Student Essay on "The Glass Menagerie" by Tennessee Williams

"The Glass Menagerie" by Tennessee Williams

Summary:   Tennessee Williams' play The Glass Menagerie shows us the reality of the Wingfield family. Amanda, Laura and Tom try to forget their problems, deficiencies, and "wounds" by doing different things. These include having Laura's Glass menagerie, Tom's going to movies, and Amanda's remembrances.

The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams

The Glass Menagerie, written by Tennessee Williams, was produced at the Civic Theater, Chicago, IL in 1944, December 26. As soon as this play was written and especially after being created on the stage of the theater, it made the great popularity. It was writer's first popular success. The play shows the ordinary Wingfield family. This is not really usual family: the members of this family have lacks of some things, which they try to "repair" by doing many things, which I will introduce later.

The play starts from the ordinary meal. But Amanda, mother of two children, always tells her son, Tom, how to eat, how to chew:

"Honey, don't push with your fingers...And chew, chew!..."

This makes Tom really angry. He stops eating and goes to smoke. This first scene shows us how tired Tom was of his mother and "crippled" sister Laura. Mother starts to remember things from her youth, gentlemen callers, telling different stories about them. Amanda's husband left her with two children, because of hating being among them. This is the wound of Amanda's soul, so she remembers good old moments of her life, which makes her forget about it.

In the Scene 2, Amanda finds out that Laura doesn't attend her Business College. "But, why"" you would ask. Laura is very shy. The first day at the College she had a bad stomach and she couldn't come back. This scene shows us, how shy Laura is. Why is she shy? Because she has one body defect, which she is shy about. We will see the other examples as we read. I will talk about them a little later.

In Scene 3, we see that Amanda thinks of alternatives for Laura to live good: first one was Business College, which Laura has dropped; and the second one is to marry Laura to the gentleman caller.

Tom always goes to the movies. Every night he is going there. He can't just sit at home, because he has the lack of adventure, which he gets, when he goes to the movies. He could write poems. He does it at home, but mother always tells him what to do, and so the only thing left is to go to the movies. Tom doesn't like to sit on the place: he want to be moving. Movies show adventures, and this is Tom's last alternative to do. But at the very end of the play, he starts to get bored by movies. He pays the money, collected for the light bill for the Union of Merchant Seamen. And then, when this was not the best thing and when Tom wants to move by himself, not to see movements in adventure movies, he leaves at the very end of the play.

We went too far, so let's return a little back. Amanda doesn't want Tom to leave at once: she says that Tom must firstly find a gentleman caller for Laura. So Tom does. He has a high school friend, who works with him at the warehouse. So he invited him. That person's name was Jim O'Connor. Then we learn that it was the person, who Laura like, while being at school. But she was always shy and could never be his girlfriend.

When Tom says that to his mother, Amanda starts to get ready for Jim's visit. So when Jim comes, Laura recognizes him. And when they talk to each other, Laura reminds him of her. Jim called Laura "Blue Roses", because once she had been sick by pleurosis. But this is not just a name, which Tennessee Williams created, this name plays the major role in this play. When Laura shows Jim the unicorn, the horse with a horn, she says that he is the only with the horn among the horses without:

Laura: ... he [unicorn] doesn't complain. He stays on a shelf with some other horses that don't have horns and all of them seem to get along nicely together.

So here we see that this unicorn symbolizes Laura, because she is different from others: she is "crippled" and she is shy about it. So Tennessee Williams shows that: Jim, naming Laura Blue Roses, shows that she is different from the others, she doesn't think that she is nice, superior, ordinary girl.

Laura's Glass figures are the only things, which let her live and forget about her "wound."

So things like: Glass figures, movies, remembrances are the only things that gives members of Wingfield family something, that lets them forget about bad things and lacks they have.

Unfortunately, Jim will marry Betty, and he can't date with Laura. Tom can't bear this family anymore and leaves them, as their father left Amanda and them [Laura and Tom].

This is what this play is about. It gives person the unlimited feelings. This play by Tennessee Williams was, is and will be popular for many centuries, because it will always be actual at any time.

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Eugene, 7/2005

Oxford, MS