AMERICAN LITERATURE ASSIGNMENT - THE GLASS MENAGERIE

(TENNESSEE WILLIAMS)

NAME: ARUNABHA CHAUDHURI ROLL NUMBER: 20/652

“Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in

them.”

– Henry David Thoreau

The Glass Menagerie is a memory play consisting of seven scenes written by the famous

American playwright and screenwriter Tennessee Williams. The play was produced in

1944 after the end of the World War Two and was premiered in Chicago. The plot

revolves around the Wingfield family, particularly Tom Wingfield (who is also the narrator

of the play) and how they deal with the difficulty of accepting the reality that they are in

and the many efforts that they make to escape from this reality. The play is rich with the

idea of illusion which leads to escapism and abandonment which further leads to

depression and desperation.

ROOT OF THE PROBLEM: ILLUSION

Every single character in the play is deeply engulfed by their own versions of the world.

Their reasons for doing so may be different, but the result is the same. Complete or

partial ineptness for functioning properly in their lives and as a family.

Amanda lives in the illusion of her past glory and how she used to entertain seventeen

gentlemen callers in one day and expects her daughter to do the same without realising

her flaws and the problems she is facing. Her character is the literal definition of the word

‘irony’. She was brought up as the typical ‘southern belle’ where she was taught that a

man has to and always will support his family. She was taught how to be charming and

delectable to her suitors so that she could choose the best one among them with ease.

But that did not work out for her as her ‘suitor’ abandoned his family to chase his own

ambitions and she was left alone to raise two kids in a two by four apartment. Even after

facing this reality, she still implores Tom to find a gentleman caller for Laura as she wants

her daughter to experience the splendorous reality of a southern belle which was nothing

but an illusion of former glory to her now.

Tom is under the illusion that the world outside his two by four apartment and the shoe

factory is full of adventure, excitement and is just waiting for him to reach out and grab it.

His character is an extremely conflicted one. He is a poet by nature who is chained down

by the economic and familial expectations of his mother. He wants to be someone in his

life. The high he receives from watching a cinema is short lived as according to him,

film-stars are hogging all the action and adventure which is meant for him to experience

and enjoy. His illusion can be identified as his ambition and it directs his actions. In the

end, he snuffs out his family, or more specifically, the memories of his sister(which are

symbolized as a burning candle), to chase his ambition but the guilt of doing so, pricks his

conscience like a bent nail, forever.

Laura is under the illusion that she is inferior to everyone and continues to reside in her

own world of glass menageries. Her character is important as she is the only character in

the play who moves from her illusion to reality to illusion again. Her world of illusion of
glass menageries and phonograph records is just as fragile as she is. To her, Jim is from

the world of normal people, but since normal to her is extraordinary, she considers Jim as

a hero and falls head over heels for him, thereby entering into another illusion. This

illusion is short lived as Jim breaks her heart but this time, she does not scurry back to her

world of glass menagerie as she never quite left it in the first place. Contrary to the other

characters, her illusion is not about ambition or past glory, her illusion is based on hiding

from the harsh pain of reality.

Jim is under the illusion that he can be whatever he wants to be if he sets his mind to it.

He is chasing after the illusion which is mostly referred to as ‘The American Dream’. He

believes that if he studies a course on the new and upcoming radio technology, then he

might be able to get a job at the radio and television industry. Unlike Tom, or Amanda’s

illusions, which are based on the future and past respectively, Jim’s illusion is based on

reality or in the present itself. He is a man of action who wants to snatch his future in the

present. According to Tom, Jim is, “the most realistic character in the play, being an

emissary from a world of reality that we were somehow set apart from.” - (The Glass

Menagerie, Scene 1, Line 15). What he does not realize, is that sometimes dreams do not

come true. His own life is plenty of an example. He was an athlete, a scholar and a silver

ranker in debating competitions during his school days. He was the ‘All-American Boy’.

But did he go on to become someone great. No, he did not. He was an ordinary clerk in a

show making factory. Despite his reality, he was still under the illusion that if he worked

hard enough he could finally achieve the ‘American Dream’.

The play itself is orchestrated like a dream world or like an illusion as Tom himself says in

the beginning of the play that,” He( A Magician) gives you illusion that has the
appearance of truth. I give you truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion.” - (The Glass

Menagerie, Scene 1, Line 72)

ESCAPISM AND ABANDONMENT

Due to their varying concepts of their self-created realities, Amanda and Tom argue

constantly. Amanda wants to escape to her past and Tom wants to seek out adventure in

the outside world. What they both do not understand is that the concept of escapism is

intertwined with the concept of abandonment. To escape somewhere important, you

must abandon or sacrifice something important first.

Tom learnt that the hard way as he had to abandon his sweet sister in his pursuit for

adventure. He wished to escape from his two by four reality just like the magician

escaped from his coffin without removing a single nail. His family makes him feel like he is

trapped in a buried coffin. He tries his best to escape like the magician, but fails utterly as

he leaves behind his family in the same coffin of economic and societal desperation. He

shrugs off his responsibility for his family because he thought the responsibility was

making him abandon his ambitions. He was scared that due to his responsibilities, he

would never be able to experience the adventure which awaited him and would die a

man with insurmountable regrets.

Amanda wanted to live out her past again through her children as she was abandoned by

her southern values or her past when Mr. Wingfield left her. But doing so, led her

children to distance themselves from her even more. So, in a way, she abandoned the

real feelings of her children for her own fantasies which had already abandoned her. A

vivid example of this phenomena can be seen when Amanda says,” Now look at yourself,
young lady. This is the prettiest you will ever be,” after dressing Laura up for Jim, thereby

completely ignoring Laura’s inner beauty and charm.

The case of Laura is sad as she had to abandon her individuality to escape to the world of

her own making, of her glass menageries. Williams quite adeptly uses the analogy of ‘Blue

Roses’ to Laura to depict her individuality and uniqueness which could not exist in the

real world. This analogy extends to the glass unicorn which, despite being beautiful, could

not exist in the real world. The broken horn of the unicorn glass piece acts as a symbol of

Laura’s lost individuality as she tries to abandon her illusion to escape to the so-called

‘reality’ which Jim kept on yammering on about, but ends up abandoning her uniqueness

to live out her life in her illusionary world of her ordinary glass menageries.

SYMBOLIC DESPERATION

Tennessee Williams explores the theme of desperation in the play in a symbolic manner.

He uses material things to display the desperate attempts of the characters in the play to

escape reality.

The new floor lamp, coloured paper lantern, new white curtains, chintz chair covers and

Amanda’s girlish frock of yellowed voile with a blue silk sash are a striking reminder of her

desperate attempts to allure Jim, Laura’s supposed gentleman caller. In scene three,

where Amanda and Tom argue, the lighting is set in such a way that the existence of

Laura is highlighted in a clear manner to show her constant fidgeting and desperate

expression as she is clearly uncomfortable at the way her mother and her brother are at

each other’s throats.

Laura’s phonograph records and her glass menagerie are symbols of her desperation to

escape her harsh reality. And lastly, the fire escape and the movies, both of which provide
Tom a temporary escape from his cage-like two by four house are symbolic of his

desperation to attain freedom from his family and pursue adventure. The fire escape in

the play is a really important prop as Williams uses it to symbolize the temporary escape

from the metaphorical fires raging inside the Wingfield household. The fire escape acts as

an area which is free from the plot itself. It is a landing where Tom can communicate

freely with the audience and explain to them the background details for the play to

progress further.

Williams uses the shattering of glass in a powerful and symbolic manner in the play. The

first time a glass menagerie shatters, is during the quarrel between Tom and Amanda

which signified the shattering or the bursting of the bubble of unsaid emotions. The

shattering of the glass menagerie pinched a hole in the illusionary world of the Wingfield

family and the second incident of the shattering of the unicorn glass menagerie signified

the complete breakdown of the illusion which welcomed a world full of pain for the

family. In the end, Tom symbolizes his sister with bits of coloured glass behind a shop

window, as if she were something so delicate, something so fragile, that needed to be

protected from the outside world.

CONCLUSION

The Glass Menagerie is based on Tennessee Williams’s personal need to escape from his

father and achieve something in his own. The father in play, Mr. Wingfield, whose photo

in the living room is a testament to what happens when someone pursues adventure

without caring for anyone or anything else. Ironically, the exact thing happens with Tom

where he leaves his family, just like his father, whom he hated for his actions. Williams

tries to show the audience that how desperation prompts even the most bright people to
submit to their ambitious and worldly illusions, thereby abandoning the things that

matter more. He describes the need to live out a successful life and the ensuing

desperation caused by the unfulfillment of that need causes people to engulf themselves

in a cloak of false reality or an illusion to hide themselves from the very real pain.

Therefore, the themes of desperation, escapism and abandonment are beautifully

explored, used and intertwined in the play which impels the reader to ponder over the

question that whether abandoning one’s most innate qualities and loved ones is justified

by their pursuit for greatness or not