Essays on Glass Menagerie

“Oedipus Rex”, “A Midsummer Night's Dream”, “The Glass Menagerie”

Nowadays, gender issues is a highly relevant topic in modern society which is not only raised in discussions, but also greatly present in the works of art. As one of the purposes of literature is to reflect the greatest concerns and world problems and speak up for them, the works describing the current role of woman in society are of a great importance. Moreover, the way the female characters are presented in the literary works make a great influence on how they are viewed in reality – that is why the depiction of women in literature needs to be thoroughly ...

The human comprehension of reality and the world in general is truly complicated topic which is extremely individual and objective. Apart from the wholesome systems of different philosophical streams and religions, every person constructs one's own apprehension of reality and the purpose of one's lives, which are based on the whole complex of different aspects and issues, such as the human's background, one's ethnicity and culture, social status, personal traits and features of character, one's inner capacities and talents, personal life experience, etc. Apart from that, every person tends to think and rethink, makes great plans for the future, ...

“Oedipus Rex”, “The Glass Menagerie”, “The Angels in America”

The tragedies have always seemed to attract a wide range of audience because of the depth of the emotions revealed there and the turns of events which would be dreadful and inescapable, the complexity of its characters and main issues present in the plays, as well as because of a possibility for the spectators to connect to the events happening on the stage and empathize with the protagonists. When considering the tragedy as the work of art, it is essential to view it from historical perspective, too, and try to reveal its very origins and the basic ideas which ...

Woman. One of the greatest creations of God's will or what your religion says. However, it still does not matter at all what is written in your sanctuary book. You just can not argue with that. Look around. They are everywhere, in every part of the world. Even while the human being exists for more that couple of million years, a woman's role in society is still being discussed. Should she take the lead position in the family or not? Is feminism good or not? And many other questions are still left without an answer. There is no absolute ...

Part 1

In “My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning we meet the narrator who is a Duke. The duke is meeting an emissary in order to discuss marrying the daughter of a very important man. As he is giving the emissary a tour of his home he stops to admire the portrait of his dead wife. The Duke begins to speak of his dead wife with affection. This quickly turns into bitterness when he goes on a rant about the fact she engaged in behaviors that he found distasteful. As he goes on he reveals that he “gave commands; / Then ...

The Glass Menagerie is a play written by Tennessee Williams in 1944 which describes the family consisted of a mother, son and daughter, going through a difficult situation. The son supports his mother and sister since their father left them. Laura is the sister who has a collection of figurines, who has a crippled leg and is shy, but very kind. The figurines are in the shapes of animals and they make Laura forget about reality. There are the past, present and future intertwined within this reality and the fact that the story is set in the time of ...

The film produced by Tennessee Williams “The Glass Menagerie” begins with the current-day describing different scenes in the film. Conflicts develop among the actors and this causes a lot of turmoil and Tennessee Williams tries to come out with resolutions to make the protagonists and antagonists come to relate well.

The film produced by Tennessee Williams “The Glass Menagerie” begins with the current-day describing different scenes in the film. Conflicts develop among the actors and this causes a lot of commotion and Tennessee Williams tries to come out with solutions to make the protagonists and antagonists come to relate ...

Willy Loman and Amanda Wingfield are the main characters in to great American tragedies that both suffer from a tragic flaw. A tragic flaw is a misperception or a lack of insight due to one’s strengths. Both Willy and Amanda cannot see their worlds fully and understand those around them because of their own pride which blinds them. Amanda’s pride keeps her rooted in a past that she can never recreate for her daughter and results in her inability to see her children for who they really are. Willy’s pride in his work prevents him from truly seeing his sons ...

Literature gives a reflection of the society we live in, authors are able to get their ideas from the issue that face the society and organize these ideas to come up with plays, novels, poems and even songs. Once one can connect what an author presents to the contemporary society, it is very easy to understand the themes and the ideas that the author reflects. 1. Compare and contrast the depiction of female characters in Oedipus Rex, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and The Glass Menagerie. What does each author suggest about the role of women in his society ...

Theater is one of the most ancient forms of art. The beginning of Western civilization, ancient Greece, lived a very important part in the development of this form, with many plays reaching classical status, like Oedipus King and the Oresteia trilogy. Aristotle, one of the most important Greek philosophers, offered six elements of drama in his work Poetics: setting, characters, theme, plot, language and music. These have served as a reference to study these types of works of art from antiquity to this day. The first three will serve as a guide for the analysis and comparison of important works from two ...

Explaining the Theme of Escape in The Glass Menagerie

In life, humans are confronted with the course of either retaining in a kind of life that one is supposed to live with or trying to find a way to live a life that a person actually wants to be identified with. Considerably, the same thing is true with the main character Tom in the story The Glass Menagerie. Tom, being a young man as he was, could be expected to be living the best years of his life. However, unlike what is expected of him and his age, he is caught in the desire of embracing a life he actually wants and a life that ...

Introduction

The book, the glass menagerie, is an interesting read that encompasses and represents the lives of human beings who are torn between the world of reality and of fantasy. Therefore, it becomes imperative to discuss the storyline of the book and its connection to psychological theories. The book is filled with puzzling events that are more symbolic than real happenings. Just like the title describes it, the glass menagerie is a fanciful and fragile world in which the book’s characters live in. the book centers around three characters, namely, Tom, Jim, Amanda and Laura. Each of these characters is ...

This essay aims at comparing and contrasting the theme of fantasy and wishful thinking as presented in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman (1949) and also in Tennessee William’s The Glass Menagerie (1945). Both playwrights have intensively used characters who resort into habits of escapism into fantasy and wishful thinking to free themselves from their miserable existence. The main sources of their predicaments are their consistent failures in achieving their dreams, little interaction and communication with family members coupled with personal insecurities. Due to these facts, they all have a common problem which is frustration and boredom. They resort ...

Tennessee Williams is one of the best-known playwrights from the mid-twentieth century, becoming famous for his work The Glass Menagerie in the year 1944. Although Williams would go on to create a variety of different pieces of literature and a number of stage classics, The Glass Menagerie remains one of his most well-known and well-loved pieces. Much of Williams’ work was later adapted for use in the cinema, and the movies made about his classic pieces became popular as well. Born to an overbearing father and a typical “southern belle” mother, Williams was a sickly child who tended towards books and studying rather ...

The play “The Glass Menagerie” presents the memories drawn from Tom Wingfeild, the narrator and protagonist of Tennessee Williams. The play is significant in literature application since it covers the fundamental aspects of life in the society. In the play, Tom and his sister Laura struggles with their mother to make things work. They are subjected to severe challenges in coping up with life mainly because the society is generally unfavorable to allow women flourish in their day to day endeavors. Based on the feminist criticism, this paper will analyze the play to find the various aspects of misogyny ...

This is an analysis of ‘The Glass Menagerie’. ‘The Glass Menagerie’ is a theatrical play which has been considered among the borders of the literary community as a play carrying lots of autobiographical elements of the author. This play which opened the path to his author Tennessee Williams for recognition and admiration won the Pulitzer Prize in 1947. This is an analysis of the play’s main thematic core which is the loneliness of people and the way it is experienced by the members of a family. The portrait presented here is the portrait of a family whose world is so fragile ...

The Glass Menagerie is a famous memory play written by Tennessee Williams. A narrator, Tom presents the story before audiences which is based on his memories. There are three main characters in the story and story is knitted around them. The story succeeded in wining hearts of people because of strong idea of the story. This paper discusses, ‘The Glass Menagerie’, discusses symbolism of the story, along with several related aspects of the story and further presents an analysis of the story. Glass is usually translucent but it refracts different colors when light contacts it with a particular angle. Like glass, ...

The memory play, Glass Menagerie, is based on the narrator’s memories, Tom Wingfield. The play was set in 1937 in St. Louis and Tom is the protagonist. Tom Wingfield was an aspiring poet and toiled and moiled so that he could support his Mother and Sister. Tom Wingfield is an aspiring poet and he works as a shoemaker in a warehouse. He is the one who narrates the story in the play, Glass Menagerie, and all the events are determined by the memories in his mind. Despite that he loved his Mum and sister; he feels that he cannot continue ...

The play by Tennessee Williams portrays the time of 1930s in America through the recollection of Tom, the protagonist. He goes on to say that had secluded the family long ago and they were all left to fend for themselves. Tom declares in the beginning of the play, “I give you truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion.” (Williams, 1.1) In the play, the audience first finds Tom having dinner with the other members of his family, Amanda and his sister Laura. Their mother opines that she wishes her daughter to have “gentlemen callers” like she used to have ...

In Tennessee Williams’ classic play The Glass Menagerie, the work ends with Tom saying, “Blow out your candles, Laura,” followed by Laura following suit. This line and accompanying action are highly symbolic gestures, following along with the play’s themes of abandonment, the American Dream, family and more. The blowing out of the candles represents, for both of them, the chance to escape the suffocating nature of their life in their apartment with their family and to grow as people. This act being the final action of the play is significant, as it not only represents just how badly ...

Introduction

Glass Menagerie is a play of memories of the narrator. Tom, who loathes warehouse job and aspiring poet, is a character who toils to support his father, Mr. Wingfield, Amanda his mother, and a sister, Laura. Due to disappointment that Laura, who wears a brace on her leg and is shy, does not attract any suitor. Amanda hopes, by enrolling Laura in a business collage, she would make her own family’s prosperity. Jim was Laura’s school mate and they have several crush. On Amanda’s order, Laura answers the door but refuses the dinner by feigning illness. Since Tom used money ...

In the opening lines of Tennessee Williams’ play The Glass Menagerie, the narrator Tom Wingfield addresses the audience and says, “The play is memory. Being a memory play, it is dimly lighted, it is sentimental, it is not realistic” (Williams 1.1.12-13). When he makes that statement, he establishes that he is not a reliable narrator; he is not omniscient. From the audience’s perspective, this statement means that they can regard both what he says directly to them as narrator and the statements he and other characters make to each other as not necessarily accurate. The play consists of his memories ...

In Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie, there are a number of symbols inserted into the play that represent a theme or a character trait that help to portray something deeper about these people than can be normally conveyed through the typical methods of dialogue and direction. In this paper, we will examine five of these symbols and how they are developed throughout the course of the play. It is then made clear just how effectively symbols are used as a visual representations of the character’s inner motivations, as well as the messages about society and the human experience that the playwright attempts ...

Because most modern plays do not have narrators, when the character Tom Wingfield is speaking as the narrator of The Glass Menagerie, the audience will pay more attention to his words. In part this is because he directly addresses the audience, and in part because of his comments about the other characters and himself. In some ways, the occasional use of a narrator makes the play seem slightly more modern in style, at least to audiences familiar with the television narrative device of “breaking the fourth wall,” in which a character on a television show speaks directly to the television audience instead ...

William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet Prince of Denmark and Tennessee Williams’s play The Glass Menagerie are both products of their time though both plays continue to be appreciated and receive critical acclaim. Differences between the lives of the playwrights, the support they received in writing and producing their plays, the type of audiences viewing the plays, the venues in which they plays were performed, and the cultural events of their times are reflected in their resulting works of literature. Shakespeare’s Hamlet was written around the year 1600 (Farnham 931). Its contemporary audience was Elizabethan, and Shakespeare’ ...

This paper discusses a common concept between Shakespeare’s play ‘Hamlet’ and Tennessee William’s ‘The Glass Menagerie’. Hamlet is one of the most luminous literary works of this earth. It is so precious that we can gift it to somebody who is visiting us from mars. The play was written by William Shakespeare about almost four hundred years ago but it is still so significant and fascinating that people still find themselves mesmerized with the play. On the other hand, ‘The glass menagerie’ is a super hit play written by Tennessee William in the year, 1944. This paper intends to ...

The Great Gatsby is an American classical Novel authored by Scot F. Fitzgerald in 1925, immediately after the Second World War. The story was set up in New York and the North Shore Island. In this novel, set at a time when America was striving to achieve economic empowerment, explores the theme of unfulfilled life that is corrupted by greed. Greed for wealth, recognition and love. The story is about a young Nick Carraway who after graduating from Yale University relocates to New York. Here, he rents a house next to Jay Greatsby. Greatsby owns a very big mansion in which he lives ...

English Literature

Throughout literature, authors use symbolic imagery in order to assist the reader in conjuring up mental images from the words on the page. Symbolism is a common literary device which is used to help make the story come to life and to make it more three-dimensional (Bloom 1339). This is seen in every work of literature ever written and for the purposes of this essay, the symbolic language used in Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Sophocle’s Oedipus Rex and Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie will be discussed. In each of these texts, the author has used symbolism to help build ...

In Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie, there are a number of symbols inserted into the play that represent a theme or a character trait that help to portray something deeper about these people than can be normally conveyed through the typical methods of dialogue and direction. In this paper, we will examine five of these symbols and how they are developed throughout the course of the play. It is then made clear just how effectively symbols are used as a visual representations of the character’s inner motivations, as well as the messages about society and the human experience that the playwright attempts ...

Family loyalty, true love, and rollercoaster emotions are basic ingredients of a great movie but in The Glass Menagerie, reality seems different from appearance. The question that begs to be answered then is, has the themes in the movie been advanced in a manner that is entertaining?

The title “The Glass Menagerie” is a four actor memory play that was originally released in 1944 and written by Tennesse Williams and directed by Antony Harvey. The remake of the movie was released in 1973 with the actors being Katherine Hepburn as Amanda Wingfield, Sam Waterson as Tom Wingfield, Joanna Miles as Laura Wingfield, ...