Tennessee Williams The Glass Menagerie
Birth
Born Thomas Lanier Williams
- Columbus, Ohio
- 1911
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- Lived with grandparents, mother, and sister for
- many of his early years since father worked and
- traveled for a telephone company
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- Grandfather = Episcopalian town rector
Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie - Plays deal with universal human longing for an ideal order of being, denied by the harsh realities of life and time
- His interest lay more in character, mood and condition than plot
- Essential condition of a Williams character: sensitive creature who has no home in an alien world
- “memory plays”
The Glass Menagerie The Glass Menagerie
- “Memory Play” structure:
Seven memory scenes framed by present day monologues of Tom Wingfield, divided into two parts: - (1) Preparation for Gentleman Caller
- (2) The Gentleman Caller
- Williams’s interests lay more in character, mood and condition rather than plot
Tennessee Williams’s philosophy - The point of reference for the characters’ lives is always the past, rarely the present and hardly ever the future.
- Life, according to Williams, is a series of losses, beginning with high expectations and momentary fulfilment, but ultimately ending either in confrontation with its limitations, denial, or everlasting regret
- But the dreams are always filled with images of separation, loss, loneliness, humiliation and pain.
- Amanda Wingfield—
- Mother of Tom and Laura
- Often digressed back to memories of her former days on the Southern plantation farm and her night with 17 gentlemen callers
- Her pervasive memories of her Southern girlhood transport the play’s events to evoke an ideal world of romance
Main characters - Laura Wingfield—
- Amanda’s daughter
- Crippled and shy
- Under mother’s constant pressure to find a husband
Main characters - Tom Wingfield—
- Amanda’s son
- Under mother’s constant pressure to find Laura a gentleman caller and to keep the job at the shoe factory to support the family
Main characters - Jim O’Conner
- Friend of Tom’s from the factory who Tom invites to dinner and Amanda treats as Laura’s first gentleman caller
- Mr. Wingfield
- Amanda’s husband who deserted the family about 16 years ago
- Only seen in the play as a large photograph hung on the wall, but he is often referred to
- The pattern of initial excited anticipation and ultimate loss is summarized particularly well in the father’s scornful postcard: “Hello—Goodbye.”
Symbols - Victrola—
- Laura’s escape and private world
- Jonquils—
- A reminder of Amanda’s glorious past
Symbols - Magic show—
- Candelabrum--
- Tom’s relationship (or lack thereof) with his family
Symbols - Scarf—
- Tom’s attempt to share his magic and desire for escape with Laura
Symbols - Fire escape—
- The escape from Amanda’s world
- Tom seeks to leave it, but Amanda stumbles whenever she does
Symbols - Glass Menagerie—
- Gentleman caller—
- The real world as opposed to Amanda’s imagined one
Symbols - Unicorn—
- Laura’s singularity, her return to reality, and her return to her retreat back into her world
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