Themes Of The Glass Menagerie
“The Glass Menagerie” is a play that contains intense human
feelings; frustration, shyness, regretfulness, anger, and sadness. The play
is set in the apartment of the Wingfield family. In this cramped, dinghy
place lives three characters; Amanda, Laura, and Tom, who are desperate
to make their dream come true.
Amanda is a shrew, she wants to live through her daughter, Laura.
Her dream is for her daughter to marry to a well-educated man and
support her throughout the rest of her life. Amanda always make
complaining remarks about her husband who had left her with Tom and
Laura. Amanda nags Tom for spending too much time watching movies
instead of working and finding a suitable for Laura. She likes to brag about
how many Gentleman callers came to her house to pursue her.
Tom is the narrator of the play. His dream is to be a poet and have
no responsibilities to his family. He works at a warehouse, which he
doesn’t appreciate because it avoids him to complete his dream. He
detests when his mother tell him what to do and how to do it, sometimes
he has to act without pity.
Laura is shy and has a low self-esteem. She is compared to her
glass collection, fragile in every sense. As an effect of a childhood illness,
she was left crippled, which made her think that she was less than
everybody else. She avoids socializing because she is afraid of breaking
up, however this changes when she sees her old crush, Jim O’cconor. Her
dream is to feel good about herself and to get out of her depression.
Each character desires to escape from this lifestyle, poverty is what
has them trap.
The fire escape provides a different purpose for each of the characters.
From the opening of the play, Tom’s addresses the audience from the fire
escape. The fire escape allows Tom to get out of the apartment and away
from his nagging mother. Amanda sees it as an entrance for the
Gentleman callers to enter their lives. Laura hides inside the apartment
not in the fire escape. The fire escape separates authenticity from the
undiscovered.
Tom escapes in more than one way, first is the fire escape which
leads him away from his home, then the movies. The movies temporarily
takes him to another world, where mothers and runaways fathers doesn’t
exist. He also gets away by drinking. He wants to escape his
responsibilities of taking care of his mother and sister. He wishes to have a
life of his own.
Laura finds an escape through her glass collection. She also finds
relieves in playing the same old record day after day. Across their
apartment is the Paradise Dance Hall. Perhaps the music floating up to the
apartment from the dance hall is supposed to be her escape which she
just can’t take.
As time goes it’s getting harder and harder for Tom to avoid the real
world, and the time for him to leave comes. When he leaves , he feels
guilty for abandoning Laura . However, he discovers that he hasn’t
escaped, but led himself onto a path of even more powerful desperation.
The theme escape is used throughout the play to demonstrate the
hopelessness of each character’s dreams. For the characters, an escape is
possible, however, in the end no one finds a clear break.
Glass Menagerie Commentary
First of all, I liked the way that The Glass Menagerie was
not specifically dated. What I mean by this, is even though
the play was written in the forties, today we (people in
general), can still relate to some of the issues in it. Like take
for example the disability issue. Laura was so self conscious
of her disability, but in reality, people did not really even
notice. This is how society in general treats people with
disabilities today - the same as everyone else. I also liked
the development of Laura's character over the course of the
plot. At first she was timid and afraid of the world. But as
the play progressed, and her character grew, she started to
grow out of her timidness and started to be more trustful of
people. By the end of the play, she had completely opened
up to Jim and even showed him her glass menagerie, her
most prized possession. I think that the stage directions in
this play were both useful and annoying. I say that they were
useful because they helped me to understand the plot and
the characters motives and actions easier and better. But
they were annoying because there were so many of them,
and at times Tennessee Williams was overly descriptive in
his stage directions. This play made me think about how
people with disabilities are treated. I had always thought that
in the thirties and forties, being disabled was not accepted.
But after reading this play, I am starting to think that I might
be wrong after all, because Laura seemed not to be treated
any differently as a result of her disability. What surprised
me about this play, was the fact that Jim was not married to
Emily Meisenbach, his high school sweet heart. The way that
he was presented by Laura's memory, I thought that for sure
he would be married to Emily. But on the other hand, he is
engaged to Betty, so he must really be as wonderful as
Laura remembers. What angered me about this play, is the
fact that Jim did im fact turn out to be engaged. I guess that I
was hoping that Laura would in fact end up getting together
with Jim, and living "happily ever after". But that is not how
real life is, and I like the way that Williams shows us that not
everything works out to be alright in the real world. I don't
like the way that Amanda kept accusing Tom of being
selfish. I think that Tom is being very generous and noble by
supporting Amanda and Laura. It's not his duty to do so, but
he is still doing it, regardless. He could be out in the world
having fun with his money, but instead he chooses to support
Amanda and Laura. I would recommend that you continue
to use this play as study material for grade eleven students. I
say this because this play is not dated, and it touches on
some very good topics (eg. people with disabilities and how
they're treated). I also think that this should be continued to
be studied, because it is really a short play, and it is
straight-forward. It also gets to the point quickly, and there
is less of a chance that the students will get bored of it.