The Glass Menagerie is basically a memory play and its actions are drawn from the memories of its narrator, Tom Wingfield. Wingfield is a character in the play set in Saint Louis in 1937. The play was authored by Thomas Lanier Williams who adopted his middle name from poet Sidney Lanier (1842-1881) who was also a famous and an accomplished musician of the time. The glass menagerie is a melancholy family drama and was first performed in Broadway 1945. The play has several characters and their distinct personalities add taste to the play. Major characters include Amada, Laura and Tom though there are other minor characters that include Wingfield and Jim O' Connor.
Amada is an aged mother of two children including Laura and Tom. Her husband had run off so many years ago and nothing about him has been heard since then. Amada is very concerned about relationships of her daughter Laura. Often, Amada regales her children tales of her youth life and how men always pursued her for a relationship. However, Amada is angry with her daughter Laura. She argues that her daughter does not attract any gentlemen callers. Laura is painfully shy and wears a brace on her leg; issues that her mother thinks sent men off from her. Amada is a woman of great vitality and frantically cling to other time and space (Bloom 2006: 100).
Laura is a daughter to Wingfield and Amanda. She is six years out of high school and has never had a serious relationship. She is incredibly introverted and shy and she often fixates on her collection of figurines. In the play, Laura is depicted as a young lady who has failed to establish strong bonds and contact with the reality. She has a physical challenge which is believed to be the hindrance to her self actualization. She had a chronic disease during her childhood which consequently made her crippled; one leg became shorter than the other. Laura is too exquisitely fragile, just like a piece of her glass collection. She loses hope and gets hurt very quickly. Amada has enrolled her in a business school with the hope that she will benefit from the career and bring fortune to the family (Presley 2000: 98).
Tom Wingfield has assumed the role of his father since he ran ff. he is an aspiring poet who toils in a mindless warehouse to support his mother and the sister. The play is based on his memories and thus serves as the narrator of the play. In the play, the nature of Tom is remorseful characterized with pains and mistreatments in the warehouse only to support the family of his farther who had disappeared. He is convinced that, he has to act without pity to escape from the trap of his crippled sister and his overbearing mother. Jim O' Connor is a gentleman caller who joins wingfield family for a dinner in the second part of the play (Bloom 2006: 100).
The setting of the play is the Wingfield's apartment located in Saint Louis next to an alley. The plot of the play is drawn back to the 1930's when Mr. Wingfield abandoned his family. From Mazatlan in Mexico, Mr. Wingfield only sent a postcard which read, "Hello – and Good-bye" and since then, he has sunken deep into the blues (Presley 2000: 98). With the absence of Wingfield, the family grows financially and emotionally stagnant. Amada dearly loves her children though she often reprimands the personality of his son, his eating habits and his fledging job. Amada expects Laura to be outgoing though she is very shy and physically challenged. Amada wants Tom to find a suitor for his sister, Laura. Though he finds the idea of Amada somehow crazy, he makes an effort to get a gentleman for Laura who visits the family the following night and manages to convince the shy Laura though the relationship did not last even for seconds. After they kissed, Jim regrets it and reveals that he is in relationship with another nice girl name Betty. Un-expectedly, Laura smiles at the action and she offers Jim a broken figurine as a souvenir. Amada scolds her son for bringing an already engaged guy for Laura, a thing that made him leave the family though the memories of Laura continually dominated his thoughts (Bloom 2006: 100).
There are three distinct themes in the glass menagerie which include imprisonment and escape, illusions and reality and the American dream. The play depicts Wingfield apartment as a prison where Amanda and her daughter Laura can not escape. In fact, towards the end of the play, they become increasingly unable to escape than they were during the beginning. In contrast to this, an element of escape dominates the play. The image of escape is first depicted by an image of the father which continually hangs on the wall. Later, the narrator of the play, Tom emulates and leaves the family though the memories of his sister and her plight continuously haunted him (Presley 2000: 98).
The theme of illusions and reality also dominate the whole play. The two ladies, Amada and Laura survive through illusions as they could not facet he pains of the reality. Amada lives in the life of the past and fails to understand that things in the current world can not work as they worked during her youth days. Laura is deeper in the waters of illusions than her mother. She is very shy and lacks self-confidence to cope with the reality. She is only interested in playing the old records her father left behind. She takes her glass animals as real beings, an illustration that she is shy to face the reality. The theme of the American dream is also depicted in the play. The greatest myth of the Americans is that they have to always climb up the economic ladder despite the conditions. That is why, Amada continues to encourage her son to work hard to deliver the family from its economic constrains. In addition, she takes her daughter to a business school to develop her business career and thus relieve her self and the family from the bondage of poverty (Bloom 2006: 100).
The relationship between the play and its author has been a matter of debate among scholars, poets and artists. They argue that the play is more of a biography of the life and death of its author, Tennesse Williams. The essay would analyze the extent to which the life of Tennesse Williams is depicted in the themes, the plot and the characters of the play, The Glass Menagerie. To begin with, music in the play is used to haunt memory, to revoke mood and to reinforce the style of symbolism dominating the play. Tennesse Williams described the music as delicate and fragile as spun of glass owned by Laura. Laura is a fictionalized version of Rose, the older sister to the author of the play, Tennesse Williams. William continued to have a strong relationship with Rose even after she suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. The complexity and severity of the problem affecting Rose led her to prefrontal lobotomy which left her almost vegetative (Presley 2000: 98).
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