THE GLASS MENAGERIE_________________

Justifying the title -The Glass Menagerie

Everything broken was once whole – these words ring true for Tennessee William’s play
The Glass Menagerie which reflects the themes of disillusionment of the American
dream and family disintegration.

One of the leading playwrights of the Post World War II America, Tennessee Williams in
his play The Glass Menagerie presents the socio-economic scenario of America in 1930s
facing the aftermath of Wall Street Crash which marked the onset of the Great
Depression. The play is a family drama which is deeply autobiographical in nature
seeping from Williams’ own life. The play features three main characters –Amanda, the
mother and her two children, Tom and Laura.

Tom introduces The Glass Menagerie as a memory play. The play is Tom's memory of
the past and all of the action takes place in his head. Williams writes in the Production
Notes that “nostalgia is the first condition of the play.” The narrator, Tom, is not
the only character haunted by his memories. Amanda too lives in constant pursuit of her
bygone youth and old records from her childhood are almost as important to Laura as
her glass animals. For these characters, memory becomes a crippling force that prevents
them from finding happiness in the present.

The title of the play, The Glass Menagerie alludes at Laura’s collection of animal glass
figurines. It also implies about the idea of the glass as extremely delicate and fragile
reflecting how the American society was walking on a boulevard of broken dreams as
their aspirations of chasing the American dream was destroyed due to a crashing
economy. The Great Depression represented the end of an era of the American Dream—
the artistic and economic innovation and prosperity of the “Roaring Twenties” came to a
short, decisive stop and American society went into crisis mode. Middle class people

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suffered most from this and the Wingfields are the representatives of this class of
people. Their economic misfortune can be seen as they live on credit. Even, the
electricity supply is cut off following Tom’s failure to pay the bill. So, Laura’s collection
of glass animals is not just a symbolism of herself as extremely fragile rather it also
represents the fragility of the middle classes during the great depression

Gilbert Debusscher in his essay The Glass Menagerie and Family Dysfunction says,
“The Glass Menagerie is more than just a lament of a physically challenged
sister who is socially awkward, it is an elegy for a lost innocence.” The
economic depression which destroys the American Dream in turn destroys the familial
relationships in the play. The fallout of Amanda with her husband which is the result of
the failure of marital life follows the fallout of Amanda with Tom, a failure of parent-
child relationship.

Pragya Gupta in her essay The Glass Menagerie and Mirrored Identities casts light on
how the title is not a mere reference for Laura’s collection of glass animals rather “it is
human exhibits that Williams possibly had in mind with their selfhood as brittle as
glass.”

For Laura, the glass animal transforms her into a mythical world, timeless and immune
from the onward rush of the 20th century. It is an immunity which she earns by seeping
into a fictitious world but doing so, she is unable to develop any meaningful
relationships with others in the present. She is both emotionally and physically crippled.
In Tom’s words, “she lives in a world of her own – a world of little glass
ornaments.” It is her unproductivity which makes her like one of the beautiful but
fragile piece in her collection. It is only after meeting Jim that Laura sparks with life
even though she realizes that Jim does not see her in a romantic manner. When Jim
mistakenly breaks the horn of the glass unicorn Laura says, “now he will feel more at
home with the other horses, the one who don’t have horns…” this comment by her
signifies her longing to feel normal.

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 Laura is not the only one who escapes from reality – both her mother, Amanda and
Tom are unable to face reality as well. Tom escapes into the world of movies and poetry.
A poet in an unpoetic world, he retreats into his writing because there he can distract
himself from the harsh truths of his existence as a worker at a shoe factory. Similarly,
Amanda finds escape by remembering her youth. The past becomes an outlet for her to
relive the good times when seventeen gentlemen caller wished to court her. Amanda
clings onto the past just as desperately as the present. She attempts to hold two worlds
together and realizes that both are crumbling underneath her fingers. The world of her
youth has already vanished. She knows her survival and that of her daughter depends on
Tom who became the “little man of the house” when his father left.

The play portrays a realistic evaluation of human yearnings through Tom’s decision of
abandoning his mother and sister to pursue his own life. By liberating himself from the
responsibilities that imprisoned him, he physically breaks clean from the assigned role of the
parentified-child but emotionally, he feels bound to it. Therefore, dysfunctional family
relationship is one of the central themes of the novel. The abandonment by the father makes the
family a broken home. All of them are trapped by their gloomy life and find repose in illusion.
The fire escape symbol suggests that the Wingfield are burning in the fire of their desperation.
Economic condition of the family is a cause of constant frustration which gets reflected in
Amanda and Tom’s constant brawls as Amanda keeps pestering Tom not to waste money on
movies.

Amanda is both Laura’s disease and her brace. It is Amanda’s forcefulness that causes
her to walk at all but at the same time, it is also Amanda’s example that discourages
Laura from walking naturally. Laura feels she is like a unicorn or a blue rose- not fit for
real life. When Laura entered her high school classes late, the sound of the brace on her
leg seemed to her like the clasp of thunder. She is not just physically crippled but
mentally as well. Her physical defect has taken her confidence and self-belief. Due to
this, she has fabricated an imaginary world symbolized by the glass menagerie. As
George W. Crandell observes, “Laura actively resists both the role that society prescribes
women as well as Amanda’s insistence that she conform to it.”

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Payal Nagpal in Introduction to The Glass Menagerie writes, “The menagerie provides a
contrast between Amanda’s utilitarianism and Laura’s sensitivity.” Amanda pushes
Laura to develop market oriented skills that will help her to get a job, she does not
approve of Laura’s preoccupation with her glass animals and visiting museums. This
contradictory behavior of the mother and daughter reflect the middle class women’s life
at the time of social crisis. The implications of the menagerie go beyond its relationship
with Laura. The menagerie functions both as liberating and restrictive as it provides
succor to Laura but for Tom, the menagerie is a cage. It reflects a world which is static
and does not invite change, and change is what Tom longs for. In this sense, Tom wishes
to break away from the system that reduces him to a cog in a machine while Jim desires
to live up to his potential.

Much like the glass menagerie, all three Wingfields are unrealistic. Each one of them
clings onto a world of illusion which like the glass figures is too fragile to last. Thus, the
title of The Glass Menagerie helps to bring to the front the themes of illusions and
impossible dreams as well.

Conclusively, the themes of family disintegration, disillusionment of the American

dream, memory and abandonment are prevalent in Tennessee Williams’ Play, The Glass
Menagerie.

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 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL ELEMENTS

Williams, who’s full name was Thomas Lanier Williams. He adopted the nickname “Tennessee”
while in college.  He wrote “The Glass Menagerie,” his first financially successful play in 1945. It
immediately became critically acclaimed, drawing huge audiences and winning significant
awards.

Over the course of his lifetime, Williams wrote 25 full-length plays, dozens of screenplays, two
novels, a novella, 60 short stories, more than 100 poems and an autobiography. He was awarded
two Pulitzer Prizes and four New York Drama Critics’ Circle Awards. He is widely considered the
equal of Eugene O’Neill and Arthur Miller as a renowned theater author. In later years, Williams
became deeply addicted to drugs and alcohol and ultimately died by chocking to death on a
bottle cap in 1983. His father, C. C. Williams, was a domineering, abusive drunkard and
womanizer, who made life painfully miserable for his withdrawn, genteel wife who was a
pastor’s daughter. He continuously embarrassed his only son by referring to him as “Miss
Nancy, because of his weak and sensitive nature.

“The Glass Menagerie” is a memory play with strong autobiographical elements and is the play
that catapulted Williams from obscurity to fame. It consists of four characters: a histrionic,
domineering mother, Amanda (Shay Oglesby-Smith), still indelibly immersed in her Southern
proclivities and her fragile-as-glass daughter, Laura (Anna-Oglesby-Smith), imprisoned as a
painfully shy young woman suffering a schizophrenic existence and nurtured in large part by an
embarrassing physical disability. The principal male figure and the story’s narrator is Amanda’s
son, Tom (Carter Chastain), who supports the family by working in a shoe factory as a very low
pay warehousemen–a job that he truly detests. The fourth and final addition to the story is a
former high school friend and compassionate coworker, Jim

the fact that Laura’s character is based on Williams’s sister, Rose. Rose struggled with
mental health issues throughout her lifetime, and Williams’s parents decided to
lobotomize her. Ramont notes that, like Tom in the play, Williams would never forget
what happened to his sister. Ramont says, “He felt regret and guilt over that for the rest
of his life.”

[O]n the shelves around [Rose’s] room she collected a large assortment of little glass articles, of
which she was particularly fond. Eventually, the room took on a light and delicate appearance,
in spite of the lack of outside illumination, and it became the only room in the house that I found
pleasant to enter. . (“The Author Tells Why It Is Called ‘The Glass Menagerie’”)

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While not strictly autobiographical in nature, the characters in Tennessee Williams’s play “The Glass
Menagerie” parallel many of the members of the Williams family. Furthermore, Tom Wingfield, the
narrator of the story, undoubtedly endures many of the same struggles Tennessee Williams faced in
his personal life. Williams alludes to the connection between the story of the Wingfields and his life
in the opening scene when Tom states, “I give you truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion.”
Biographers have confirmed the association between the character of Tom Wingfield and the life of
Tennessee Williams. It has been noted that during Williams’s time working in a shoe factory he “was
miserable at his agonizingly dull job and stayed up most of the night writing, which was both a
passion and an escape.” Both Williams and Tom Wingfield struggled in their menial jobs while
desiring to write. It is easy to see the connections between Tennessee Williams’s life and the
situations present in “The Glass Menagerie”; however, the story is a deeper tale than a mere retelling
of the author’s personal life.

The Glass Menagerie as a Memory Play

A memory play is a kind of play in which the story is told from the memory of a narrator or one
of the characters. The term is coined by Tennessee Williams to describe non-realistic dramas,
such as The Glass Menagerie, in which the audience experiences the past as remembered by a
narrator, complete with music from the period remembered, and images representing the,
characters, thoughts, fears, emotions, and recollections projected on a scrim in the background.

Tom introduces The Glass Menagerie as a memory play. The play is Tom's memory of the past
and all of the action takes place in his head. Williams writes in the Production Notes that
“Nostalgia is the first condition of the play” The narrator, Tom, is not the only character
haunted by his memories. Amanda too lives in constant pursuit of her bygone youth and old
records from her childhood are almost as important to Laura as her glass animals. For these
characters, memory becomes a crippling force that prevents them from finding
happiness in the present.

The Glass Menagerie is a memory play because both its style and its contents are shaped and
inspired by memory. Tom is the narrator of the play. The play comes from his memory. In a

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memory play the playwright enjoys unusual freedom of convention. Tom as a narrator explains
to the audience that the playwright usually provides the audience with the illusion that looks like
truth. Here he means that the regular dramatist creates a dramatic illusion on the stage which
the audience takes for the truth. But he will not follow the conventional tricks of the dramatist.
He (Tom as a narrator) will offer the audience truth under the pleasant cover of illusion. Under
the guise of dramatic illusion, he will tell the audience the story of his own life as memory
flashbacks. Here it is hinted that the play is not realistic, but is being presented through the
memory of Tom.

A memory play focuses on the past. All the characters in the play live in the past; they “turn back
time”. Living in their memories they are trying to escape from the responsibility of dealing .with
the present. Tom narrates his recent past from the chaos of 'the latter years of World War 11.
Amanda is haunted by the memory of her youth. She was an extremely popular and pretty young
lady but she lost her chances. Now she refuses to understand life and reality. She does not let her
children face reality like adults. With this denial of the truth she prevents Tom from becoming a
man. She doesn’t even ' accept the fact that Laura is crippled. Because of that the young girl
cannot become an independent and separate individual.

The play is also a memory of Laura’s infancy. She is like a little girl living in her own world of
dreams and illusions. She is very shy and fragile. Her one leg is shorter than the other. As she is
a cripple, she suffers from a terrible inferiority complex. She is so nervous and ashamed that she
has trouble facing people from the outside world. She rarely goes out of the house, and spends
her time by listening to phonograph records and playing with her collection of miniature
animals her “glass menagerie.” The beauty of the glass menagerie fascinates her and helps forget
the pain of real life.

Another memory is of the father, who had left the family sixteen years ago to travel long
distances. He never appears onstage but he played a significance role in the lives of Amanda,
Laura, and Tom. The phonograph and records that he left behind become part of the fantasy
world of Laura. His portrait is constant reminder of happiness in the past.

Thus, the play is created by memory and nostalgia. The characters in the play cannot be
conscious human beings. For Torn, Amanda and Laura memory is the crippling force that
prevents them from finding happiness in the present

Sentimental, not realistic When the lights go up on stage, we are addressed by a narrator,
Tom Wingfield, who explains the set-up of The Glass Menagerie. While we hear music in the

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background, he tells us: “The play is memory. Being a memory play, it is dimly lighted, it is
sentimental, it is not realistic. In memory everything seems to happen to music. That
explains the fiddle in the wings.” He then goes on to introduce the characters in the play:
himself, his mother Amanda, and his sister Laura. Missing from this set of characters is the
father of the family. He is not represented live on stage, but he is nonetheless very much
present, Tom says, in the form of a “larger-than-lifesize photograph over the mantel”. In other
words, though Tom and Laura’s father has left the family, his memory still looms large and
influences the remaining family members to no small extent. In this opening monologue, Tom
gives an important hint to the audience. This is a memory play, it is sentimental, it is not
realistic. In other words, far from conveying an objective truth, showing us what really
happened, we witness a person’s colored memories. What we are going to see is what Tom
remembers; it would probably not stand up in court. 2 And not only are events colored—they
may not have happened exactly as Tom remembers them—but the other characters, Amanda,
Laura, the absent father, and the gentleman caller, are not depicted objectively either.
Throughout the play, Williams uses subtle and creative means to remind us that
what we are witnessing is indeed memory and not reality. A scene worth looking out
for in this respect is the one where Tom arrives home at five in the morning. When the scene
opens we hear “a church tolling the hour of five”. Tom arrives home, and has a brief discussion
with his sister, who admonishes him about his coming home drunk. Then, suddenly, we hear the
clock strike six, but we are not more than five minutes into the scene. Then Amanda’s voice calls
out, “Rise and shine,” Tom sits up in bed, and Laura says “Tom! It’s nearly seven.” Of course, we
could read this as an indication that Laura cannot properly tell the time, or that Tennessee
Williams messed up his writing, but more likely we are seeing what Tom himself can remember,
i.e. the moments when he is awake. Apparently, between the hours of six, when he should have
gotten up, and seven, when Laura warns him about the time, Tom was asleep

HISTORICAL CONTEXT
The Glass Menagerie is based on the short story Portrait of a Girl in Glass by Tennessee
Williams. The play was first staged in 1945 and instantly became famous. It has already been
mentioned that the play is based on memories. The play is based on Williams’ love for his sister
Rose and his angst at being trapped; he is a victim of the social and economic condition of
America in the 1930s. Williams introduces The Glass Menagerie through a context of social
upheaval- war in Spain, imminent war in Europe; labor unrest in American cities. 

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The play was written in the economic deflation known as The Great Depression. Though it
started in 1929 it stayed throughout the 30s. Unemployment was grave and wages were lowered.
Tom is the representative of an economic era where factory workers were trapped in wretched
working conditions, got minimum wages and faced continuous strikes. The last nail on the coffin
was the huge price fall in the stock market, it made the news with the panic selling of shares on
October 29th known as ‘The Black Friday’.

The consequence of this economic downfall was that families started losing their jobs. This
economic catastrophe touched each and every part of society. The institutions were intact
physically but there was no scope of work. Factories remained closed with no money to pay the
workers. Desperate people started working for food. Many people were seen on the street,
carrying placards saying they were willing to offer their labour in exchange for food, in place of
money. “People had to survive on stale bread and whatever canned foods that they had left in
their homes” (Social Trends).

Many families were ashamed of their financial situation and tried to maintain the façade by
improving the exteriors of their houses (note how Amanda relies on chintz and covers up broken
lamps before Jim’s visit). Socialization among people reduced drastically and club memberships
were cancelled (note that part of the play where Amanda is pushing other women to renew the
subscription of a magazine).

It was mostly men who were the sole providers for their families. The loss of work and the
downfall of the market traumatized them; they lost all hope and a large section of working men
found escape in alcohol. Cases of domestic violence increased. Giving in to their failure to
provide for their families, a lot of men abandoned their homes, never to return. “A survey in
1939 stated that 1.5 million American women had been abandoned” (20th Century America
104). Note how Amanda is a representative of the American wives; she has a drunkard husband
and was abandoned by him.

In extreme cases, men committed suicide in shame. The specter of failure continuously haunted
them, the same can be seen in Tom too. With the men succumbing to trauma, traditional gender
roles in America began to change. Women started working. They became strong and started
finding out different ways to bring in pay-checks. “They saved money by buying day-old bread,
relining coats with old blankets, cutting adult clothing down to children’s sizes, and saving
anything that might be useful someday, such as string and broken crockery or could be sold as
scrap, such as old rags” (Watkins, The Hungry Years 87). Amanda too tries to earn some extra

9
money by convincing people to subscribe to a magazine. She continuously urges Laura to get a
job and to improve her typing skills.

The Great Depression also pushed women to get an education in order to find jobs to support
the family. Amanda admits Laura to a business school even though the fee is too high for her
and she breaks down when she comes to know that Laura has left the school, thus closing the
opportunity to education and job altogether. “What are we going to do? What is going to become
of us? What is the future?” (Williams 16). The most long-lasting effect of the Great Depression
was the emotional one. Poverty and societal pressure made both men and women aggressive.
Families started living together as they could not afford to live separately, thus worsening the
situation. Louis Adamic writes, “On the one hand, thousands of families were broken up, some
permanently, some temporarily, or were seriously disorganized. On the other hand, thousands
of families became more closely integrated than they had been before the Depression” (The
Great Depression). This tension that comes from living in cramped spaces with the whole family,
can be felt in the play. Amanda continuously nags Tom; she doesn’t even realize how eccentric
she is. The situation has changed her; the southern belle has turned into a nagging working-
class mother, who is overprotective of her last resort, her son Tom. At the same time, as families
started living together, they became emotionally closer too. Amanda does not understand Tom
at all but her concern for him is not fake. Close living also led to a lack of privacy, thus hindering
the emotional growth of younger people. The younger generation postponed marriage and their
plans to settle down independently, as their focus remained on making ends meet. During the
Great Depression not many people were looking to find love. Less people were starting a family
of their own. Many single couples in their twenties could not afford to break away from their
parents and move out. “Marriage and birth rates declined, as many couples decided to wait until
they could afford marriage and children” (Urban, 4).

In the play Tom also mentions Hitler, the Spanish Civil War, and Picasso’s Guernica. The
Second World War was brewing when the play was written. Hitler had just secured the highest
position in Germany and the whole world was topsy-turvy. References to the civil war and the
continuous frustration shown by Tom throughout the play is representative of the pain of the
Americans trapped in a difficult socio-economic era.

__________________________________________________________________
_________

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 “Symbolism of Glass: Mirrors, Images, Invisible Barriers and
Breaking Free”

While not strictly autobiographical in nature, the characters in Tennessee

Williams’s play “The Glass Menagerie” parallel many of the members of the Williams
family. Furthermore, Tom Wingfield, the narrator of the story, undoubtedly endures
many of the same struggles Tennessee Williams faced in his personal life. Williams
alludes to the connection between the story of the Wingfields and his life in the opening
scene when Tom states, “I give you truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion.”
Biographers have confirmed the association between the character of Tom Wingfield
and the life of Tennessee Williams. It has been noted that during Williams’s time
working in a shoe factory he “was miserable at his agonizingly dull job and stayed up
most of the night writing, which was both a passion and an escape.” 1 Both Williams and
Tom Wingfield struggled in their menial jobs while desiring to write. It is easy to see the
connections between Tennessee Williams’s life and the situations present in “The Glass
Menagerie”; however, the story is a deeper tale than a mere retelling of the author’s
personal life.

Glass is a material that has the ability to take many forms. Glass can be made
into a mirror to reflect images, or it can be fashioned into decorative items. Glass can
also be used as a barrier to contain, restrict or protect. However, glass is fragile, and
once broken it cannot be returned to exactly the same state that it once was. In
examining the Wingfield family, we see how Amanda uses Laura as a “mirror” to reflect
a superior image of herself. Laura uses the “mirror” of how she thinks others view her to
create a “fragile” self-image, in turn, constructing a “barrier” in her life. Tom rejects the
image of himself which he sees as being a result of Amanda’s rule over him and

1
Clum, John M. "Tennessee Williams." American National Biography (2010): 1. Biography Reference Center. Web. 4 Apr.
2015.

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desperately desires to “break” free. Williams unquestionably uses the symbolism of
glass as a way of showing the reflective but fragile nature of one’s self-image.
Furthermore, the symbolism of glass and its fragility extends to the relationships within
the story, ever reminding us that once certain things are broken, they will never be the
same again.

The matriarchal figure of Amanda Wingfield is introduced to us in a scene where

she is constantly critiquing Tom on how he is eating his dinner and on the fact that he
smokes too much. What may seem to be Amanda’s way of caring for her son is, in fact,
an indication of her belief that the behavior of her children is a “reflection” of who she is.
Amanda wishes to be seen as the “proper southern lady” of her past regardless of her
current meager surroundings. She no longer has control over her surroundings and
position in society, so she attempts to maintain her image through the lives of her
children. In scene 2, a further indication of Amanda’s preoccupation with how her
children are a reflection of her is found when she stopped by the Rubicam Business
College. Laura was to be attending the school on a daily basis, but Amanda discovered
Laura had dropped out. Amanda’s first reaction was, “I wanted to find a hole in the
ground and hide myself in it for ever!” It is only later that Amanda speaks of her
concern that Laura will not be able to have a business career or “occupy a position.” Her
initial fear of how the failures of her daughter would “reflect” on her had trumped
Amanda’s concern for Laura’s future. Amanda uses her children as a way of portraying
an image of herself outside the home; in contrast, inside the home Amanda uses Laura
as a way of “reflecting” her superiority over her children.

In scene 1, Amanda tells Laura to remain seated at the dining table while she
retrieves dessert so that Laura can stay “…fresh and pretty for gentleman callers.”
Amanda surely knows there will be no “gentleman callers” that evening. Amanda uses
the veil of concern for her daughter as an excuse to proclaim, “One Sunday afternoon in
Blue Mountain, your mother received seventeen gentlemen callers!” Amanda then
“reflects” on the story of her youth, detailing all the successful gentlemen that courted
her. The scene ends with Laura stating, “I'm just not popular like you were in Blue
Mountain.” Laura’s proclamation helps to perpetuate Amanda’s high-class image,

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something Amanda desperately wishes to maintain, even in her present situation, far
from her days on “Blue Mountain.”

In scene 6, we see Tennessee Williams’s direct use of a mirror in reflecting

Amanda’s interaction with Laura as the prepare for the arrival of Jim, the gentleman
caller. Amanda instructs Laura to look into the mirror then says, “Now look at yourself,
young lady. This is the prettiest you will ever be.” Amanda then begins to ready herself
and says, “You're going to be surprised by your mother's appearance.” She continues
with stating, “I'm going to make a spectacular appearance.” The mirror in which Laura
looks into symbolizes her mother’s judgment of her, and the purpose of that judgment is
to present a flattering self-image of Amanda.2 At the end of “The Glass Menagerie” all of
Amanda’s control asserted over her children and preparation for the gentleman caller
has failed to obtain the results she desired. Amanda is now left, in her words, “a mother
deserted.” Williams has shown us that using the image of others in an attempt to
perpetuate one’s self-image is ineffective and that one will remain who they truly are.

Williams’s use of the symbolism of glass in the story and the character
development of Laura Wingfield can be noted in two distinct ways. Through Laura’s
interaction with Jim, the gentleman caller, we learn that Laura’s self-image is a creation
of how she believes others view her. Jim and Laura discuss their time at Soldan High
School, and she recalls her difficulty in going up steps at school. Laura remarks, “I had
that brace on my leg – it clumped so loud.” Laura also remembers arriving late to a
class Jim was in, and how she “…had to go clumping all the way up the aisle with
everyone watching.” Jim informs her that he “…never heard any clumping” and that he
“..never even noticed.” Laura firmly believes that her physical ailment made others view
her negatively. This belief has led to her severe shyness and inability to make friends
easily. Laura has defined herself based on how she “thinks” other’s view her, a process
defined in 1902 by sociologist Charles Cooley as the “Looking Glass Self.” 3 This theory
of “I am what I think you think I am” is the cornerstone of Laura’s self-image. An image
of being crippled and that everyone in society is watching and judging her. Laura has

2
Levy, Eric P. "'Through Soundproof Glass': The Prison of Self-Consciousness in The Glass Menagerie." Modern Drama 36.4
(Dec. 1993): 529-537. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Jeffrey W. Hunter and Deborah A. Schmitt. Vol. 111.
Detroit: Gale, 1999. Literature Resource Center. Web. 9 Apr. 2015.
3
Cooley, Charles H. Human Nature and the Social Order. New York: Schocken Books, 1964. Print.

13
used her self-created image as a “barrier” to separate her from making friends,
furthering her education or having any romantic involvements. We learn through Jim’s
words that Laura’s “Looking Glass Self” is not how others truly view her, and that her
characteristics make her different “…from anyone else and all the nicer because of the
difference.”

Williams uses Laura’s collection of glass figurines, especially her favorite one the
unicorn, as a symbol of something that is fragile and is also out of place in regards to its
surroundings. Surely the unicorn was intended to parallel the character of Laura. Laura
reflects on the fragility of the unicorn in saying to Jim “oh, be careful - if you breathe, it
breaks.” Laura views herself as one of her glass figurines. In doing so, she “reveals
herself as too fragile—like her glass unicorn…—to pursue outside reality and thus
becomes instead a victim retreating into her own fantasy world.” 4 When the horn is
accidentally broken off the unicorn by Jim, Laura reacts in an uncharacteristic way, and
she appears to be on the verge of a breakthrough. One would have expected Laura to be
upset by her favorite glass figurine being damaged, but instead she says “maybe it's a
blessing in disguise.” Laura places the figurine back on the shelf and remarks, “Now he
will feel more at home with the other horses, the ones that don't have horns.” Williams
has us believing that Laura is being transformed by her interactions with Jim; however,
a short time later, Jim reveals he is engaged to be married and will not be seeing Laura
again. At the hearing of this news Laura’s attention refocuses on the unicorn and when
Jim departs she gives him the unicorn as a “souvenir.” Williams uses the giving away of
the “transformed” unicorn to symbolize that in the end, Laura has not changed. The
scene is a reminder that true change comes from within; it is not brought about by the
actions of others.

The only character in “The Glass Megaerie” that appears to make a definitive
change is Tom Wingfield. Throughout the story, Tom’s life is overshadowed by his
responsibility of being the “man of the house.” A role he does not wish to occupy, but
one he is thrust into by the pressure of Amanda and the absence of his father. In scene
3, Amanda wishes to control Tom by attempting to make him feel guilty about any plans

4
Moe, Christian H. "The Glass Menagerie: Overview." Reference Guide to American Literature. Ed. Jim Kamp. 3rd ed. Detroit:
St. James Press, 1994. Literature Resource Center. Web. 9 Apr. 2015.

14
he has for individual freedom. Amanda yells at him, “What right have you got to
jeopardize your job - jeopardize the security of us all.” Tom in enraged by this
accusation because he feels that he sacrifices all he can for Amanda and Laura noting
“for sixty-five dollars a month I give up all that I dream of doing and being.” Tom points
to the portrait of his father and shouts “if self is what I thought of, Mother, I'd be where
he is – Gone!” To Tom, his responsibilities at home and work “seem like prisons… -
prisons shutting him away from his true destiny as an artist.” 5 In scene 6, Tom
expresses to Jim his ambitions to free himself from his current role in which his mother
has placed the burden of the family’s security at the expense of his individuality. Tom
tells Jim “I'm tired of the movies and I am about to move!” The catalyst for the apparent
change in Tom comes towards the end of the story shortly after Jim has departed.

At the end of scene 7, Williams specifically wrote a usage of “glass” into the story
that is not present in either the 1973 or 1987 film adaptations. At the culmination of the
argument between Amanda and Tom about Jim being engaged, Amada yells “Then go to
the moon – you selfish dreamer!” The stage directions explicitly state “Tom smashes his
glass on the floor: He plunges down the fire escape, slamming the door.” The breaking
of the glass symbolizes the shattering of the connection between Tom and his family
responsibilities. The breakage is also symbolic of the end of Tom the repressed shoe
factory worker and the birth of Tom the adventure seeking artist. After this moment,
Tom is not seen again with Amanda or Laura, and the story concludes with his closing
monologue.
It is during Tom Wingfield’s final speech we learn that although Tom’s
surrounding have changed, he has remained the same. Tom continues his old ways of
attempting escape by “running into the movies or a bar.” It is apparent that his life is
still under the control of another; however, it is no longer Amanda who defines Tom’s
existence; it is his sister Laura. Tom speaks of leaving Saint Louis following in his
“father’s footsteps.” Traveling from city to city as if something was pursuing him.
Something was haunting him, and no matter the distance, he could not get away. What
Tom cannot escape from is his memory of Laura. Tom envisions turning around and
looking into his sister’s eyes, undoubtedly seeing his reflection. It is at this moment we
5
Fordyce, William. "Tennessee Williams's Tom Wingfield and Georg Kaiser's cashier: a contextual comparison." Papers on
Language & Literature 34.3 (1998): 250+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 9 Apr. 2015.

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see Williams’s final usage of the symbolism of glass and a return to the “Looking Glass
Self.” Tom Wingfield now sees himself as what he thinks his sister believes him to be,
and he suffers because of it. Tom will remain trapped in this self-image as he feels that
he cannot return to Laura and make amends. Just like the fragile unicorn in Laura’s
menagerie, Tom’s relationship with her is now broken and cannot be repaired.
Plastic theatre______________________________
Tennessee Williams’s call for “a plastic theatre” in his production notes for The
Glass Menagerie is one of the manifestoes of modern drama and the play becomes even
more important as its experimental qualities are understood. Williams describes this
plastic theatre that would use stage design,lighting,mime,dance and music in a symbolic
way to reinforce the meaning of the play.Through his ‘Plastic symbols” Williams
attempts to create a theatre language of profound emotional intensity.This emotional
intensity leads him to employ poetic images and symbols in the dramatic text and drama
leads towards plastic theatre through technical sides.

Images and symbols in different layers help The Glass Menagerie to gets its
Plastic form.In this play the symbol of the glass animals of Laura poetically presents the
breakable pure existence of her---Laura is both pretty and fragile like her glass
figurines.The unicorn with the broken horn symbolises that true love can not last long in
this cruel world.To give the dramma its plastic form Williams converts his characters
even to symbols.Amanda as a symbol functions both as a cuning mother and a frustrated
middle-aged woman.Tom becomes the over-haunted poetic soul.Jim functions in three
level-for Laura he is an illusion of her high school days,for Amanda he is the way to get
back to her nostalgic South,and for Tom he is the failure of the American dream.Thus
we find through “plastic’ images The Glass Menageriebecomes a drama that functions in
different layers.

Music is used often in The Glass Menagerie, both to emphasize themes and to
enhance the drama. Both the extra-diagetic and the diagetic music often provide
commentary on what is going on in the play. For example, the Paradise Dance Hall plays

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a piece entitled “The World Is Waiting for the Sunrise” while Tom is talking about the
approach of World War II.

The lighting in the play is not realistic. In keeping with the atmosphere of
memory, the stage is dim. Shafts of light are focused on selected areas or actors,
sometimes in contradistinction to what is the apparent center.The light upon Laura is a
peculiar pristine clarity such as light used in early religious portraits of female saints or
madonnas.

Through The Glass Menagerie Williams tries to present a form that is more than
just a picture of reality: he insists that his ideal theatre make use of all the stage arts to
generate a theatrical experience greater than mere Realism.His cinematic dramaturgy as
well as painterly and sculptural setting makes his The Glass Menagerie most successful.
___________________________________________________
_____________________

Regret of Abandonment in The Glass Menagerie

Blood is thicker than water, or so the saying goes. Used to contrast the
bonds of friendship to familial ties, the proverb states that family attachments are
stronger than friendships. But what if that family tie is severed? Tennessee Williams, in
his play The Glass Menagerie, explores this very theme. Using main character and
narrator Tom Wingfield, and his memories, Williams gives us a glimpse of what can
happen when a family is broken apart through an act of abandonment. The play is
referred to as a memory play by Williams (Schilb 363), but are the memories reliable?
Or has Tom misrepresented his memories to the audience in an attempt to justify
deserting his family? In each scene, we can see a common thread woven throughout the
play, represented by Tom’s memories, and how those memories are used as a defense
mechanism for abandoning Amanda (his mother) and Laura (his sister). However, this
leads to the feelings of regret and shame that Tom expresses at the end of the play. The
description of the family’s residence, and its surroundings, establishes the foundation
for the subsequent scenes.

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 In scene one, Tom describes the Wingfield apartment as being at the back
of the building, and continuing the description, we find that his narrative does not paint
a pretty picture: dark
narrow alleyways, tangled clotheslines, sinister latticework, and dark tenement
(Schilb 363). The word “dark” can be seen as an apt description of Tom’s memories of
the place. He has cast a
shadow over the memories in order to find peace with his decision to leave
Amanda and Laura. Schlib again explores this idea: “The play is memory. Being a
memory play, it is dimly lighted, it is sentimental, it is not realistic” (364). Here, we can
see that Tom’s memory is “dimly lighted”, or not completely clear. It is an image that is
being projected, and not necessarily a true image.
2
The memory is shadowy, and therefore not entirely reliable. John Steinbeck in
The Winter of Our Discontentment stated, “it’s so much darker when a light goes out
than it would have been if it had never shone” (275). This image falls in line with the loss
that results from a desertion - a dark moment when the “light” (life) of someone we love
goes out (the desertion), and like the dim light in the play, the true memory is dark and
fading. But if the dim light in the opening narration is descriptive of cloudy memory,
Tom’s frequent smoking on the fire escape is symbolic of his abandonment – his
“escape” from his mother and sister.
In scene two, we see Amanda coming into the apartment from the fire
escape. The scene description tells us that she has been to her D.A.R (Daughters of the
American Revolution) meeting. The narrative says that she bears a look that is “grim,
hopeless, and a little absurd” (Schilb 367). One other important element to the scene is
the clothing that Amanda is wearing, “her full-dress outfit, the one she usually wears to
the D.A.R.” (Schilb 368). On the surface, these elements seem unconnected, but when
compared to the theme of escape and abandonment, we see a thread of commonality. It
is important to notice that Amanda does not descend the fire escape, but ascends, while
wearing old, outdated clothing, and having a “hopeless” expression.
Here, Amanda is an antithesis to Tom, in that she clings to the past, and cannot
escape (and by extension, will never abandon, but always be abandoned). Even her
regular attendance at the
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 D.A.R. meetings shows that she is firmly entrenched in the past. However, as we
continue to see, Tom does not look favorably on the past, but wishes to escape.
Scene three opens with Tom as the narrator again, and his narrative is
given from the fire escape landing, lending even more credence to his “one foot out the
door” mentality. A tie-in to scene one is given here with a description of the upstage
area. In this scene, “the upstage area is
3
lit with a turgid smoky red glow” (Schilb 373). The word turgid, according to
Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary and Thesaurus, is defined as, “larger or fuller than
normal because of swelling,” but can also mean, “excessively embellished in style or
language” (“Turgid”). The use of the “smoky red glow” is reminiscent of the dim lighting
in the first scene, referring to Tom’s unclear memories, but also the definition of the
word “turgid” alludes to his embellishment of memories in order to justify abandoning
his family. Further evidence of Tom’s desire to escape is the culmination of an argument
he and Amanda have in this scene.
The argument is described as occurring with increasing anger and
loudness, at the end of which Tom tries to leave, but instead angrily throws his jacket
across the room, shattering some of Laura’s glass animal figurines (from which the title
of the play derives). But not only do the figurines break, Tom’s resolve to leave has
finally been settled, symbolized by the breaking glass. American poet and author W.S.
Merwin writes, in his poem The Broken Glass, that “it is only when the glass has been
broken/after holding so many days and nights/that I clearly see on the pieces the whole
flower/the tall gold iris that has been growing there/longer than I know”
(34). Tom realizes that, just like his father had done sixteen years prior, he too
shall leave – and he’s known it all along.
Scene four opens with Tom stumbling home after a night of drinking. It is
possible to see a contradiction with the idea that Tom has resolved to leave, in that he
has to ascend the fire escape to enter the apartment. However, it is noteworthy that,
reaching in his pockets to fish out
his keys, he drops them and states, “One crack – and it falls through” (Schilb
375). Also, Tom does not retrieve the keys; it is Laura, the very one he abandons, that
opens the door to let
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 4
him in. Tom is also still angry with his mother because of their argument earlier
in the day. Again, this is his memory, a memory that is “dimly lighted,” in order to give
justification for his desertion. Later, when the play reaches it’s conclusion, Tom will
narrate in the present, and for all his justifications, feels guilt and shame for his actions.
It is Scene seven that brings the play to its finality. Tom’s regret and shame
is most evident here. Throughout the play, he has misrepresented his memories to feel
justified for his decision to leave his family. In The Divine Comedy, Dante wrote that,
“there is no greater sorrow than thinking back upon a happy time in misery”
(Mandelbaum 5.17.121-123). Tom has projected a bleak outlook on his home life, and
now he feels shame for leaving his mother and sister. His abandonment has led to regret
and, in the words of author John Green in his novel The Fault in Our Stars: “The
pleasure of remembering has been taken from me” (262). At the end of the play, when
Tom says, “blow out your candles, Laura” (Schilb 410), this suggests that Tom wishes to
be hidden from her as a result of his shame. Tom echoes this in a previous statement:
“Oh Laura, Laura. I tried to leave you behind me, but I am more faithful than I intended
to be” (Schlib 410).
Tom, in his decision to leave – to finally descend the fire escape – has
realized that, instead of the happiness and freedom he sought, he’s only found sorrow,
regret, and memories
that haunt him. He has severed his family bond, misrepresented his memories to
justify this act, and experienced the consequences of regret and shame as a result. In his
closing speech, Tom states, “The cities swept about me like dead leaves, leaves that were
brightly colored but torn away from the branches” (Schilb 410). No matter where he
goes, what he does, or whom he meets, Tom cannot escape his regret and shame, and “in
some strange city…my sister touches
5
my shoulder. I turn around and look into her eyes” (Schilb 410). The ghost of
Laura goes with Tom, haunting his every step, and in that same “strange city,” “The
wind kicks stronger, branches clatter. Or maybe skeletons. Bones of abandonment.
Ghosts that will never be” (Hopkins 86).
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 STAGE DIRECTIONS
Some plays like Sophocles' Antigone do not require elaborate stage directions
because the setting is not important to the play's structure. The lighting, music,
costumes, props and movement of the actors are not necessary for the development of
the play's characters or theme. In Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie, however,
stage directions are essential to the understanding of the play. Detailed stage directions
intensify the unrealistic setting, foreshadow and emphasize events, and develop the
characters.
Dim colored lighting and symbolic melodies create the unrealistic setting for the
memory play. In his opening narration Tom says, "Being a memory play, it is dimly
lighted, it is sentimental, it is not realistic. In memory everything seems to happen to
music. That explains the fiddle in the wings" (699). Throughout the play the stage
directions call for "a turgid smokey red glow," "gloomy gray" lighting and "deep blue
dusk" which create the hazy images of a memory. For a short while, as Jim enters, there
is a "delicate lemony light" (688), and a soft light from the new lamp brings out Laura's
"unearthly prettiness" (695). Yet, at the end of the play, and throughout its majority, the
set is grim, characteristic of Tom's sad memory. Music in the play can be symbolic or
simply add to the emotion of a scene. In scene four, "Ave Maria" plays softly in the
background, symbolizing Amanda's duties as a mother. Throughout the play, music
swells and recedes with the rising and falling of the characters' emotions. For example,
as Tom is confronting his mother with the reality of his sister's handicap, "the music
changes to a tango that has a minor and somewhat ominous tone" (687).
Describing characters' appearances and presenting messages upon the screen,
the stage directions foreshadow and emphasize events. The description of Tom standing
on the fire escape looking "like a voyager" (692) foreshadows his escape to the Merchant
Marines. Also, the description of Laura as "a piece of translucent glass touched by light,
given a momentary radiance, not actual, not lasting" (688) foreshadows Laura's brush
with self-confidence that leaves as quickly as it comes. Finally, the screen images also
foreshadow and emphasize events. For example the screen legend that says "Plans and
Provisions" (681) foreshadows Amanda's plan to find her daughter a husband and
emphasizes Amanda's sense of duty to protect her family. The screen legend that reads

21
"Annunciation" foreshadows Tom's announcement that he has found a gentleman caller.
It also emphasizes, through its biblical allusion, that the coming of the gentleman caller
is a very special and long awaited event.
By specifically stating the characters' actions, the stage directions develop the
characters more than their dialogue alone. For example, the stage directions describing
Amanda's actions and dress exemplify her pretenses and her inability to part with her
past. Amanda sits on the fire escape "gracefully and demurely as if she were settling into
a swing on a Mississippi veranda" (683). The night the gentleman caller comes, Amanda
"wears a girlish frock of yellowed voile with a blue silk sash. She carries a bunch of
jonquils--the legend of her youth is nearly revived" (689). Although the stage directions
show Amanda's inability to face reality, they leave the audience with a sense of
admiration for Amanda and her attempt to protect her family. In the last scene the
audience sees Amanda comforting her daughter with "her silliness gone, [having]
dignity and tragic beauty" (707). Through her dialogue and the stage directions which
describe her actions, Laura is portrayed as fragile, translucent and stagnant, just like her
glass collection. The stage directions continuously show how delicate her mind and body
are. As Jim and Tom arrive, Laura is incapacitated by fear. According to the stage
directions, she "darts through the portieres like a frightened deer" (691). The stage
directions tell the audience that "while the incident [Laura's encounter with Jim] is
apparently unimportant, it is to Laura the climax of her secret life" (696). This point
may never be detected by an audience that is not familiar with the stage directions, yet it
is very important to the development of Laura's character because she fails at her one
chance to change. A final stage direction important to the development of Laura's
character is her returning to the Victrola when Jim leaves. This action indicates that
Laura has not changed from her experience with Jim, and she will continue to escape
reality through her music and memories.
The stage directions in The Glass Menagerie are as important to the theme of the
play as the dialogue itself. Without the stage directions specifically describing the
lighting, the costumes, the music, and the characters' actions, an entirely different
message might be conveyed. Without the dim lighting and the music, the play might
seem too real to be a memory. Without certain actions of Amanda and Laura, an
audience might believe that Laura has come out of her shell for good or that Amanda is
22
simply an overprotective mother who cannot face reality. Yet, with the elaborate stage
directions, Tennessee Williams creates a distinctive memory play with each character
tragically failing to reach his or her goals.

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