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The Glass Menagerie

Characters
Amanda – Of the various characters in the play, Amanda seems to inspire the least respect or sympathy
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She torments her grown children with her constant nagging
and impossible expectations
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She refuses to acknowledge any form of expression from them
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However, it may seem that Amanda’s behavior is dictated by fear- fear of surviving the Great
Depression, fear that Tom will abandon the family just like her husband did, and fear for Laura who was
at a great risk of being destroyed by the world
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It consumes her
and drives her “hateful” behavior
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Reality overwhelms her, making her want to escape into memories of the
past
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Unlike her husband, she did not abandon their
children, and although she had been abandoned, she did not hate him; his picture hangs in the
Wingfield apartment
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She
refuses to listen when Tom speaks of Laura’s fragile nature and inability to function in life because
acknowledging Laura’s condition is to acknowledge the possibility that her daughter can’t be saved
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 Overbearing, Fearful, Dominant, Courageous, Loving, Lives in the past- refuses to acknowledge
the harsh realities of life
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Laura- Laura is overly fragile, not unlike her glass collection
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Unable to fulfill her mother’s expectations, Laura escapes life by collecting glass
figurines and listening to old records
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She is too nervous to even attend business school without becoming
violently sick
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All she wishes is for them to get along
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She withdraws from reality into a make- believe world of her glass menagerie
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We only see it when the gentleman caller arrives but even with him
(Jim) she refuses to break her walls and leave her world
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Thematic Focus

The Glass Menagerie, Tennessee Williams’ first major play to appear on Broadway is an
autobiographical work
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Louis apartment during the depression ( The
Great Depression- Worldwide economic depression during the 1930s)
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He dreams of being a writer and living a life of adventure
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he
longed to be free but was chained by his responsibilities towards Amanda and Laura
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So Tom invites Jim O’Connor, the gentleman caller to dinner one
evening
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Tom runs away to join the merchant marine but is unable to
escape the memory of his sister
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Escape
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Escape from responsibility,
reality, and life in general is the central theme of the play
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They live in
denial, blindness and self delusion in their own different ways
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She magnifies her disability and lets
it affect her personality
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She runs off to a world populated by glass animals- objects
that like Laura’s inner li fe are incredibly fanciful and dangerously delicate
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Unlike his sister, Tom is capable of functioning in the real world- he can hold down a job
and talk to strangers but he too,wishes to escape
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He has no more motivation than Laura to pursue romantic relationships,
professional success or even ordinary friendships and prefers to retreat into the fantasies
provided by literature and movies and the solace provided by his constant drunkenness
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At first she comes off as a silly
woman who lives in the past and glories in her romantic memories of Blue Mountain and her
days as a southern belle
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She cannot accept that she must
be anything other than the pampered belle that she used to be in her younger days
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She lives in a pathetic distortion of reality , a kind of haze
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She is a woman obsessed with the past and with the
impossible, ridiculous dreams of the future
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All three of them find comfort in different worlds- none of which are real
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Tom tells Laura with about a magic show in which the magician managed to escape from a
nailed-up coffin
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The
promise of escape, symbolized by Tom’s missing father, the Merchant Marine Service, and the
fire escape outside the apartment, haunts Tom from the beginning of the play, and in the end,
he does choose to free himself from the confinement of his life and family
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However his escape is only
physical
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He cannot truly
leave his family behind
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He realizes that escape and freedom cannot come without an internal
price
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The play is
structured around a series of abandonments
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First they were collectively abandoned by Mr
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For her, being abandoned by her
husband meant being abandoned by her childhood understanding of men and the world
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She fears
helplessness and is relentless in her quest for Laura to gain business skills and then marry
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Laura was abandoned by the world at large causing her to live in her own bubble, outside the
perimeter of everyday society
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When for the first time she finally dared to peak at the outside world she was again
brutally deserted by Jim
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Tom, more than being abandoned was the abandoner
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He chose to
abandon his family due to the fear of being abandoned by his hopes and dreams
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Only Amanda and Laura will presumably never take on the role of abandoner and are probably
doomed to be abandoned several times in their lives
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Thematically, we see the detrimental effects of memory in the way that Amanda
completely lives in and is consumed by the past
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In terms of the play’s
presentation, the entire story is told from the memory of Tom, the narrator
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The unrelenting power of memory is what shapes and inspires the play
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Most
fictional works are products of imagination and must convince the audience that they are
something more than just fiction
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The story in the play is told entirely from the narrator’s memory
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The narrator, Tom is not
the only one haunted by memories
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Moreover, Laura and Amanda will be haunted by the memories of their
abandoners throughout their lives
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3) Illusions and Dreams
The characters in the play when not living in illusions, are full of dreams
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Tom dreams about escaping from his present life
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Amanda’s dreams are desperate attempts to escape her current
sorrow, which force her into a life of delusion blinding her to reality and the desires of her
children
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Moreover, when her dream of Laura in business school falls apart she
creates a new fantasy world of gentlemen callers and marriage prospects
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She surrounds herself with perfectly
beautiful but lifeless, immortal objects like her glass menagerie
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Unlike the Wingfields, Jim does not live in a fantasy world of illusion, or in the past
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However, Jim himself is hoping for a career in radio and television- an industry that
is itself involved in creating dreams and illusions, this suggests that the Wingfields are not the
only characters in the play who are susceptible to their dreams

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