The importance of theatrical devices in the staging of 'The Glass Menagerie'
The importance of theatrical devices in the staging of 'The Glass Menagerie' 'The Glass Menagerie' is a memory play, and its plots are drawn from the memories of the narrator, Tom Wingfield. Tom is a character in the play, which has a setting in St. Louis in 1937. He is an aspiring poet who toils in a shoe warehouse to support his mother, Amanda, and sister, Laura. Mr. Wingfield, their father, ran off years ago and, except for one postcard, has not been heard of since then. Amanda regales her children frequently with tales of her idyllic youth and the scores of suitors who once pursued her. She is disappointed that Laura is painfully shy, does not attract any gentleman callers. Amanda decides that Laura's last hope must lie in marriage. Meanwhile, Tom, who loathes his warehouse job, finds escape in liquor, movies, and literature, much to his mother's chagrin. Amanda and Tom discuss Laura's prospects, and Amanda asks Tom to keep an eye out for potential suitors at the warehouse. Tom selects Jim O'Connor, a casual friend, and invites him to dinner. At the last minute, Laura learns the name of her caller; as it turns out, she had a devastating crush on Jim in high school. Laura is at first paralyzed by Jim's presence, but his warm and open behaviour soon draws her out of her shell. They had a long serious talk but Jim must leave because of an appointment with his fiancée.
Mr. Mullock's Flowers
Mr. Mullock's Flowers She looked at the car as it disappeared in a cloud of dust, and knew that things would never be the same again. She thought to herself 'don't cry Laura, please not here.' She stood rigidly by the patio of her house and gazed expressionlessly as the dust settled back on the road. She looked straight ahead of the street at the garden. The Mulloks' had taken good care of their garden. Since the past five months she had moved into the neighborhood, Mr. Mullok, though his arthritis got him bad, religiously made sure he pruned the hedges every week, and watered his flowers every afternoon. The trees gently swayed. It would be a rainy Sunday night she thought gazing at the sky. " 'afternoon Mrs. Sanders - rain comin' in tonight, I reckon." It was Mr. Mullok dressed in his familiar light blue shirt tucked into his neatly pressed grey trousers. For a man of 50, he was in amazing shape. His grey hair neatly combed to the side in an old fashion and his white moustache impeccably trimmed. "Looks like it," Laura hollered across. "Got a parcel?" Mr. Mullock yelled out shifting his gaze to her arms. She had momentarily forgotten about what she was clutching so tightly to her chest. "Just an envelope," she responded waving the slightly crumpled brown envelope in the air. "Won't keep you then. My regards to Mr. Sanders. Heard his car a while ago. Good day
How effective a title do you think "A Streetcar Named Desire" is for this play?
How effective a title do you think "A Streetcar Named Desire" is for this play? The following will be examining how effectual I believe the title "A Streetcar Named Desire" is for this play. "A Streetcar Named Desire" is written by Tennessee Williams. The play portrays different characters' desires of diverse aspects of life. I think the title is very effective because it attracts various readers. This is due to the use of the word "desire". The use of this word demonstrates many different characters' desires that they have in their life. The characters who this includes are: Blanche who wants to fulfil her desires of love, sex and end loneliness. Blanche depends on male sexual admiration for her sense of self-esteem, which means that she has often yielded to passion. She also has a bad drinking problem, which she covers up poorly. Blanche is an insecure, dislocated individual. This can be seen by her drinking problem; Mitch who hopes to marry so that he will have a woman to bring home to his dying mother. In addition end his loneliness and isolation that he has suffered. He appears to be a kind and decent human being. He is also very sensitive than Stanley's other poker friends; Stanley has sexual desires and the use of his power and dominance towards his friends and family. His main amusements are gambling, bowling, sex, and drinking, and he lacks morals and
In A Street Car Named Desire Tennessee Williams uses music and sound to help symbolise certain themes
A Streetcar Named Desire- Music and Sound. In A Street Car Named Desire Tennessee Williams uses music and sound to help symbolise certain themes, help build on characters and create different types of atmosphere. He uses things like the 'blue piano' and the polka music to help do this. Tennessee Williams uses the 'blue piano' to symbolise the life in this play, it shows the general atmosphere of the play. At the end of the opening stage directions we are told this, it says, 'This 'blue piano' expresses the spirit of the life which goes on here.' This is saying as long as the 'blue piano' is playing life still goes on. But when life is disrupted the music from the 'blue piano' changes. This is shown when Blanche first arrives, 'The 'blue piano' gets louder.' This shows that Blanches arrival is going to affect the life of the characters in the play. This also helps to create tension. The 'blue piano' can also be heard along side the trumpets. At the end of scene two they are playing together, this shows that something is building up. This also helps create a sense of tension and suspense because it makes us want to know what it is building up to. Then at the end of scene four the piano, trumpet and rums are all playing together, it is building up to something big. This adds to the sense of tension and suspense. Then at the very end of the final scene, when Blanche
A Streetcar Named Desire - scene by scene analysis.
A Streetcar Named Desire Scene One The play begins with a description of Elysian Fields which is in New Orleans and is where they play is set. We are first introduced to the other occupants of the street and then Stanley Kowalski. He arrives accompanied by his friend Mitch and greets his wife Stella by bellowing at her. Stella is about twenty-five years old and a gentle woman, who has clearly come from a completely different background to her husband. Shortly after, Blanche DuBois Stella's older sister arrives. She is dressed as if she was attending a cocktail party and has an uncertain manner. She appears rather shocked by her surroundings, which she takes no time in mentioning to Stella. Blanche waits for her sister to arrive and in the mean time she helps herself to some alcohol. The two sisters greet each other with an awkward embrace and Blanche asks to look at Stella but prevents Stella doing the same in return, not until Blanche had bathed and rested. Blanche has another drink and fails to mention she has already helped herself. Stella talks of her husband Stanley and how dependent she is on him. She comments on how she can't stand it when he is away and Blanche seems to disapprove of their relationship. This may be because Stanley is referred to as a "Polack" and the two sisters have come from a Southern upper class family. Blanche arrives at her sister's with bad
The "Glass Menagerie" is a heavily symbolic play. Discuss Williams's use of symbolic reference.
The "Glass Menagerie" is a heavily symbolic play. Discuss Williams's use of symbolic reference. Tennessee William's wrote "The Glass Menagerie" basing it on himself and his life, although not always in detail. Tennessee's life was not one of perfection. It had a lot of downs causing the play to be a very sentimental, dimly lighted and emotionally play. Although this play has a very basic story line Tennessee use of symbolism crates a much more meaningful story of the Wingfild family. Symbolism is used in almost every object, character and in the language used throughout the play. There are not very many props used on stage, apart from basic necessary props such as the settee and table. Other props are much more significant to the meaning of the play, the most obvious is the glass menagerie itself. The fire escape is the Wingfild's most commonly used entrance and exit to their apartment. Only once throughout the play do we see the apartment blocks main staircase actually used. This is when Tom leaves through the main entrance instead of the fire exit. This symbolises that this is his final departure it shows escape. Although this is the most symbolic aspect of the fire escape it is also where Tom tries to have brief moments to himself, away from his nagging mother Amanda. Laura is not a very open character, but from the symbolism William's uses, such as the glass menagerie
Heroines Vacillating between illusion and reality in "The Glass Menagerie".
Heroines Vacillating between illusion and reality in The Glass Menagerie" Amanda Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie is an example of the woman who is vacillating between illusion and reality. She is obsessed with the past and its memories. This obsession leads her to recall her past days to stand as a shelter from the harsh reality that surrounds her. She cannot bear facing the new reality that encounters her family life. Being deserted by her husband, with neither a job nor money, she always retreats into her past to make life more bearable. "She is clinging frantically to another time and place" (Griffin 24). She recalls the memories of her past, especially the supreme moment when she received seventeen gentlemen callers, all loving and caring for their wives. For Amanda the past represents her youth, before time worked out its dark alchemy. Memory has become a myth, a story to be endlessly repeated as a protection against present decline. She wants nothing more than to freeze time; and she in this mirrors a region whose myths of past grace and romantic fiction mask a sense of present decay.(Bigsby 38) Although Amanda recognizes that their situation is desperate, she refuses to take reality as it really is, as far as it concerns her kids, Tom and Laura. She is unable to accept them as they really are. She refuses to accept Tom's writings or even the books he reads. She
Choose any three speeches by Amanda in the Glass Menagerie, how far do these speeches reveal the truth about her character and self possessed personality.
The Glass Menagerie Choose any three speeches by Amanda in the Glass Menagerie, how far do these speeches reveal the truth about her character and self possessed personality. 'AMANDA: One Sunday afternoon in Blue Mountain- your mother received - seventeen! - gentlemen callers! Why, sometimes there weren't chairs enough to accommodate them all. We had to send the nigger over to bring in folding chairs from the parish house.' Amanda is always returning mentally to this past, which is immaterial and far-removed from her current reality. Her reaction to Laura shows that she is strangely in denial about the nature of her own daughter. Laura is crippled, able to walk only slowly and with great effort, and emotionally she is terribly fragile. The contrast between the vivacious and talkative Amanda and her timid, soft-spoken daughter could not be stronger. Tom has a tender relationship with Laura; when Tom expresses frustration at the start of Amanda's story about her gentlemen callers, it is Laura who persuades Tom to humour their mother. The relationship between Tom and Amanda is tense; in this scene, he seems to be struggling to tolerate her, and while Amanda is loving she is also demanding beyond reason. Her insistence that Laura stay put while Amanda plays "the darky" shows her extremely provincial Southern upbringing. In her youth she was wealthy enough to have
Creative writing - Becca.
Becca: We have a place, all of us, in a long story; a story we continue, but whose end we will not see. It is the story of a new world that became a friend and liberator of the old. The story of a slave-holding society that became a servant of freedom. The story of a power that went into the world to protect but not possess, to defend but not to conquer. Main points of story * Will has knife but throws it away * Amanda and Jacob come on stage with Becca, (possibly with camera) * Becca: This is Inspectors etc etc on the scene of a knife incident * Becca is videotaping this and it is being projected onto a white sheet at the back * Becca turns her back and turns video off * Amanda and Jacob torture Will * Becca comes back and they're all looking for the knife * Becca puts camera down and joins in torture * Police get out knife and show it to will * You seen one of these etc * Will is stabbed * Press conference * Conference is being and its been projected onto sheet at back * Becca: This story of a power that went into the world to protect but not possess, to defend but not to conquer. It is the American story; a story of flawed and fallible people, united across the generations by grand and enduring ideals. Becca is centre stage with dim general cover. Becca: We have a place, all of us, in a long story; a story we continue, but whose end we will not see. It
Was Stanley Kowalski the reason for Blanche's downfall?
Was Stanley Kowalski the reason for Blanche's downfall? Blanches Downfall could have been because of Stanley Kowalski but also it could have been another reason. Perhaps the most obvious one is her difficulty fitting in with life in New Orleans. From the beginning we see Blanche does not fit in with the people of her new community, nor her physical surroundings in her new home. This is shown at the start of scene one when it is easy to see that she disapproves of her sister living there. "This - can this be - her home?" This is perhaps Blanche being subtle as later when the place is described as having "raffish charm", Blanche does not even recognise that and she describes it as, "Only Poe! Only Edgar Allen Poe! - Could do it justice!" Blanche represents a deep-seated attachment to the past. She has lived her whole life in Laurel, a small southern town; her family had upper-class roots and taught Blanche about some of the finer things in life. Unfortunately she cannot cope with life outside Laurel. Her refusal to come out of the time warp makes her unrealistic and flighty. When Blanche appears, she is described in detail, not only her clothes but also the impression she gives of delicacy and vulnerability. "There is something about her uncertain manner", and the way she drinks as soon as she reaches the apartment shows that she is extremely nervous and uncomfortable. "Her
