Tennessee Williams is widely considered as the greatest Southern playwrights in the history of American drama; he left a powerful mark on American theatre and also gave American theatergoers unforgettable characters, an incredible vision of life in the South, and a series of powerful portraits of the human condition. He was deeply interested in something he called "poetic realism," the use of everyday objects, which, seen repeatedly and in the right contexts, become imbued with symbolic meaning.
In 1944-1945 Tennessee Williams brought a great turning point in his life and career by his drama titled “The Glass Menagerie”, it was written and produced in Chicago in 1994 to great success, and shortly afterward was a smash hit on Broadway. His plays were a great success in the United States and abroad, and he was able to write works that were well received by critics and popular with audiences. This story based on reworked material from one of Williams' short stories, "Portrait of a Girl in Glass," and his screenplay, The Gentleman Caller. Among others, it provided some of the early testing ground for Williams' innovations. The Glass Menagerie also indicated so many symbols. The symbol itself has a meaning as a sign, which has further layers of meaning. Symbolism becomes one of the major tools for Williams in writing a story in his drama to express the certain meanings.
Originally, the script of “The Glass Menagerie” itself showed images to emphasize certain motifs and symbols during the action. The play is also 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. It is the most important symbol for Laura and her fragility. Her engagement with the tiny animals reveals how painfully afraid she is of interaction with other humans. The qualities of glass parallel Laura's characteristics: like the tiny glass animals, she is delicate, beautiful in her oddness, terribly fragile. The little collection is like Laura, in an entity that is locked completely in the realm of the home. The animals must be kept on a little shelf and polished; there is only one place where they belong. In a similar way, Laura is kept and cared for, dependent on her mother and brother for financial support.
Another important symbol of Laura are The Blue Roses. Williams uses the rose as a motif for Laura to emphasize her delicateness and her beauty, as well as her worth. The image of blue color of the flower shows pure fantasy, non-existent in the real world indicates that Laura is special, unique even, but she is not a being of this world. Laura is a frightened and terribly shy girl, with unbelievably weak nerves. She is also slightly lame in one leg, and she seldom leaves the apartment of her own volition.
The fire escape is most closely linked to Tom's character and to the theme of escape. It is an important symbol for the imprisonment that Tom feels and the possibility of a way out. Since his father abandoned his family years earlier, Tom is become the family's breadwinner. He works at the Continental Shoemakers warehouse during the day to earn the wages that support their family, but actually he hates his job. Tom and his mother, Amanda, have a difficult relationship. He fights with Amanda all the time, and the situation at home grows more unbearable. Tom longs to be free like his father to abandon Amanda and Laura and set off into the world. He has stayed because of his responsibility for them, but his mother's nagging and his frail sister's idiosyncrasies make the apartment a depressing and oppressive place. His only escape comes from his frequent visits to the movies, he also often stand in the fire escape, standing alone between the outside world and the space of the apartment, this position metaphorically illustrates Tom’s position between his family and the outside world, between his responsibility and the need to live his own life points to the painful choice he makes later in the play.
Because of Tom’s only escape comes from his frequent visits to the movies and the magician, his fascination with both shows his need for fantasy and escapism. Tom is always dreaming of fantastic places far from St. Louis, and for now he escapes through the illusions offered by the movie house and the stage magician. He dreams of leaving home, but his responsibilities for his sister and his mother have so far kept him in the Wingfield apartment. What he sees at the magic show is directly connected to the theme of conflict between Tom's responsibility for his family and his need to live his own life. The magician's most impressive trick becomes a symbol for what Tom wishes he could do, to make a clean, easy escape, without destroying the coffin or removing any nails. The use of the coffin as a symbol for Tom's predicament shows the depth of his unhappiness. He feels spiritually dead, despising his work and stifled by the atmosphere at home. In his talk with Amanda, he suggests that his work emasculates him, making it impossible for him to follow the instincts of a man. The magician is able to escape the coffin without the messiness of having to remove nails, which would damage the coffin. Tom can escape, but only at great cost. Metaphorically, he would have to "remove nails," causing great damage, he would have to abandon his sister and mother and leave them to an uncertain fate. Tom is in awe of the magician because he does not have to choose; he can escape without causing any harm, a feat that might be impossible for Tom.
Another symbol that we can find in this story is the Paradise Dance Hall, for the characters who living through the action of the play, it symbolizes as a hope. While Amanda and Tom sitting on the fire escape, wishing on the moon and surrounded by the music and lights of the nearby dance hall, is lyrical and beautiful. The rainbow-colored lights and the lively music point to a world of leisure, ease, and good times. Paradise, from this perspective, is not a thing lost and receding into the past, but is rather a thing that might be gained in the future. Amanda's life story, as she tells it, includes both kinds of Paradise: she longs for the idyllic world of her youth and her seventeen gentleman callers, and she longs for a future fairy-tale ending for her daughter. Through the conventions of the stage, however, the dance hall is always just out of reach. The audience can hear the music, possibly see the lights, and hear characters' descriptions of the place, but the Paradise Dance Hall can only be suggested indirectly, as out of reach for the audience as "Paradise" is for Tom, Amanda, and Laura. With the narrator's added perspective and his remarks about the trouble that will engulf the world, we are made to see the illusory nature of the kind of "Paradise" represented by the dance hall.
Amanda herself is always returning mentally to this past, which is immaterial and far-removed from her current reality. Her reaction to Laura shows that she is strangely in denial about the nature of her own daughter. Laura is crippled, able to walk only slowly and with great effort, and emotionally she is terribly fragile. The contrast between the vivacious and talkative Amanda and her timid, soft-spoken daughter could not be stronger. That’s why Amanda asks Tom to bring home gentlemen callers to meet Laura, a man who can take care of her, in other word, an ideal husband for her daughter. She tries to put her security into the hands of men; perhaps she sees no alternative. The idea of a gentleman caller becomes Amanda's obsession and the great hope for the Wingfields to attain financial security. With a husband, Laura will be provided for and the two women will no longer be dependent on Tom. However, Amanda's ambition for Laura shows the level of her disconnection from real life and the fragility of her dreams. Amanda is imagining a fairy tale life for her daughter, she wish that her daughter will be the princess of a Cinderella story.
Jim O'Connor who will be introduced as The Gentleman caller by Tom to his family is Tom’s friend in warehouse, he is there as a shipping clerk. He is not too good-looking man, but he is outgoing and enthusiastic man, he also believes in self-improvement. Besides that, Jim is one who enjoys praise. He likes the company of people who admire him. Love of admiration compromises his consideration of others; we can see his characteristic when Jim has interaction with Laura. Jim as The Gentleman caller is a symbol for that “special something that we all wait and live for”, the thing for which we are always waiting and hoping. The thing that will rescues Laura and provides her with a happy ending.
Laura, for the first time, hears the name of the gentleman caller, and she realizes that it might be the same Jim whom she had a crush on back in high school. That is why she doesn’t want to meet Jim at the beginning. She feels shame. But finally, they have friendly conversation by candlelight. Jim reveals that he was never engaged, and that his old girlfriend was the one who put the announcement in the yearbook. They no longer see each other. Then, Laura shows Jim her glass collection. They look closely at a little glass unicorn, remarking on how the unicorn must feel odd due to its uniqueness. The glass unicorn also becomes a symbol for Laura. She, like the unicorn, is odd and unique. They put the unicorn down on a different table, for “a change of scenery”. Laura bashfully admires Jim, while Jim grows increasingly flirtatious. When he heard the music of the Paradise Dance Hall, he asks her to dance with him. He tries to help her with her self-consciousness, and the two of them are starting to have a wonderful time, but they jostle the table and knock over the unicorn. The horn breaks off. Jim apologizes but Laura tells him not to worry. She can pretend the unicorn had an operation to make it feel less freakish. The horn becomes a symbol of Laura uniqueness. Both Laura and the unicorn are fragile: Jim "breaks" both of them. Laura's gift of the broken unicorn shows the extent of her affection for him. And the gift of the unicorn shows how much she still likes him. It is the gift of an odd and painfully shy girl, for whom kissing Jim was a climactic experience.
For a brief moment, the Wingfield apartment was a place of dreams. Amanda experienced a return to her girlhood, Laura was able to show someone her glass menagerie, and the place was full of the music from Paradise Dance Hall. But the unicorn is broken, the music of "Paradise" gives way to the sad sounds of the Victrola, and even Amanda is left without defenses against reality. For the first time, she refers to Laura as "crippled," breaking her own rule, and she seems to acknowledge that Tom will soon leave them.
The descending fourth wall puts a powerful but permeable barrier between Tom and his family. They are behind him, behind him in time and in the physical space of the stage, and they are inaudible. Yet he cannot seem to shake the memory of them. Although he has never explicitly spoken of one of the play's most important themes, the conflict between responsibility and the need to live his own life, it is clear that he has not been able to fully shake the guilt from the decision that he made. The cost of escape has been the burden of memory. For Tom, it is difficult to forget the final image of frail Laura, illuminated by candlelight on a darkened stage, while the world outside of the apartment faces the beginnings of a great storm.
References:
Edgar E. Jacobs. Literature, an Introduction to Reading and Writing, 2nd Edition.
Tennesee Williams. The Glass Menagerie.
www.gradesaver.com/classicnotes/titles/menagerie
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