The Glass Menagerie Essays (1241 words) - English-language Films

The Glass Menagerie Tennessee Williams won two Pulitzer Prizes for A Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on A Hot Tin Roof. Many others believe that The Glass Menagerie deserved one as well. The Glass Menagerie (memory play) won the New York Drama Critics' Circle's award as the best play of the season. Williams was born in Columbus, Mississippi, on March 26, 1911. His full name was Thomas Lanier Williams. He spent most of his youth in St. Louis, Missouri. During the Depression Williams worked as a factory hand. After attending the University of Missouri and Washington University he graduated from the University of Iowa in 1938. Writing under his nickname, Tennessee, he began his career auspiciously with a group theater award for four one act plays later published under the title American Blues. The action in The Glass Menagerie takes place in the 30's in St. Louis Missouri in an apartment facing an alley. The set consisted of 3 bedrooms, one room for each person, (Tom, Laura, and Amanda) a kitchen, a dinning room, and a living room, each room would be filled with old antique furniture. The color of the furniture; dark colors like gray, brown, and even black. Curtains hung over the windows, and the lighting was very dim, and a picture of their father hanging on the wall. Antagonist Amanda Wingfield (the mother) A little old woman confused vitality clinging frantically to another time and place. She is not paranoiac but her life was paranoia. She may be cruel at times but there is tenderness in her personality. She was kind and some kind of a hero. Protagonists Tom Wingfield (Amanda's son) He is the narrator of the play. He was a poet with a warehouse job. His nature is notremorseless, but to escape from a trap he has to act without pity. Tom is very rebellious, outspoken, and independent. Neutrals Jim O'Connor (the gentleman caller) He is a nice, ordinary, young man. Jim is very outgoing, friendly, happy, and talkative. Laura Wingfield (Amanda's daughter) A childhood illness has left her crippled, one leg slightly shorter than the other, and held in a brace. She was like a piece of her own glass collection, too exquisitely fragile to move from the shelf. Laura is very shy, quiet, withdrawn, and lonely. In Toms opening monologue he describes each character Amanda, Laura, himself, and Jim. There is a fifth character in the play who doesn't appear except over the manel, who was they're father, he was a telephone operator who fell in love with long distances, he left them and never came back. Amanda, Laura, and Tom were eating dinner, without any conversion, until Amanda started bugging Tom about how to eat. They got into this huge argument and Tom left to the movies. Deception is the initial incident. Amanda has found out that Laura has dropped out of her Rubicans Business College. Amanda had no idea that Laura has been telling her every day for 6 months that she has been going to her business college. Instead had been going out walking in the park, to the museums, and to the zoo. Amanda as furiously talking to Laura and asks her why? Laura said that she didn't want to go back. Amanda said to her Well when girls aren't cut out for working they end up marring. Amanda asked Laura if she has ever liked a boy. Yes, his name was Jim O'Connor. He used to call me blue roses! But he was going out with a girl named Emily Meisenbach, and it says in the personal section they're engaged, that was six years ago, they must be married by now, Laura told her mother. Later, Tom and his mom are at each other's throats. Amanda has been bothering Tom ever since she had confiscated his library books. Amanda doesn't give Tom the space and the freedom he needs. She always has to make such a little thing into some huge thing. Tom had called his mother an old babbling witch. Tom comes up the stairs drunk as can be, loudly looking for his key. Laura comes out hearing all the noise asking Tom where he has been all this time. Tom replied that he had been at the movies. Toms tell Laura