks her why? Laura said that she didn't want to go back. Amanda said to her Well
when girls aren't cut out for working they end up marring. Amanda asked Laura if she has
ever liked a boy. Yes, his name was Jim O'Connor. He used to call me blue roses! But he
was going out with a girl named Emily Meisenbach, and it says in the personal section
they're engaged, that was six years ago, they must be married by now, Laura told her
mother. 
Later, Tom and his mom are at each other's throats. Amanda has been bothering Tom ever
since she had confiscated his library books. Amanda doesn't give Tom the space and the
freedom he needs. She always has to make such a little thing into some huge thing. Tom
had called his mother an old babbling witch.
Tom comes up the stairs drunk as can be, loudly looking for his key. Laura comes out
hearing all the noise asking Tom where he has been all this time. Tom replied that he had
been at the movies. Toms tell Laura about the magician, he told her about all the tricks
he performed. He gave Laura the magicians' magic scarf.
Tom's apologies to his mother for everything he said because he felt guilty for saying
such bad things. Amanda sends Laura to the store to get a few things so she can talk to
Tom about getting Laura together with a gentlemen caller, from his work. Tom said that he
would bring someone back because if he would say no his mom would get on his case, and
nag him about it. 
Tom comes home from his work and goes out to the fire escape to smoke. Amanda comes out
asking him about the gentlemen caller and asking him if he is going to come or not. Tom
found a gentlemen caller. He is coming the next day for dinner. Amanda starts talking
about how it is too soon it doesn't give her anytime to do anything.
Amanda is getting Laura ready for the gentlemen caller. Amanda tells Laura that his name
is Jim O'Connor. Shocked, Laura doesn't believe it. The doorbell rang, and Amanda told
Laura to let them in but she refuses, but she does let them in. Laura excuses herself
saying she was sick. Tom and Jim go out on the fire excape to smoke and talk. Jim told
Tom that he is going to get fired. Tom says that he paid his dues to become a member of
the Union of Merchant Seamen. He paid the dues instead of the light bill. 
Dinner is served and Mr. O'Connor, Amanda, and Tom are eating dinner at the table, and
Laura is lying on the sofa. After awhile dinner is nearly finished and the lights go out.
Amanda told Jim to go and bring the wine and the candles to Laura, and Tom and her will
do the dishes. Laura tells Jim that she has known him since High School. And she sat
across the aisle from him in the Auditorium on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. She also
told him that she went to the Pirates of Penanze a play in which he was in and she went
all 3. She asked him to playbook her program since she didn't get it signed in school.
Jim says that he remembered now how he called her  blue roses. Then he asked her to
dance. Then he kissed When tom finally left, he didn't go the moon, he went somewhere
much farther. He left Saint Louis. Tom tried to leave , You are the only one who can make
yourself happy, and you cant physically remove your problems, but not emotionally.
The thing that I will remember most in the Glass Menagerie is the story line and the
ending. I my school years and throughout my lifetime I would for sure is one of the best
plays I have seen, it is great! It gives a great moral.
The characters in the play that I can identify with are Amanda, Tom, and Tim, not Laura
as much. I can identify with Amanda because I am very talkative, and at times I can be
very aggravating. I can relate