THE GLASS MENAGERIE

Genre Tragedy; family drama

The Glass Menagerie is loosely autobiographical. The characters all
have some basis in the real-life family of Tennessee Williams: Edwina
is the hopeful and demanding Amanda, Rose is the frail and shy
Laura (whose nickname, "Blue Roses," refers directly back to
Williams' real-life sister), and distant and cold Cornelius is the
faithless and absent father. Williams actually worked in a shoe
warehouse in St. Louis, and there actually was a disastrous evening
with the only gentleman caller who ever came for Rose. Thomas was
also Tennessee Williams' real name, and the name "Thomas" means
twin - making Tom the surrogate not only for Williams but also
possibly for the audience. He is our eye into the Wingfields' situation.
His dilemma forms a central conflict of the play, as he faces an
agonizing choice between responsibility for his family and living his
own life.

SETTING
The action of The Glass Menagerie takes place in the Wingfield
family's apartment in St. Louis, 1937. The events of the play are
framed by memory. The narrator addresses us from the undated and
eternal present, although at the play's first production (1944-5), Tom's
constant indirect references to the violence of the Second World War
would have been powerfully current.

THE NARRATOR TOM

The older Tom remembers his youth and then becomes a younger
Tom who participates in the action as scenes from his youth play out.
The point of view of the older Tom is reflective, and he warns us that
his memory distorts the past. The younger Tom is impulsive and
angry. The action sometimes consists of events that Tom does not
witness; at these points, the play goes beyond simply describing
events from Toms own memory.

SYMBOLS
The play is replete with lyrical symbolism.
The glass menagerie, in its fragility and delicate beauty, is a symbol
for Laura. She is oddly beautiful and, like her glass pieces, easy to
destroy.
The fire escape is most closely linked to Tom's character and to the
theme of escape. Laura stumbles on the escape, while Tom uses it to
get out of the apartment and into the outside world. He goes down the
fire escape one last time at the end of the play, and he stands on the
landing during his monologues. His position there metaphorically
illustrates his position between his family and the outside world,
between his responsibility and the need to live his own life.

CHARACTERS
Amanda Wingfield
Once a Southern belle who was the darling of her small town's social
scene, Amanda is now an abandoned wife and single mother living in
a small apartment in St. Louis. She dreams of her past and of her
daughter's future, but seems unwilling to recognize the painful harsh
realities of the present. She is a loving mother, but her demands make
life difficult for Laura and unbearable for Tom.
Amanda finally senses Tom's stirrings to leave and makes a deal with
him - that if he can find a suitable replacement for himself in the form
of a husband for Laura, then he can disappear for good. In all reality,
then, Amanda is holding her son hostage - threatening his future in
order to ensure her own.

Jim O'Connor
Laura Wingfield
Laura walks with the aid of a leg brace. Laura is painfully shy, unable
to face the world outside of the tiny Wingfield apartment. She spends
her time polishing her collection of tiny glass animals, her "glass
menagerie." Her presence is almost ghostly, and her inability to
connect with others outside of her family makes her dependent on
Tom and Amanda. Jim's nickname for her, "Blue Roses," suggests
both her odd beauty and her isolation, as blue roses exist nowhere in
the real world.
She is in many ways like Rose, Tennessee Williams' real-life sister. As
a parallel to Rose, then, Laura becomes helpless and impossibly
passive - rendered to a fate entirely dictated by Tom's own decisions.
Laura's passivity, meanwhile, incurs a tremendous amount of guilt and
repressed rage in Tom, who has trouble leaving as long as he thinks
of his sister.

Jim is the long-awaited gentleman caller for Laura - and the supposed
prospect for her matrimony. He is outgoing, enthusiastic, and believes
in self-improvement. He kisses Laura and raises her hopes that they
might be together, before he finally reveals to her that he is engaged.
Tom describes him as a person more connected to the real world than
any of the other characters, but Jim is also a symbol for the "expected
something that we live for."

SUMMARY

Tom Wingfield
Tom is an aspiring poet who works in the Continental Shoemakers
warehouse. He is the narrator of the play and the action of the play is
framed by Tom's memory. Tom loves his mother and sister, but he
feels trapped at home. They are dependent on his wages and as long
as he stays with them he feels he can never have a life of his own.
Nightly, he disappears to "go to the movies." As the play continues,
Tom feels increasingly imprisoned and his mother begins to sense his
stirrings. She makes him a deal - as long as he finds a husband for
Laura, he's free to escape. But Tom is trapped by his own guilt for
leaving and his own repressed rage for being put in a position where
his freedom comes at the expense of his own conscience.

She discovers that Laura stopped attending class a long time

ago, because the speed tests on the typewriter terrified her.
After the fiasco at Rubicam's Amanda gives up on a business
career for Laura and puts all her hopes into finding a husband
for her.
Tom also hates his job. His only escape comes from his
frequent visits to the movies, but his nightly disappearances
anger and baffle Amanda. He fights with Amanda all the time,
and the situation at home grows more unbearable.
Jim chats with Laura, growing increasingly flirtatious, until he
finally kisses her. Then he admits that he has a fianc and
cannot call again. For fragile Laura, the news is devastating.
In his closing monologue, he admits that he cannot escape the
memory of his sister. Though he abandoned her years ago,
Laura still haunts him.

Major conflict
In their own ways, each of the Wingfields struggles against the
hopelessness that threatens their lives. Toms fear of working in a
dead-end job for decades drives him to work hard creating poetry,
which he finds more fulfilling. Amandas disappointment at the fading
of her glory motivates her attempts to make her daughter, Laura, more
popular and social. Lauras extreme fear of seeing Jim OConnor
reveals her underlying concern about her physical appearance and
about her inability to integrate herself successfully into society.
Rising action

After Laura admits to leaving a business course that would have

allowed her to get a job, her mother, Amanda, decides that Laura
must get married; Tom tells Amanda that he is going to bring Jim
OConnor to dinner; Amanda prepares extensively, hoping that Jim will
become Lauras suitor.
Climax
Each characters struggle comes to a climax at different points. Toms
decision not to pay the electric bill and to use the money instead to
leave his family in search of adventure reveals his initial, decisive
break from his family struggles. When Jim breaks the horn from
Lauras glass unicorn and announces that he is engaged, the

possibility that he will help her overcome her self-doubt and shyness
is also destroyed. When Amanda discovers that Jim is engaged, she
loses her hope that Laura will attain the popularity and social standing
that Amanda herself has lost.
Falling action
Laura gives Jim the broken unicorn as a souvenir; Jim leaves the
house to pick up his girlfriend; Amanda accuses Tom of not having
revealed that Jim was engaged. Addressing the audience, Tom
explains that not long after that incident he left his family but was
never able to emotionally leave Laura behindin his later travels, he
frequently felt a connection to her.