Dramatic Technique in The Glass Menagerie

Tennessee Williams has given a purely unique touch to The Glass Menagerie by not dividing his
play into Acts. Unlike other classical plays and the nineteenth century plays The Glass
Menagerie has not been divided into Acts. It is a collection of seven scenes. Though the play is
a collection of scenes, these scenes are brought in a sense of tight unity.

It seems Tennessee Williams had been preoccupied with the pressing need to capture the unity
of action. He aims at keeping intact the sense of smooth continuity of action. His motive behind
not dividing the dramatic action into acts is to keep intact the uninterrupted unfolding of the
action. There is another reason also. The Glass Menagerie is an enactment of moments in
Tom's memory. While enacting moments in memory it is very difficult to divide the action. The
content of memory is not subject to the structural division. The substance of memory gets
unfolded in an uninterrupted and unperturbed manner. That is why the dramatic action remained
undivided and unbroken. The technique of avoiding the principle of dividing the action into Acts
had been effectively handled by Tennessee Williams in The Glass Menagerie.

The second effective technique handled by Tennessee Williams is the technique of the
psychological realism. This technique helped the playwright to give particular attention to the
organization of conversation. Williams so designed the dialogue in The Glass Menagerie that it
reveals character. The nature of the characters of this play gets revealed through the snatches
of the conversation. If we read the play with an analytical insight we come across those
elements, which illustrate that some characters have still been immature. The clumsiness of
some characters, the awkwardness of their get revealed from the further progression of
dialogue. In this play Amanda Wingfield constantly admonishes her son Tom to munch his food
properly before swallowing it. From this frequent admonishment of Amanda to Tom, we guess
whether Tom is suffering from an unknown imbecility. Amanda constantly tells Laura to feel as
though nothing had happened to her, as though she is physically spotless. From this advice of
Amanda to Laura, we come to comprehend that Laura was afflicted with a deeply embedded
flaw in becoming extrovert.

Due to the technique of the psychological realism Williams paid close attention to the art of
depicting characters' psychological reactions. Towards Amanda's much-more-repeated-
admonishment (Rise and Shine, don't smoke, and don't go to a movie) Tom Wingfield reacted
violently. He called his mother witch. From this sort of angry irritation made by Tom, we catch a
glimpse of what kind of psychological makeup Tom Wingfield has. Once we trace the
psychological makeup of the psychological realism.
The third crucial technique Williams adopted is the technique of using the same character of the
play as the narrator. Because this play is a memory play, it is customary of the playwright to
make one of the characters the narrator. Because The Glass Menagerie is a modernist play,
which defies the illusionist conventions, it is pretty imperative to include one commentator. To
insert a brief hint of commentary upon the conventional theatre personnel is to declare the
innovative and the distinctive dimension of the play. In the brief introduction Tom remarks:

''Yes, I have tricks in my pockets, I have things up my slave. But I am the opposite of a stage
magician. He gives you illusion that has the appearance of truth. I give you truth in the pleasant
disguise of illusion.''

The fourth virile technique handled by Williams in The Glass Menagerie is the technique of
using music, lighting, legend, screen play and images. These various elements help to embody
the alive and fresh moment of the past in the memory of the narrator. To bring into the
prominence the pathos and plight of characters Williams introduced legends and images. For
instance, when Laura was bringing out her past life in school from the chamber-box of her
memory, the image blues-rose came. When Amanda was recklessly persuading Tom to stop
hankering for a movie and adventure, the legend of Jolly Roger came. In this technique helped
the playwright to catch the emotional intensity of the present by virtue of legend and screenplay.
Last but not the least, Tennessee Williams made use of an indirect technique of ending the play
as though a new play in the life of character is going to begin. The play opens with the narrative
commentary delivered by Tom Wingfield. It ends with the interior monologue of the frequently
frustrated Tom Wingfield. Thus, the play is given a sense of closure and completion from the
view point of Tom Wingfield. Thus, its structural compression is tantamount to the structure of
Tom's painful moment in his painful memory.

Nature of illusion in The Glass Menagerie

Almost all the characters in the play resort to illusion as a defense against the harsh realities of
life. An illusion is a faulty notion of happiness when life is surrounded by bitter and harsh facts.
The play centers around the hopes, despairs, predicament and failure of Wing field family.

The Wingfields try to escape from reality to a world of fantasies, dreams and imagination to
mitigate the pain resulting from a realization of failure and frustration of actual life. Temporary
stay in the dream world is pleasant, but the return to reality if inevitable.

Amanda, the mother, finds that her son has not worked and earned enough. Her daughter is a
cripple who suffers from inferiority complex. She has failed in the study and is very shy. This
present reality is not satisfying in any way. Unable to face the bitter reality of present life she
tries to live in her past when many gentlemen callers used to visit her. She tells the stories from
her past and imposes her dreams and wishes on her children. But it is only an illusion. Laura
has her own illusion too. A psychotic and a cripple with a great degree of shyness she has
withdrawn into the world of artificial glass animals. The beauty of the glass menagerie
fascinates her and helps forget the pain of real life. But the glass animals are fragile and
breakable. It's also a glass of fragile dreams. The moment the glass animal is broken, she is
awakened to the reality of life from which she was hiding herself. When Amanda comes to know
that Jim will not marry her daughter the artificial world of dreams has broken down. She is
enacting a drama to show the there are no tensions. She tries to hide behind the facade of
illusion to conceal her sorrow and problems. She speaks in a very jovial manner in order to
show that life is devoid of problems. She forces herself to be led by illusion. When the world of
dreams breaks down, she remains a shattered woman. Tom has his own world of illusion as
well. Being unable to have any worldly success he lives in the world of movies to escape from
the realities of life. Though he is more independent and better able to withstand the assaults of
his mother, he shuns responsibility and resorts to the illusion of cinema. His ultimate decision to
leave his sister and mother behind and move to the sea provides him an escape. However, it is
also an illusion because a sense of guilt will always haunt him that he has run away from the
responsibilities of life.

The gap between appearance and reality helps us understand the nature of illusion in the play.
Though escaping into the world of illusion is not a reliable solution, the people concerned have
found a remedy for the sickness of life. As their stay in the world of illusion can help them to
temporarily forget the aches and pains of life the illusion sounds pleasant. The playwright has
succeeded in prompting us thinking along that line by dramatizing the conflict between reality
and illusion. No matter how pleasant the world of illusion may be, one cannot, however turn
ones back complacently on reality for long.

Tom as a Representative of the 20th

Century Man
Tom Wingfield is a conscious self. Most of the time he is seen observing and reflecting his
experiences, his memories. The entire play is an enactment of a moment in his memory. The
kind of reality Tennessee Williams has captured in this play is the reality that exists in memory.

The main events of the play are filtered through the perspective memory of Tom Wingfield. The series of
experiences and emotions that are presented in the play are the conscious outcome of Tom Wingfield's
reflection on his past. It is an enactment of his memory. He is torn between responsibility and irresponsibility.
He is torn between escapism and a necessity to involve in action. He is on the eve of transition. Most of the
time he is seen consciously reflecting. But reflection alone does not satisfy him. He is compelled to act also.
There arises a gap between his conscious reflection and his action. That is why he suffers.

The nature of his suffering ought to be taken into consideration. Tom suffers because he can neither kill reality
nor worship illusion. He is not totally jobless. He is an employed man. But his employment is a source of
extreme dissatisfaction for him. He aims at effecting progressive change in his life. He made tremendous effort
also. But he remained trapped in the static and the sterility of life.

Having seen the unconquerable and invincible nature of the dreary reality, Tom gave birth to a
propensity to escape. This escapist propensity led to his being seduced by the magic-charm of
illusion. Tom knew, by that time, that adventure is the surest way of escaping the confinement
and cage of life. That is why, he chose adventure. Finally, he left his house for an adventure.
But he was compelled to return by the magnetic pull of love and the call of responsibility.

Tom Wingfield is a man caught between illusion and reality, duty and freedom, involvement and
escapism, and reflection and action. He is stuck with these problems. He is inextricably trapped
in these two disrupting conflicts between these polar opposites. In this regard Tom appears to
be representative of the suffering of modern man. The modern man in the twentieth century is
wholly torn between these polar opposites. He can't easily distinguish between illusion and
reality.

Laura as a Romantic Superwoman in The

Glass Menagerie
Laura Wingfield is the sort of character who chose the world of fantasy in this mundane world of
naked reality. Laura Wingfield was face to face with the brutal limitations of this phenomenal
world. She felt oppressed by the harshness of the external world. She knew that the
phenomenal world, the world of self-fulfillment can't accommodate the greatness of her vision
and view.

The worlds of matter, the world of phenomenon, the world of stark eventualities were anathema
to Laura. That is why she longed for the world of fantasy, the world of imagination and the world
of isolation. The external world had made her heavily inferior. That is why she chose to live in
the world of fantasy. In her fantasy world she made full use of her imagination. She
manufactured little glass animals like unicorns. All those products in her Menagerie were
breakable, soft and delicate. She did not care anything at all about the world. More and more
she depended upon her imagination and fantasy. She resembles a romantic figure. Laura
represents the kind of woman who, despite life's hardships, has maintained her love for nature
and art as depicted by her collection of glass animals. Her name in itself is symbolic of her
affection for nature. As an artist Laura represents the artists longing for absolute fulfillment she
stands for the fragile, almost unearthly ego brutalized by life in the industrialized,
depersonalized cities of the western world. The physically and emotionally fragile Laura
escapes from her mid-twentieth-century-urban predicament in St. Louis, to which her family has
migrated from the rural-pastoral south.

Like a romantic, Laura expresses her love for nature. In the collection of little glass animals she
made nature has found its expression. Even Laura's name signifies her affinity for the natural
together with the transcendent: "Laura" is, somewhat ironically derived from the laurel shrub or
tree, a wreath of which was conferred as a mark of honor in ancient times upon heroes and
athletes; and "Wingfield" brings to mind the flight of birds across a meadow.

Jim's nickname for Laura "Blue Roses" signifies her affinity for natural-flowers-together with the
transcendent-blue flowers, which do not occur naturally and thus come to symbolize her
yearning for both ideal and mystical beauty and spiritual or romantic love. That beauty is also
symbolized by Laura's favorite among the animals in her glass menagerie, the fabled,
otherworldly, unicorn. And that love comes to her, however fleetingly, in the person of her name,
Jim O'Connor, who beatifies, Laura by emphasizing what is special, even divine, about her and
downplaying her disability.

Laura embodies a remarkable, romantic ethos. Her dedication to art, her adherence to nature
and her effort to attain transcendence collectively signify the imbedded romantic perspective on
the play The Glass Menagerie. Moreover, the playwright's fascination with symbols, images and
the filtration of experiences come through memory.

Southern Womanhood in Modern World in

The Glass Menagerie
Amanda is a southern woman. She is always conscious of the old cultural and social privileges
of the south. When she was in her youth, she was liked by many gentleman callers. Even some
of the rich gentleman callers came to pay courtship to her. Her early youth was thus romantic to
the in-depth satisfaction of her.

She was proud to keep so much hold on all those rich and handsome gentleman callers. She
was all the time under the impression that she is a very embodiment of beauty and charm. Her
life in the past was marked by countless choice. Her manners and attitudes were refined and
elegant. She had a firm belief in the religious exhortation.
A woman with such beliefs and assumptions happened to marry a man who was exceedingly
handsome. After her marriage she had been living in the urban world. Her life in the urban
tenement gradually became difficult. Earning was low. Her family had to live in a congested
area. Her husband gradually displayed irresponsibility. He began to drink and smoke. Worst of
all, he fell in love with long distance. After her husband left her, the sole responsibility fell on her
shoulder. Amanda had to care for many things. Heavy burden of running family began to crush
her. She had an onerous task of saving her family from every up and down after her husband
left. To carry out all these tough duties, it is really difficult for a woman who is alone.
Furthermore, Amanda had a physically crippled daughter to rear. She had a deviated and a
normal son to care for. She tried her best to bring her son to the right track. But her son
continued to smoke and drink. Her son Tom continued to show his original color despite the
repeated efforts of Amanda to improve him.

On the one hand, she was frustrated because of her being deserted by her husband for a long
time. On the other she was anxious about her almost lame daughter Laura. She expected her
son to be progressive. But no progress happened at all. She felt suffocated at being confined in
her tenement life. Her life was trapped in static and sterility. She desired change and
progression from her children's future. But this desire remained fleeting and elusive. As a result
her present life became very deceptive. She felt that life has cheated her. She felt deceived by
the dream she had once entertained. She left no stone unturned in overcoming her torturous
helplessness and frustration. But nothing happened as she expected. Consequently, she
realized that she is trapped in the realm of disappointed predicament. She knew, at that time
that the only remedy for her is nostalgia. She nostalgically longed for her past. She frequently
remembered those days in her past when she was visited by more than a dozen of gentleman
callers.

Tom as a Man of Imagination in The Glass

Menagerie
The problem of hesitation to cross a threshold is basic to the play The Glass Menagerie. In this
play Tom Wingfield is afflicted with an anxiety to cross the threshold between adolescence and
youth, dependence and independence. Tom was on the brink of losing his adolescence and
entering a new phase of youth. Thus, this time was extremely important for it. Moreover, it was a
time of transition.

So, it was natural for Tom Wingfield to quarrel with those who can't understand the nature of his
problem. He was so irritated by his mother's frequent nagging that he called her a witch in a
moment of irritation. His imminent transition from adolescence to youth represents the change in
his taste also. Tom is a poet. He is eager to write poetry. His life in confinement has
handicapped him to write poetry. He feels that his work in the Warehouse Company has created
an extreme dissatisfaction in him. Oppressed by the cruelty of home and monotonous work, he
wanted to run away from the responsibility and duty. Here one question arise - why did Tom
Wingfield fail to grapple the dreary reality and sterile life courageously. The cogent and
convincing answer to this question is that Tom Wingfield is a man of imagination. He has been
gifted with an imaginative cast of mind. In his mind the faculty of imagination functioned more
effectively than the faculty of reason. But that does not mean Tom's mind was devoid of reason.
Reason was there. But it was less effective in comparison to the power of imagination.

When the faculty of imagination gained an upper hand in his mind, he quarreled with his mother
and went away from his mother and sister. His movement toward adventure can be interpreted
as a movement toward independence. It is a kind of flight from reality and private and public
responsibility.

But when he was in a long distance from his house he was pulled back from the path of
adventure by his real love for his mother and daughter. Tom's return to his house on the
strength of love offers lots of social implications. His return to his house is a return to the socially
established norms and values. His return is a real return to the standard of practical thinking.
Only a man of imagination is capable of returning to reality with a better insight and with a
higher level of awakening.