Summary of Glass Menagerie essays

Summary of Glass Menagerie essays The Glass Menagerie is written by Tennessee Williams, and takes place just before the Second World War starts in Europe. USA has just got over the large depression in the thirties, but the threat of war is hanging as a dark cloud overhead. In the play we follow a lower middle-class family living somewhere in the middle of USA. This is a bit strange, as the play is somewhat southern in its style. The play is set in the apartment of the Wingfield family, housing Amanda Wingfield and her two children Tom and Laura. The father in the house left many years ago, and is only represented by a large picture on the living-room wall. The apartment is placed in an apartment block, housing equal apartments, and the block is again in an area of considerably equal places. This creates a monotonous feeling in the reader. None of the Wingfields actually wants to stay in their apartment, but their lack of finances makes it impossible for the to move. Escaping from problems is the main theme throughout the play. The different characters in The Glass Menagerie have their own individual ways of escaping from their realities. Tom Wingfield, the main character and narrator, relates to his problems by escaping from the entire place in which he is currently living. He is tired of supplying his mother and sister without getting anything but regret in return. Early in the play we can see this urge to get away through his frequent visits to the movie theatre. To him the movies serve as windows into another world, an exiting world filled with fun and challenges. Another thing that it is worth mentioning when speaking about this is Amandas attitude towards the movies. She thinks that he spends too much time on the movies, and she keeps haunting him for it. I think that this is supposed to tell the reader that Amanda has some kind of feeling that Tom sometime will follow in his fathers footsteps, and that she is trying to pre...