The Glass Menagerie

The glass menagerie is symbolic of the fantasy world or illusion that Laura creates to protect her from reality. She would rather live in the world of glass figures, especially the world of the...

Plastic theatre is a concept introduced by playwright Tennesee Williams in The Glass Menagerie. Williams argues against a one-hundred percent realistic presentation of realistic mise en scene,...

One of the major symbols of "The Glass Menagerie," the fire escape is the means of exit for the characters, an escape from the fires of frustration and rage that burn in the hearts of Williams's...

The first reference to Tom Wingfield's father is a description of the photograph of him in the apartment; he is wearing a WWI soldier's hat. Immediately following that description, Tom Wingfield is...

The central character, or the protagonist, of Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie is Tom Wingfield. Tom finds himself in conflict with his own character traits at times, so he is sometimes his...

When a play has a narrator, it is, from the get-go, demonstrating its unusual structure. Tennessee Williams was writing during a time when experimental format in plays was not very common; having a...

Yes, one can assume that Tom does more than just escape to the movies. The movies for Tom are a chance for vicarious experiences for his much-desired "romance and adventure." But even Tom knows...

Laura quit business college as she was simply too nervous to cope with the typing course she was taking there. However, she has been pretending to her mother that she has been attending. Amanda...

In addition to the glass menagerie, especially the glass unicorn, symbolizing Laura's fragility and feelings of freakishness, the glass further symbolizes her hidden inner radiance. Her inner...

The exact quote from The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams is found in the final scene of the play. It is spoken by the narrator, Tom Wingfield, and it reads this way: I didn't go to the moon,...

The American Dream is a perfectly valid, commendable goal. Working hard and becoming successful is what most people, American or otherwise, want for themselves, and Amanda in The Glass Menagerie is...

With dramatic irony as a discrepancy between what a character thinks and what the reader knows to be true, Amanda's words to Tom that he "lives in a dream world and manufactures illusions" are...

A simple and accurate thesis statement involving The Glass Menagerie and "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" would convey that we are ultimately responsible for finding our true identity using...

In Tennessee Williams' play The Glass Menagerie, Blue Mountain is a fictional Southern town in which Amanda, the mother in the story, grew up, and its name has significant symbolic...

By keeping the photograph of her absent husband displayed so prominently, Amanda can continue to claim her victimization by the man who abandoned his family. It is a conversation piece that Amanda...

In Tennessee Williams's play The Glass Menagerie, Amanda Wingfield is Laura Wingfield's domineering, manipulative, and, at times, emotionally abusive mother. Amanda's dreams for Laura are the same...

In The Glass Menagerie, the title symbolizes Laura, the crippled daughter around whom the play develops. The different animals in her collection express the various aspects of her personality, and...

The phrase "working like a Turk" is a simile (it compares two things i.e., Amanda with a Turkish person "Turk") and it is also an idiomatic expression. An idiomatic expression is a phrase that...

The most realistic aspect is the dreary tenement building where the Wingfields live. The fire escape leads down to the street where a multitude of other buildings replicate the same atmosphere...

Tom Wingfield has a lot of reasons for wanting to leave home in The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams. His mother, Amanda, is annoying and is constantly nagging at him about how he eats and...

I think that Amanda's characterization is significant to the thematic development of the drama in a couple of ways. The first is that her obsession with who she was, the nostalgia of the past she...

Amanda will be okay. She's had a husband who left her, she's raised two children on her own, she's working two jobs to make a living, she's survived several of her gentleman callers, and we have...

Amanda tries (obviously without much success, considering the family's difficult economic circumstances) to sell magazine subscriptions over the telephone to earn income. This information is...

The plot of The Glass Menagerie is a three-fold conflict. The first involves Tom, who is thrown into a job he doesn't like because the family has been abandoned by the father and Tom was the only...

Amanda and Laura are similar in many ways but their outward personas are very different. Amanda is verbally aggressive and controlling. She trusts that her own narrow-minded approach is the right...

Let's go to Tom's full-paragraph description of the time period of the play: To begin with, I turn bark time. I reverse it to that quaint period, the thirties, when the huge middle class of...

The Wingfields are a family whose social status has declined along with its financial status. For the two young adult children, the vision of an unpromising future is just as burdensome as their...

It is a psychologically complex relationship that exists between Amanda and her daughter Laura in Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie. While Amanda cares for her child, she is at times rather...

When Amanda asks Laura whether she ever liked some boy, she mentions Jim. She points out his picture in the yearbook in the Pirates of Penzance performance and with a debate trophy. She then tells...

The quotation from Tom Wingfield comes in the first scene of The Glass Menagerie. Tom, who is both the play’s narrator and a character in it, speaks directly to the audience and explains the play’s...

Amanda believes that Tom should be the provider for the family, much as a husband might do. Because Tom is the only son, Amanda believes he should feel obligated to provide for them. Tom and...

Tom is a daydreamer who longs for a life of adventure. His particular dream is to go to sea to lead a romantic roving life and he sets out to achieve this goal by applying to join the Merchant...

The large and extensive glass menagerie owned by Laura Wingfield allows her to shun the real world that she neither likes nor truly understands. Furthermore, it enables her to retreat into a...

One of the more significant examples of dramatic irony--a contradiction between what a character thinks and what the reader or audience knows to be true--is Amanda's remark to Tom in their final...

In his introduction to the play, Tom says that Jim is a symbol of the long delayed but always expected something that we live for (scene 1) In other words, Jim is not just a character; he also...

Although The Glass Menagerie shows more pathos (appeal to the sentiment of the reader) than comedy, one could argue that we could consider as "comedic" any element within the play that helps us see...

The moon also represents mystery and promise. It takes on a symbolic meaning that transforms it into a magical wishing star. When Amanda and Tom have their playful discussion in Scene V. The fact...

The lack of electricity is an indication of Tom's irresponsibilty in not paying the bill. However, the darkness and candlelight afford Tennessee Williams better opportunity for the expressionism...

Tom's conflicts are perhaps the most obvious in the play, so a focus on the self-delusions of Amanda and Laura offer an alternate perspective on tensions within the Wingfield family. In addition to...

"The Glass Menagerie" is the perfect title for the play as Laura's collection of glass animals is a major symbol in the play. Tennessee Williams used a LOT of symbols in the play (the...

On one level, Jim's behavior toward Laura is reflective of how far he has come. When he signs the program and when he tells Laura about how all she needs is confidence, the initial supposition is...

Amanda grew up in Blue Mountain, and it has come to symbolize for her all that was good in her past and all she has lost in the present. Amanda often talks of her home in Blue Mountain with its...

Great question! Although it features a melancholy love story and tragic elements, The Glass Menagerie is best described as a memory play. In fact, Tennessee Williams invented the term in the stage...

According to one criticism, the Expressionist play, The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams, ...identifies the conquest of reality by illusion as a huge and growing aspect of the human...

The stage directions in The Glass Menagerie are a very important part of the play. They enhance the meaning. In the beginning of the play, Tom says, "Being a memory play, it is dimly lighted, it is...

The statement is ironic in that she (herself a person without a clue of what role she plays in her own life) is sermoning Tom for not having a clear plan in mind for what he wants to do with his...