Home > The Glass Menagerie Summary & Study Guide

The Glass Menagerie | Introduction

The Glass Menagerie was originally produced in Chicago in 1944 and then staged in New York on Broadway in 1945. The text was also published in 1945. This play was the first of Wilhams's to win the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, an honor he was given four times. Although The Glass Menagerie also received much popular acclaim, some critics believe that the thematic devices that Williams relies on, such as the legends on the screen, are too heavy-handed.

The Glass Menagerie is autobiographical in its sources. In some ways, this is a coming of age story, with both Tom Wingfield and Laura Wingfield negotiating their roles as young adults. Like many coming of age stories, the major conflicts in this play are both internal and external; Tom cannot choose both the future he desires for himself and the future his mother, Amanda Wingfield, desires for him and for Laura. Emerging through this major conflict between Tom and Amanda are the themes of alienation and loneliness, duty and responsibility, and appearances and reality.

Through its poetic structure and reliance on stage technology, The Glass Menagerie has had a significant impact on later twentieth century drama. Tom serves as both narrator and character, dissolving the present into the past; Williams signals this by exploiting lighting and sound, especially music—technologies which were less available to earlier playwrights. In this sense, the themes of the play are inseparable from its production values

The Glass Menagerie Summary

Scene I
The Glass Menagerie opens with some fairly elaborate stage directions which serve both to describe the setting and to introduce themes and symbols through their tone. For example, the apartments in the Wingfields' neighborhood are described as "warty growths'' and the people as "one interfused mass of automatism." Tom Wingfield is the first character on stage, and he functions here as both narrator and interpreter. In this role, Tom exists several years after the primary action of the play. He introduces the other characters, and his presence in this role guides the audience in the direction of the play.

The action begins with Amanda, Tom's mother, calling him to the supper table. Throughout the meal, Amanda instructs and criticizes Tom in his eating habits, until Tom responds with disgust. At once, the audience realizes that Tom and Amanda live in a state of tension. The other character present at this meal is Laura, Tom's sister, who wears a brace on her leg. When Laura offers to serve the dessert, Amanda says that she wishes Laura to "stay fresh and pretty—for gentlemen callers!" Amanda will remain concerned with the possibility of "gentlemen callers" for Laura throughout the play, and here she reminisces about her own youthful days. When Laura indicates that she's not expecting any gentlemen callers, Amanda appears to be astonished, although this conversation seems to be a frequent one. Laura explains that "I'm not popular like you [Amanda] were."

Scene II
As this scene begins, Laura is sitting alone in the living room, washing the animals in her glass collection. Amanda enters, clearly upset. Their conversation reveals that although Laura has been enrolled in a typing course, and although she has left the apartment every day as if to attend her class, she has in fact not been going. Amanda had stopped by to speak with Laura's teacher, who revealed that Laura had become ill during a typing test and had not returned. Laura admits that she simply goes to the zoo nearly every day.

Amanda is concerned about Laura's future because she has no prospective husband, nor does she have any skills by which she could make a living. Laura says that she had liked a boy once, while she was in high school, although she is now twenty-three years old. This boy's name was Jim, and he was very popular then and predicted to be very successful. Jim had called Laura by the... » Complete The Glass Menagerie Summary