...The Glass Menagerie: An Analysis Tyson Evans University of Phoenix The Glass Menagerie offers a beautifully developed glimpse into humanity and more specifically familial dysfunction. Tennessee Williams uses this play as a definitive embodiment of the dangers of interdependence as well as low self- esteem. Williams begins this symbolic journey from the very inception of the work. The use of the word “menagerie” meaning a collection of wild animals kept in captivity for exhibition or a strange collection. In this case, the strange collection is the Wingfields. The play and the text presents us with an overbearing mother who clings to yesterday year, a daughter that is mentally bound by her psychological insecurities that stem from her physical disability, and an irresponsible brother who want to escape his this reality he has with his mother and sister. The word “Glass” represents their fragility, individually and as a unit. Frankly the family’s external problems seem fairly miniscule on the grander scale of the issues known to plague any familial unit. They are not rich, but not destitute, they have lost a parent, but they have each other. The play is set in the midst of the great depression following a war, therefore this family portrait was one that would have been mirrored in many American homes; financial turmoil and lost family members was commonplace. However, the psychological torment and idiosyncrasies characteristic of all three of our main characters holds...
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...Tennessee Williams’s play “The Glass Menagerie” tells about the disappointment that life has brought to the Wingfield family. The characters of this play are people whose dreams and life expectations have been shattered by the cruel reality. This disappointment breeds unrest and dissatisfaction in them, they feel trapped in their lives and are seeking for escape. In this extract there is a mix of registers. Moreover, the registers differ even within the speech of individual characters. While Laura and Amanda are speaking exclusively in formal style, Tom and Jim speak mostly informally; however the two men manage to change the register of their speech several times. Through different features of the characters’ speech, the author reveals their psychological state and intentions, for example, Laura’s feeling of embarrassment and Amanda’s pretence of being a real lady and her intention to give her daughter away to a rich and noble man. The idiolect and qualities of the characters are revealed with the help of phonetic, grammatical, and lexical stylistic devices. In order to achieve an effect of natural speech, the author has used a lot of dashes that represent the gaps and pauses in the speech. They bring out characters’ emotions, for example, Laura’s nervousness and anxiety: “How - how do you do?” We can feel also Jim’s confusion while speaking to Amanda: “[…] no – no – thank you – […]” These dashes also reveal one’s unwillingness to talk about certain issues, for example,...
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...Analysis and Plot Summary of “The Glass Menagerie” by Tennessee Williams Before beginning this summary and analysis of “Glass Menagerie” by Tennessee Williams, it is important to point out that this play is not happening in the narrator’s (Tom’s) present, but it is based on his memories. The setting of “The Glass Menagerie” is a cramped apartment in a lower-class part of St. Louis in the year 1937. The main character and narrator of “The Glass Menagerie” by Tennessee Williams, Tom, is in a merchant sailor’s uniform and he details the setting even further, telling us that America’s lower classes are still recovering from the Great Depression. In the early stages of the plot of the Glass Menagerie, we also learn that his father left the family a long time ago, even though there is a picture of him that is plain sight throughout “The Glass Menagerie”. While Tom is speaking (as well as throughout the play) pay attention to the screen which presents certain words and images important to the text and try to imagine how this might be if you were sitting in the audience. In these first few scenes of “The Glass Menagerie” by Tennessee Williams, we meet the mother, Amanda, who still seems caught up in her life as a former Southern belle. She chides both of her children about being odd (Laura wears a brace on her leg and is painfully shy while Tom writes poetry and disappears every night to go the movies and get away from the depressing house). Laura is a fragile figure and collects glass...
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...Rhetorical Analysis of Glass Menagerie The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams is a play about the narrator turned hero named Tom. Tom works at a shoe warehouse and writes poetry in his free time; while also taking on the responsibilities of his family after his father left. The mother Amanda lives in her memories of gentleman callers and parties, while avoiding the reality of her crippled daughter Laura who is in a dream world of little glass animals. Her mother seeing no future for her, she gets Tom to find a bachelor for Laura and invite him to dinner. Instead Tom brings home Jim his employee and also unknown secret idol of Laura’s from high school. Jim gets her from out this dream world, but when he breaks off bad news of him being engaged Laura withdraws for good. Angering the mother and eventually leading to Tom leaving as his father did. In this play Tennessee Williams uses a multitude of symbols. From these symbols, there comes deeper understanding of the relationship between the play’s four characters. The most obvious symbol in this play is Laura’s glass menagerie, representing the world she lives in. Being that this glass menagerie is a representation of Laura’s world. I understood that when Jim bumped into the table and knocked the menagerie over causing it shatter; Laura picking up the pieces then handing it to Jim, showed then that she wanted Jim to be her world/her happiness. Another recurring symbol is that of the fire escape. Each symbol is a concrete...
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...Literary Analysis: The Glass Menagerie Many critics believe that “The Glass Menagerie” is one of Tennessee Williams finest literary pieces, and that like most of his work, it was a reflection of his own life story. Born as Thomas Lanier Williams III on March 26, 1911, in Columbus, Mississippi, he lived with his loving but possessive mother and his older sister, Rose, who later suffered a mental breakdown. His father was a hard man who tended to drink too much and who was often away from home due to his job as a traveling salesman. Through most of his childhood, Mr. Williams felt like an outcast due to both his delicate health and the ridicule he received for his southern accent after his father accepted a job in St. Louis. This ongoing theme of lack of self-worth throughout his life was in large part due to his sexual orientation and lifestyle both of which were not easily tolerated in the early part of the last century. Although Mr. Williams self-doubt is evident in much of his work, the rest of the literary world and his readers feel without a doubt that his work is award winning. His impact on the literary world can be seen by the many awards he received including his winning not one but two Pulitzer Prizes for “A Streetcar Named Desire” in 1948 and for “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” in 1955; as well as the longevity of his work which is proven by its contemporary recognition. Therefore, due to his literary genius and personal life experience, Williams was able to use the...
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...Subjected to an unhappy marriage, an alcoholic father often away from home, and an unsafe, abusive environment, Tenessee Williams defied all odds with his astounding success in the drama industry. Though his home life was troubled, he grew to be an author known across the country for his wildly popular novels and plays, most notably of the latter being The Glass Menagerie. Modeled after Williams’s own family, Tom, Amanda, and Laura Wingfield are the artfully created main characters of The Glass Menagerie, each with their own distinct personalities constructed carefully through symbolism. With consideration of the motif of memory, Tennessee Williams uses recurring music, the victrola, jonquils, and Laura’s crippled leg to characterize the members...
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...Self The three literary pieces The Glass Menagerie, Barn Burning, and Ulysses all have something in common. A significant character from each work abandoned his family to seek out his own needs. As I read the three different literary works recently I reflected on what a one-of-a-kind thing a family is to each of us. Is it wrong to put our own needs above that of our parents, our brothers and sisters, or even our spouses or children? Even when raised by the by the same parents, in the same community we all grow into unique individuals with directions of our own, independent from the aspirations of our parents and siblings. As I read the three pieces of literature The Glass Menagerie, Barn Burning, and Ulysses it got me thinking about some of the ways in which I feel about my own family situation. I know I could never leave them, but I do know so many people who have set off away from their families. I sometimes desperately envy those with that freedom. In all three works, there is a balance to be found towards responsibility and commitment to family, and freedom and choice to self. For the purpose of this essay I will compare the roles of Tom from The Glass Menagerie, Sarty in Barn Burning, and Ulysses in the poem Ulysses. Although they each served a different role in the family as a brother, father, and a son, they in the end all made a decision to leave their families in each literary piece. | In the play The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams, the main character...
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...Representing Repression: A Psychological Reading of Menagerie Shih Ching-liang The Glass As the tradition of realism dominated in the late 19th century, expressionism emerged along with the rise of psychology at the very end of the century Expressionistic plays sought to give not the external reality or surface appearance of life but the inner reality, life as felt rather than as seen (Barnet 519). The Glass Menagerie is mostly expressionistic: the first sentence of the Production Notes declares that “it is a memory play.” The term “memory play” suggests that it is a play worked out in one’s mental process, rather than a realistic representation. Instead of external reality, the inner vision becomes the primary concern of expressionistic drama. Thus this paper focuses on the repressed state of each character in the Wingfield family, and tries to shed light on their inner psychology by means of psychoanalytical approach. As a mother figure, Amanda is quite distinctive from those in conventional drama. With the father absent for years, Amanda takes on not only maternal nuturing responsibilities but also the paternal disciplinary role. She is a breadwinner (though partly) as well as a caretaker. Yet in her attempt to fulfill this double-sided role, she actually encounters a series of frustrations and repressions, which provoke her to escape into the retreat of past. In the play, what characterizes Amanda is her poignant sentiment toward the Old South days. She believes in the...
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...Matt Lauber B. Sumey, Instructor Comp. II, MW, 1:30-2:45 p.m. 20 October 2014 Compare and Contrast Analysis While reading two good stories, you can find many comparisons and difference between the two. Mama in Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use” and Amanda in Tennessee Williams “The Glass Menagerie” have some comparisons and difference. Mama and Amanda both live in modest homes. Mama’s house, “It is three rooms, just like the one that burned, except the rood is tin; they don’t make shingle roofs any more. There are no real windows, just some holes cut in the sides, like the portholes in a ship, but not round and not square, with rawhide holding the shutters up on the outside” (Walker 71). Amanda’s house, her front porch is a fire escape, so her house isn’t really that nice either (Williams 991). Also both Mama and Amanda are single mothers with two children. Both of their husbands left them with no say. Mama’s husband really doesn’t say why he left. But Amanda’s husband left with a phone call: TOM. This is our father who left us a long time ago. He was a telephone man who fell in love with a long distances; he gave up his job with the telephone company and skipped the light fantastic out of town… The last we heard of him containing a message of two words-“Hello-Good-bye!” and an address. (Williams 972) Another thing that Mama and Amanda have in common is that they have a different relationship with one of their children. Mama will probably pick Maggie over Dee, just like...
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...Matt Lauber B. Sumey, Instructor Comp. II, MW, 1:30-2:45 p.m. 20 October 2014 Compare and Contrast Analysis While reading two good stories, you can find many comparisons and difference between the two. Mama in Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use” and Amanda in Tennessee Williams “The Glass Menagerie” have some comparisons and difference. Mama and Amanda both live in modest homes. Mama’s house, “It is three rooms, just like the one that burned, except the rood is tin; they don’t make shingle roofs any more. There are no real windows, just some holes cut in the sides, like the portholes in a ship, but not round and not square, with rawhide holding the shutters up on the outside” (Walker 71). Amanda’s house, her front porch is a fire escape, so her house isn’t really that nice either (Williams 991). Also both Mama and Amanda are single mothers with two children. Both of their husbands left them with no say. Mama’s husband really doesn’t say why he left. But Amanda’s husband left with a phone call: TOM. This is our father who left us a long time ago. He was a telephone man who fell in love with a long distances; he gave up his job with the telephone company and skipped the light fantastic out of town… The last we heard of him containing a message of two words-“Hello-Good-bye!” and an address. (Williams 972) Another thing that Mama and Amanda have in common is that they have a different relationship with one of their children. Mama will probably pick Maggie over Dee, just like...
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...Technology and Education, Test and Testing, Writing English Composition Essays - Analitical, Autobiographical, Argument, Cause/Effect, Classification, Compare/Contrast, Comparison, Conversation, Creative+Writing, Critical, Deductive, Definition, Descriptive, Description, Dialog, Division, Exploratory, Expository, Informative, Interview, Inquiry, Journalistic, Narration, Observation. Personal Narrative, Place, Profile, Process, Proposal English Literature and Literary Analysis - Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, A & P, Antigone, Apocalypse Now, Araby, The Awakening, Barn Burning, Beowulf, Beloved, Bible, Birthmark, Blade Runner, The Bluest Eye, Candide, Canterbury Tales, Catcher in the Rye, Cathedral, Chrysanthemums, A Clockwork Orange, The Color Purple, Comparing Literary Works, Crime and Punishment, Death of a Salesman, Death in Venice, Desiree's Baby, A Doll's House, Dr. Faustus, Epic of Gilgamesh, Everyday Use, A Farewell to Arms, Frankenstein, The Grapes of Wrath, Great Gatsby, Great Expectations, Glass Menagerie, Gulliver's Travels, The Handmaid's Tale, Heart of Darkness, The Iliad, Invisible Man, Jane Eyre, The Joy Luck Club, The Lottery, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, Metamorphosis, My Antonia, My Papa's Waltz, Neuromancer, The Odyssey, Oedipus Rex, On the Road, Oresteia, Paradise Lost, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Pride and Prejudice, A Raisin in the Sun, A Rose for Emily, The Scarlet Letter, Siddhartha, Sir Gawain and the...
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...Landon Grimes Grimes 1 English 102 Mr. Turner 10/4/2012 Character Analysis on Tom Wingfield The Glass Menagerie is a very character oriented poem. Tom, Amanda, and Laura are all very well developed characters. They all have significant and unique characteristics that are shown well throughout the poem. Tom is the most interesting to me though because of his qualities and even his flaws. Tom has a few different and contradicting characteristics such as he is easily persuaded, his determination and his strong sense of guilt. Tom Wingfield seems to be easily entrapped and persuaded into certain situations he may or may not want to be in, given his current predicament. He has a feeling of being trapped at home because his mother and crippled sister depend on him. Tom would like to leave but he can not because he is basically devoted to taking care of them until they can find another source of income and help. Tom also wants to escape from his job at the warehouse and become a merchant marine. Tom desires adventure which he does not have at work or any other part of of his life. To get some sort of escape from reality Tom goes to the movies to have some sort of adventure. Tom finally gets his chance to leave when his mother says that if he can find his sister a husband then he can go off and do what he wants. “I go to the movies because I like adventure. Adventure is something I don’t have much of at work, so I go to the movies.” (Sc.4, p.1170) ...
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...Senior English Curriculum Map: 2010-2011 School Year English IV * Note: “Sacred Book List” Addendum is at the end of this document Quarter #1 August 23 to October 22 Essential Questions: 1. How do writers and artists organize or construct text to convey meaning? 2. What does it mean to be a stranger in the village? Unit Goals 1. To understand the relationship between perspective and critical theory. 2. To apply critical theories to various texts studied and created. 3. To control and manipulate textual elements in writing to clearly and effectively convey a controlling idea or thesis. Student Published Portfolios: For each of the first three quarters, students are required to complete three to four published writing portfolio products. Quarter 4 is devoted to completion of the Laureate Research Project. . Pacing: This map is one suggestion for pacing. Springboard pacing guides precede each unit in the “About the Unit” sections and offers pacing on a 45-minute class period length. Prentice Hall Literature – Use selections from Prentice Hall throughout the quarter to reinforce the standards being taught as well as the embedded assessments within the SpringBoard curriculum. QUARTER #1 SpringBoard Curriculum Pacing Guide August 23 – October 22 Standards and Benchmarks | Unit Pacing Guide | SpringBoard Unit/Activities | Assessments | SpringBoard Unit 1Literature * The students will analyze and compare significant works of...
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...|[pic] |Syllabus | | |College of Humanities | | |ENG/125 Version 3 | | |Literature in Society | Copyright © 2010, 2008, 2006 by University of Phoenix. All rights reserved. Course Description This course introduces themes in literature and provides guided study and practice in reflecting on themes which describe the human experience across cultural and societal boundaries. The course includes readings from literature in different genres and cultures. Students study the literature in thematic units and are asked to make connections to their own lives and cultures. Policies Faculty and students/learners will be held responsible for understanding and adhering to all policies contained within the following two documents: • University policies: You must be logged into the student website to view this document. • Instructor policies: This document is posted in the Course Materials forum. University policies are subject to change. Be sure to read the policies...
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...Anheuser-Busch Companies, Inc. Executive Summary Overview Sector: Consumer Staples Industry: Brewers Ownership: Public Parent: Anheuser Busch-Inbev Company A wholly-owned subsidiary of Belgium-based Anheuser–Busch InBev, is the largest brewing company in the United States. The company operates 12 breweries in the United States and nearly 20 in other countries. It was, until December 2009, also one of America's largest theme park operators; operating ten theme parks across the United States through the company's family entertainment division, Busch Entertainment Corporation. It is headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri. AB’s objectives as a corporation are: * To increase domestic beer segment volume and per barrel profitability which, when combined with market share growth will provide the source for earnings per share growth and improvement in return on capital employed. * To provide a great tasting fresh beer to our consumers by limiting self life to 110 days, and providing a “born on date” on all our products. * To build a high-performing, diverse workforce, while providing a safe, productive and rewarding work environment, in which all our employees can benefit. * To be a good corporate citizen and good neighbor in every community where we do business and promote the responsible consumption of our products. * To preserve and protect the environment and support communities where we do business, by complying with all applicable environmental...
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