Tennessee Williams s The Glass Menagerie - 2066 Words

Tennessee Williams was born in 1911 and attended University of Missouri. At a young age he was inspired to become a playwright by watching Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts. As he grew older he battled with depression and addiction. He had a constant fear of going insane like his sister. That fear fueled his writing and eventually produced the play The Glass Menagerie. In this play Williams creates characters with depth and variety. All four characters have separate and distinct personalities. In many ways The Glass Menagerie is autobiographical to Tennessee. In the play the sister, much like his own, suffers a mental disorder rooted to an actual physical disorder of her left leg. The character s name is Laura. When Laura was young an illness left her crippled for life. As she grew up she became painfully shy and largely withdrawn from the outside world. She devotes her life to her glass menagerie which like her is exquisitely fragile and should not be moved from the shelf. Tennessee Will iams writing never lacked metaphors and like the main character Tom he had a poet s weakness. Tom is the narrator of the play and the play itself roots from his memory. Tom constantly breaks the fourth wall within the play demonstrating its stageability. Tom is an aspiring poet who works at a shoe warehouse to support his family. He is tired and frustrated with his day to day routine. He wishes to travel and find his escape in movies. Tom says â€Å"I am tired of the movies and I am about to move!†Show MoreRelatedAnalysis Of Tennessee Williams s The Glass Menagerie 2800 Words   |  12 PagesFontes 11 Tennessee Williams is considered to be one of the most distinguished American playwrights of the twentieth century. As a Southern writer, Williams used his personal life and experiences as subject matter for many of his stories. Williams? turbulent early life was the basis for many of his plays. As an autobiographical play, The Glass Menagerie depicts individuals not only fleeing from reality, but also escaping from their desperate situations. Escape is defined ?as a means of obtainingRead MoreA Comparison of Tennessee Williams ´ The Glass Menagerie and Arthur Miller ´s Death of a Salesman1158 Words   |  5 Pages The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams and Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller are two of the twentieth century’s best-known plays. The differences and similarities between both of the plays are hidden in their historical and social contexts. The characters of The Glass Menagerie and the Death of a Salesman are trapped by the constraints of their everyday lives, unable to communicate with their loved ones and being fearful for their future. There are a lot of comparisons thatRead MoreWoman ´s Role in The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams Essay601 Words   |  3 Pageswith and were able to have control over. 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Their lives run closely parallel to one anotherRead MoreFragile as Glass in The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams1148 Words   |  5 Pages In Tennessee Williams‘ play The Glass Menagerie, the audience believes that the menagerie simply refers to a glass collection owned by Laura Wingfield. Laura lives with her brother Tom and her mother Amanda. Due to her mother‘s desire for her to marry, Jim‘s introduction to the play is one as a gentleman caller. When Laura describes her glass animals to Jim, she uses her mother‘s term ―glass menagerieâ€â€" (Williams 414) for them. All of the figures are glass, but the animals in it varyRead 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. 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