The Glass Menagerie - By paying close attention to detail, describe how Williams creates tension on the part of Tom.

Authors Avatar

By paying close attention to detail, describe how Williams creates tension on the part of Tom

            The Glass Menagerie is a play that deals with a strong mix of emotions, including sadness, loneliness, anger and pride. This is especially true for the character of Tom. Williams uses many different ways of portraying Tom’s feelings, and these become apparent when reading the play.

        I think one of the most important factors in the play is the role of the absent father. The fact that Williams chose to have his picture hanging in the family’s living room through the entire play brings an underlying atmosphere, which is always present. Because of his fathers absence Tom feels a huge amount of pressure upon him this is due to a number of reasons.

Join now!

         Firstly, Amanda can be very overbearing this causes Tom to be annoyed. Her constant  ‘nagging’ and fussing and his sister can be very hard to bear and brings a great deal of tension to the household, so why is Amanda like that? Like many mothers, she has certain ideas of what she wants for her children. Memories of her own youth and her past life in Blue Mountain and give Amanda determination to force Laura into the same way of life. But because of the lack of ‘gentlemen callers’ for Laura, there is an atmosphere of both disappointment and unrealistic ...

This is a preview of the whole essay