Saturday, December 1, 2018

The Glass Menagerie (1944)

Analysis : Scene 1

• The narrator informs well in advanced that this play is a “memory play.”

• The dual role of Tom – as a character as well as a narrator shifts this play away from
the conventional paradigm of realistic theatre.

• Tom mentions in the starting of the play that he is going to offer truth disguised as an
illusion.

• The play plays with themes of memory and its distortion.

• Also, Tom says that the gentleman caller, is the real person, in fact more real than any
other person in the play. Gentleman caller is a symbol for the ‘expected something
that we live for’.

• Guernica, Picasso’s most famous painting depicting the carnage of WWII.

• There is a symmetry between the uneasy peace of the time period and uneasy peace
in the Wingfield House. As America stirs with the peace before WWII, Tom seethes
with the need to escape his home.

• The fire escape, is a symbol for the imprisonment that Tom feels and the possibility of
a way out. The narrator, standing alone at the fire-escape between the outside world
and the space of the apartment, points to the painful choice he makes later in the
play.

• Visual images become symbolic of memory’s paradoxical nature. On one hand, the
image is real and before our eyes but on the other hand, it is only a photograph from
distant past and is therefore frozen and lifeless.

• The contrast between the vivacious and talkative Amanda and her timid, soft-spoken
daughter could not be starker.

• While Amanda is loving, she is also demanding beyond reason.

• There is hardly any doubt that Amanda is not concerned about the unhappiness and
emptiness that Tom experiences or the painful shyness in the nature of Laura.

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Analysis : Scene 2

• The first time we’re introduced to Laura’s collection of Glass Menagerie, the most
important symbol in the play for Laura and her fragile nature. Like the tiny glass
animals, she is delicate, beautiful in her oddness and are terribly fragile.

• Laura is locked completely in the house, just like those animals must be kept at a
fixed place and be cared for.

• Another important symbol for Laura are the Blue Roses that are undeniably beautiful.
Blue Roses are also fantasy, unique and rare. Laura, like a blue rose is special, even
unique and distant from the everyday reality of real life.

• The extent of the mental inhibition caused by her painful shyness can be understood
from the fact that she is unable to bring herself to attend the business college after
the incident of throwing up.

• Amanda’s anxieties show the difficulty of their financial situation.

• In this scene, we also witness Amanda’s honesty when she realizes it wouldn’t be
easy for Laura to find a man.

• And once she becomes aware that Laura cannot have a career, she once again picks
up the idea of a gentleman caller, for she believes that it is the only way in which
things can be settled.

Analysis : Scene 3

• Amanda’s obsession with her children shows the extent to which she is disconnected
with the reality. Even if Laura finds a husband, it’s strange to think that her husband
would mean security for the family.

• The mention of Mr. Lawrence means D.H. Lawrence who wrote about sexuality and
love. Tom’s interest in his books suggested Tom’s literary ambitions and his
frustration.

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• One of the most important themes of the play is the conflict between one’s own
desire to live one’s life and the responsibility for one’s family.

• Amanda attempts to control their discussion as an adult controls an argument with a

little boy.

• There’s one possibility that Tom is gay. He never really addresses the audience the
question whether or not he goes to the movies. He also arrives home at odd hours –
five in the morning which is impossible for a movie to end. Tennessee Williams’ youth
and his grappling with his own sexuality. The play is in many other respects
autobiographical.

• Tom would feel even more isolated and restless, unable to tell the truth to his mother
and sister.

• Tom’s accidental breaking of some pieces of Laura’s collection foreshadows Laura’s

heartbreak later in the play. By being reckless, he can destroy the pretend-world of
his sister.

Analysis : Scene 4

• Tom’s fascination with movies and magic shows exhibit how he craves the need to
be in the world of fantasy. He can only escape through the illusions offered by movies
and the stage magician.

• The most impressive trick for Tom, to make a clean, easy escape, without destroying
the coffin or removing any nails. The use of coffin as a symbol for Tom’s depth of
unhappiness. He feels spiritually dead.

• Tom can escape too but only at a great cost – he would have to abandon his sister
and mother and leave them to an uncertain fate.

• Laura’s vulnerability is emphasized in that symbolic space most closely linked to

Tom, the fire escape. Tom will eventually climb down the fire escape one final time,
leaving the apartment forever. But in Laura’s attempt to even step briefly on to the
symbolic space of the fire escape, she stumbles.

• Tom can only get freedom in exchange for a husband for Laura.

• Although Amanda’s old husband’s irresponsibility and Tom’s increasing restlessness

would seem to argue against male providers. Amanda is still fixated to find an ideal

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husband for her daughter.




Analysis : Scene 5


• By the headline – “Franco Triumphs” – first time, the real sense of time is show in the
play.

• The name “Paradise Dance Hall” works in a variety of ways. Can be an allusion to the
lost Garden of Eden, or America before the turmoil of World War II. Another allusion is
the carnage of Guernica.

• On a personal level, Paradise Dance Hall might symbolize more specific loss that
Tom has experienced.

• We see Amanda and Tom sitting on fire escape and making wishes to the moon,
surrounded by music and lights of nearby dance hall is both beautiful and lyrical. The
rainbow colored lights points to a world of pleasure, happiness and leisure.

• Further claims that support Tom is gay can be found by retrofitting William’s later
association with the symbols (dance halls and colored lights) into the earlier play.
Tom’s wistfulness towards the colored lights of Paradise Dance Hall with his
sublimated homosexuality.

• Jim O’Connor is that special something that we all wait and live for, is supposed to
be the prince in Amanda’s dreams who rescues Laura and provides her a happy
ending.

• “little silver slipper of the moon” here Amanda is comparing Laura to Cinderella by
ignoring the fact of her own marriage and obstacle of Laura’s awkwardness.

Analysis : Scene 6

• Amanda is living her youth. The escapism of living in the past, however, can never
last long for Amanda, since all stories of her glory days end with her married to

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faithless Mr. Wingfield.


• Jim is charmed by Amanda but Tom feels she’s not acting her age.

• Tom wishes to escape on a boat with only men. There is also clear gay subtext in the
idea that Tom chooses to be abroad a boat of only men for a limitless amount of
time.

• The fact that Tom stopped to pay bills, it gives away that he doesn’t have the
patience to escape the coffin without busting the nails, and has decided to not even
try.

• Jim is a person who enjoys praise. He is also a potent reminder of Laura’s own
disappointments.

• This scene also features Amanda’s second famous speech about the jonquils (first
one being with 17 gentlemen) – Another name for jonquil is the narcissus, derived
from Greek youth who grew fond of his own reflection (narcissist). Ultimately, Amanda
sinks under the weight of her own self-image.

Analysis : Scene 7


• Jim shamelessly leads Laura on, not maliciously but also without any careful
consideration.

• Jim reflects the American Dream – culminating his appalling praise of the lust for
money and power. As Tom said in the opening of the play, Jim is more a part of the
real world than anyone else in the play.

• Jim tries to convince Laura that she is worthwhile and unique. It can point out to two
things – 1) He was honestly making her feel this way. 2) He wished to draw Laura into
himself.

• Laura, like the unicorn, is odd and unique. Both Laura and Unicorn are fragile and
Jim breaks both of them. Laura’s subsequent gift of the broken unicorn suggests her
affection for him.

• The gift, as symbol of herself, shows how much she still likes him.

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• As the unicorn breaks, the music of “Paradise” gives away to the sad sounds of the
Victrola.

• As Jim leaves, For the first time, Amanda uses the word “crippled” to refer to Laura,
breaking her own rule. She acknowledges that Tom will leave them soon too.

• The new floor lamp has a rose colored shade and Laura looks beautiful in its shade.
In many ways, she is the surrogate for William’s sister named Rose.

• The image of lightning suggests a hostile and overpowering world. In the last scene,
a storm is brewing outside. Laura seems hopelessly frail and vulnerable.

• It is clear that Tom has not been able to shake the guilt from the decision that he
made. For Tom and the audience, it is difficult to forget the final image of frail Laura,
illuminated by candlelight on a darkened stage, while the world outside of the
apartment faces the beginnings of a great storm.





More Points :


• George Brandt – “The Glass Menagerie is the most cinematic of William’s plays.”

• 



~fin.~