Dreams of Escape in The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee...

In The Glass Menagerie, Tennessee Williams presents us with four characters whose lives seem to consist in avoiding reality more than facing it. Amanda lives her life through her children and clings to her lost youthfulness. Tom retreats into movie theaters and into his dream of joining the merchant seamen and some day becoming a published poet. Laura resorts to her Victrola and collection of glass ornaments to help sustain her world of fantasy. Finally, Jim is only able to find some relief in his glorified old memories. This essay will examine how Amanda, Tom, Laura and Jim attempt to escape from the real world through their dreams. Amanda was abandoned by her husband and now must take care of her two children, Tom and Laura.†¦show more content†¦On this occasion, she is dressed in the same girlish frock she wore on the day she met the childrens father, attempting to conceal her shabby present and recapture part of the elegance she associates with her giddy days of entertaining many gentleman callers. Bewildered by her immediate surroundings and unable to cope with the social and economic reality of the Depression days, Amanda is often obsessed with her past as the genteel southern belle dominated by refined social gatherings and elegant living conditions, reminiscing about her own experiences with men in Blue Mountain: One Sunday afternoon in Blue Mountain - your mother received - seventeen! - gentleman callers!... (Williams 16). Attempting to materialize her southern belle past, she even makes constant insistence on Lauras having gentleman callers. Tom, though not physically crippled as his sister Laura, finds himself paralyzed in the warehouse in which he works. Faced with the bleak aspects, and perhaps the bleak prospects, of the day-to-day factory job, he regards the warehouse as a prison that shackles all the basic impulses with which, he believes, men are endowed-Man is by instinct a lover, a hunter, a fighter (Williams 39). In the warehouse Tom cannot find any satisfaction at all - Id rather somebody picked up a crowbar and battered out myShow MoreRelated Essay on the Symbolism of the Menagerie in The Glass Menagerie1002 Words   |  5 PagesThe Symbolism of the Menagerie in The Glass Menagerie      Ã‚   Tennessee Williams play, The Glass Menagerie, describes three separate characters, their dreams, and the harsh realities they face in a modern world.   The Glass Menagerie exposes the lost dreams of a southern family and their desperate struggle to escape reality. Williams use of symbols adds depth to the play. The glass menagerie itself is a symbol Williams uses to represent the broken lives of Amanda, Laura and Tom Wingfield andRead MoreEssay Crushed Dreams in The Glass Menagerie1194 Words   |  5 PagesCrushed Dreams in The Glass Menagerie      Ã‚  Ã‚   Tennessee Williams is known for his use of symbols, tension, and irony. Williams uses all of these components to express the central theme of The Glass Menagerie - hope followed by despair. Each of the characters has dreams that are destroyed by the harsh realities of the world.      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   As the narrator blatantly admits, since I have a poets weakness for symbols, symbols are central to The Glass Menagerie (Williams 30). Symbols areRead More Comparing the Life of Tennessee Williams and Glass Menagerie707 Words   |  3 PagesParallels in the Life of Tennessee Williams and The Glass Menagerie   Ã‚  Ã‚   Tennessee Williams is one the major writers of the mid-twentieth century. His work includes the plays, The Glass Menagerie and A Streetcar Named Desire. One theme of The Glass Menagerie is that hopeful aspirations are followed by inevitable disappointments. This theme is common throughout all of Williams work and throughout his own life as well. It is shown through the use of symbols and characters.    I haveRead More Essay on The Glass Menagerie and the Life of Tennessee Williams957 Words   |  4 PagesThe Glass Menagerie and the Life of Tennessee Williams The Glass Menagerie closely parallels the life of the author. From the very job Tennessee held early in his life to the apartment he and his family lived in. Each of the characters presented, their actions taken and even the setting have been based on the past of Thomas Lanier Williams, better known as Tennessee Williams. Donald Spoto described the new apartment building that Williams and his family relocated to in St. Louis, MissouriRead More Essay on Stagnant Lives in Streetcar Named Desire and Glass Menagerie1196 Words   |  5 PagesStagnant Lives in Streetcar Named Desire and Glass Menagerie   Ã‚  Ã‚   The Stagnant Lives of Blanche DuBois and Amanda Wingfield  Ã‚  Ã‚   All of Williams significant characters are pathetic victims--of time, of their own passions, of immutable circumstance (Gantz 110). This assessment of Tennessee Williams plays proves true when one looks closely at the characters of Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire and Amanda Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie. Their lives run closely parallel to one anotherRead More Essay on the Theme of Escape in The Glass Menagerie1045 Words   |  5 PagesThe Theme of Escape in The Glass Menagerie    The Glass Menagerie, a play by Tennessee Williams, is set in the apartment of the Wingfield family, housing Amanda Wingfield and her two children Tom and Laura. The father left many years ago, and is only represented by a picture on the living-room wall. The small, dingy apartment creates a desperate, monotonous feeling in the reader. None of the Wingfields has any desire to stay in the apartment, but their lack of finances makes it impossible toRead More The Importance of Symbolism in The Glass Menagerie Essay1609 Words   |  7 PagesImportance of Symbolism in The Glass Menagerie  Ã‚      Tom Wingfield is the narrator and a major character in Tennessee William’s timeless play, The Glass Menagerie. Through the eyes of Tom, the viewer gets a glance into the life of his family in the pre-war depression era; his mother, a Southern belle desperately clinging to the past; his sister, a woman too fragile to function in society; and himself, a struggling, young poet working at a warehouse to pay the bills. Williams has managed to create aRead MoreConflict Between Reality and Illusion as a Major Theme of ‘the Glass Menagerie’1718 Words   |  7 Pagesas a major theme of ‘The Glass Menagerie’ Introduction The Glass Menagerie is a dramatic play about human nature and the conflict between illusion and reality. An illusion is pretense and not reality. In The Glass Menagerie, Tennessee Williams has made use of both reality and illusion together using conflict between them. Illusion is a misinterpretation of the facts. It is an opinion based on what we think is true rather than on what is actually true. In this play Williams has made illusion integralRead MoreSymbolism In The Glass Menagerie By Tennessee Williams858 Words   |  4 Pages Tennessee Williams had a rough past as a result it influenced him to write plays about the conditions in the 1930s. Although Williams had a tough past, Williams became very successful in his writings and plays. Nevertheless Williams gained popularity among his peers. His experiences in the 1930s affected his work especially in The Glass Menagerie. Williams’s homosexuality made him be seen as an outcast in American society. Not to mention that hom osexuality was not as widely accepted as it is todayRead More Essay on the Use of Symbols, Tensions, and Irony in The Glass Menagerie891 Words   |  4 PagesTensions, and Irony in The Glass Menagerie      Ã‚  Ã‚   The Glass Menagerie, by Tennessee Williams, is a perfect example of how Williams incorporates symbols, tensions, and irony to help express the central theme of the play.      Ã‚  Ã‚   One of the most dominant symbols in the play is the fire escape.   It represents something different for each of the characters.   Tom uses the fire escape to escape from his cramped apartment and nagging mother.   Therefore, the fire escape symbolizes a path to the