Important Symbols and Themes of The Glass Menagerie
Important Symbols and Themes of The Glass Menagerie Tennessee Williams' play, The Glass Menagerie is considered a memory play because it is told from the memory of the narrator. The narrator, who is also a character, is Tom Wingfield, the youngest member of the Wingfield family. The other characters are Amanda Wingfield, his mother; Laura Wingfield, his older sister; and Jim O'Connor the gentleman caller. A fifth character is represented by the photograph of Mr. Wingfield, who left the family a long time ago. It is this departure by Mr. Wingfield that represents the theme of escape throughout the play. The Glass Menagerie is set in the apartment of the Wingfield family during the mid 1930's. By description, it is a cramped, dinghy place, similar to a jail cell. Of the Wingfield family members, none of them want to live there. Poverty is what traps them to live within their present environment. Williams uses many symbols to help the Wingfield's escape their surroundings, and differentiate between reality and illusion. The first symbol, presented in the first scene, is the fire escape. This represents the "bridge" between the illusory world of the Wingfields and the world of reality. This "bridge" may be a one-way passage, but the direction varies for each character. For Tom, the fire escape is the way out of the world of Amanda and Laura, and an entrance into the
Relationships in The Glass Menagerie, by Tennessee Williams.
Throughout the Glass Menagerie, Tennessee Williams concentrates a lot on family relationships. There are the Wingfields at the start of the play and they experience different interactions with each other: Tom and Amanda (son and mother), Amanda and Laura (mother and sister) and Laura and Tom (sister and brother). At the sixth scene of the play appears Jim and we see him interacting mostly with Laura. I will try to show how Tennessee Williams develops these relationships throughout the play. Starting with Tom and Amanda, already at the first scene we see Amanda, Tom and Laura sitting at the dinner table, and Amanda is constantly annoying Tom with her nagging. She tells him off for the way he chews, the way he 'plays' with his fingers and basically for anything she finds 'weird'. At first we see that Tom is respectful towards her, remaining silent and standing her comments. At a certain point he just can't stand it anymore, and he tells her "I haven't enjoyed one bite of this dinner because of your constant directions on how to eat it." A few pages after that, Amanda is starting to bring up her past and the way she picked her gentleman callers as a young woman. Though apart from the memories she is bringing up, she is sending Tom a message in disguise ("...never anything coarse or common or vulgar!"), telling him her hopes are that he will come back down to earth,
Laura Ashley
Laura Ashley Global organisation Laura Ashley Holdings plc has suffered differing fortunes since it was founded in the 1950s by Bernard and Laura Ashley. It has been involved in the designing, manufacturing, distribution and selling of garments, accessories, perfume, gift items, fabric, wallcoverings, bedding, lighting, and furniture. Famed for its floral prints, the chain was highly successful during the early and mid 1980s but things changed in the early 1990s when various management and structural problems as well as those relating to growth, distribution, and various external influences such as global recession surfacedcogd gdr segdgdw orgd gdk ingd fogd gd. Laura Ashley herself died in 1985. There is a notable difference in the organisation up to and after this year. Up to 1985, it was a simply structured, steadily expanding organisation operating in a non-complex environment (complexity arises when there are numerous complicated environmental influences [Johnson and Scholes, 1989]). In the months and years after, many changes took place. Laura Ashley went public in flotation, acquired other companies involved in areas such as knitwear and perfume, made heavier investments in manufacturing and information technology (IT), moved towards segmentation with Mother and Child shops, exclusively home furnishing shops and unit shops (franchise operations). The organisation
The Glass menagerie - 'Being a memory play, it is dimly lighted, it is sentimental, it is not realistic'. To what degree is the play memory and to what degree is it realistic?
ENGLISH LITERATURE LONG ESSAY MEMORY AND REALITY (IN TENNESSEE WILLIAMS' THE GLASS MENAGERIE) 'Being a memory play, it is dimly lighted, it is sentimental, it is not realistic'. To what degree is the play memory and to what degree is it realistic? "When a play employs unconventional techniques, it is not trying to escape its responsibility of dealing with reality, or interpreting experience, but is actually attempting to find a closer approach, a more penetrating and vivid expression of things as they are" (Tennessee Williams). The Glass Menagerie is one of Tennessee Williams' most eminent works and no doubt qualifies as a classic of the modern theater. Often referred to as a 'memory play', both the style and content of The Glass Menagerie are shaped and inspired by the memory of the play's narrator, Tom Wingfield. According to Tom, due to the play's origins in memory, 'it is sentimental, it is not realistic' and may be presented with unusual freedom from convention. Consequently, the play is subject to numerous peculiarities, such as dim lighting, frequent use of music and overblown, almost 'too-perfect' symbolism. Most fictional works are products of the imagination, which attempt to convince the audience of its realism, through realistic conflict, drama and setting. The Glass Menagerie, however, although drawn from memory, is not 'attempting to escape its responsibility
Symbolism in A Streetcar Named Desire
During the late nineteen-forties, it was common for playwrights such as Tennessee Williams to use symbolism as an approach to convey personal thoughts, through the attitudes of the characters and the setting. Williams' actors have used symbolism to disguise the actuality of their thoughts and to accommodate the needs of their conservative audience. A Streetcar Named 'Desire' has a few complicated character traits and themes. Therefore, they have to be symbolised using figures or images to express abstract and mystical ideas, so that the viewers can remain clueless. Williams not only depicts a clear personality of the actors but he also includes real-life public opinions from the past (some of which are contemporary.) These opinions were likely to raise controversies on issues such as prejudice, social gender expectations and men and women's roles in society. There have been numerous occasions when symbolism has taken place in A Streetcar Named 'Desire.' Firstly, Stanley is insulted several times by Blanche (his sister-in-law) Stella (his beloved wife) and other residents of the 'Quarter'. For example, the term 'animal' has been constantly spoken of, to define Stanley's malicious and ill-natured conduct. In scene four, Blanche tries to persuade her younger sister to go elsewhere and leave her husband. On page 163, she complains: Blanche: He acts like an animal, has an
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
What kind of Play is The Glass Menagerie?
What kind of Play is The Glass Menagerie? There are three basic ways in which we can look at plays: tragedy, comedy and social commentary. Tragedy * Comes from the Greek tragos meaning goat sacrificed to give thanks for the harvest and expel any evil in the community; hence the term scapegoat * The ingredients of Greek tragedy were the scapegoat, that is the person who had brought evil to the community who must therefore be sacrificed or expelled, Oedipus and Agamemnon. family strife, (Oedipus, The Oresteia); the high status of the hero, the fatal flaw, and the role of the Gods * Aristotle said that 'a perfect tragedy should imitate actions which excite pity and fear' and these emotions are exorcised in the denouement of the play in a process more commonly referred to as catharsis. Tragedy and The Glass Menagerie * Although Tom and his father before him sacrifice others for their own ambitions we cannot say that the play contains a sacrifice in the sense I spoke of above consequently we cannot say that there are any scapegoats in the play. * We are on slightly stronger ground with family strife. Amanda constantly tries to force Laura to do things Rubicam's business school to learn typing, or to marry and she criticises Tom's eating habits, (1: 6), she censors his reading matter (3: 21) and demands to know where he goes every evening (3: 23 & 4: 33). However, this
A Streetcar Named Desire
The characters of A Streetcar Named Desire are reluctant to accept the truth.' Practice Essay Tennessee Williams' play, A Streetcar Named Desire explores the idea of an imperfect reality and how the characters are reluctant to accept the truth. Williams, portrays Blanche as an uncertain character who has come from Laurel Mississippi to live with her sister and brother-in-law in New Oleans. Blanche hides behind the veneer of outer beauty when is placed under the spotlight, fails to live up to the person she would like people to think that she is. Stella accepts her sister as she is but Stanley only wants the truth out of Blanche. The consequences of avoiding the truth prove devastating. Blanche is reluctant to accept the truth and as a result her world hinges on illusion and deception She suffers from a terrible loneliness from which she seeks to escape in inappropriate ways. When nobody is watching she consumes enough alcohol, to save her from the truth. What Blanche is like when on her own is a direct antithesis to the image she would like to portray of herself. She lives in a fantasy world to protect herself against her weaknesses and shortcomings and has dealt with her suffering by taking refuge in fanciful dreams about herself and her surroundings, 'I don't want realism I want magic... I try to give that to people. I misrepresent things to them. I don't tell the
Discuss the extent to which language creativity can be identified in everyday interaction in English, with reference to an extract of authentic language data that you have collected from everyday conversation, or dialogue between children, or computer-med
The art of English E301 TMA 02 Discuss the extent to which language creativity can be identified in everyday interaction in English, with reference to an extract of authentic language data that you have collected from everyday conversation, or dialogue between children, or computer-mediated conversation. Alternatively you may use an extract from CD-ROM 1, Band 6 (Sample stories) or Band 12 (Pretend Play). In this assignment the aim is to demonstrate to what extent language creativity is present in everyday language. The main discussion will evolve around a transcript from CD-ROM Band 12 from this course. This will be concluded with specific references to strengths and limitation features of studies into language creativity. Language creativity can be found in a wide variety of different language practices. One comes across it in anything from advertisements or banners to literature. For example, small children are also able to tell and receive a joke which means that they are capable of recognising creative play through the semantics of words. Children also like using their minds productively for instance either by making up their own stories or by re-telling a fairy tale. Moreover, it is particularly in early childhood that is the period of life and mode of being in which linguistic creativity occurs in interesting ways. Language play especially amongst children
Laura Ashley Holdings plc - company overview
Laura Ashley Global organisation Laura Ashley Holdings plc has suffered differing fortunes since it was founded in the 1950s by Bernard and Laura Ashley. It has been involved in the designing, manufacturing, distribution and selling of garments, accessories, perfume, gift items, fabric, wallcoverings, bedding, lighting, and furniture. Famed for its floral prints, the chain was highly successful during the early and mid 1980s but things changed in the early 1990s when various management and structural problems as well as those relating to growth, distribution, and various external influences such as global recession surfaced Laura Ashley herself died in 1985. There is a notable difference in the organisation up to and after this year. Up to 1985, it was a simply structured, steadily expanding organisation operating in a non-complex environment (complexity arises when there are numerous complicated environmental influences [Johnson and Scholes, 1989]). In the months and years after, many changes took place. Laura Ashley went public in flotation, acquired other companies involved in areas such as knitwear and perfume, made heavier investments in manufacturing and information technology (IT), moved towards segmentation with Mother and Child shops, exclusively home furnishing shops and unit shops (franchise operations). The organisation moved gradually away from vertical
