FREE ESSAY ON THE GLASS MENAGERIE

THE GLASS MENAGERIE

The Glass Menagerie
Tennessee Williams describes Jim the gentleman caller as 'the long delayed but always
expected something that we live for'. This idea can be applied to many other instances in
the play, where something is long delayed but at the same time expected by certain
characters. There are instances of covering up the truth, especially by Amanda.
Amanda has always tried to protect herself from the brutal reality of life. We can see
this from the way she tries to convince herself that Laura should be 'fresh and pretty
for gentleman callers', acting as if it will really happen, as if Laura will be whisked
away into the sunset by a strong young man. Laura sees things in a whiter light and
calmly tries to explain that she is 'not expecting any gentleman callers.' Amanda then
returns to her ever present memories of Blue Mountain to act as another cushion to soften
the blow of what is really happening. 
All that Amanda wants for her life is for her children to succeed perhaps better than she
has. She reveals this in two places, when she tells Laura what to wish for, and when she
tells Tom that her children's happiness would be all that she would wish for on the moon.
She hinders them herself in her efforts, she trys to help Laura to be more confident in
herself by providing her with the chance of meeting a gentleman caller, but ends up
driving Laura further into herself in fear. She tries to get Tom to stay and help keep
the family running, but this encourages Tom to want to fly the nest and get away from the
pressures of the family life.
The first time Amanda chooses to accept things aren't working is when she finds out Laura
hasn't been going to the business school. She reacts in a typically Amanda way. There are
subtle differences in her reactions. At first she seems to have planned it all out in her
mind, the over dramatised movements and speeches such as 'you did all this to deceive me,
just for deception?'. After a while, her manner softens, and becomes more genuine. She's
also shocked to find that Tom actually would leave. She has always known that he's wanted
to go, she says 'I know what your dreaming of. I'm not standing here blindfolded' but in
a way I think she is. Her memories are blinding her of what is really happening. She
rarely chooses to accept the reality of the situation. In this argument with tom she
accepts thathe wants to leave, but reacts badly by telling him to 'go hen, go to the
moon.' She knew that he was like his father in this respect, as he ' is taking after his
ways.'
Tom knows that his father managed to get out of the 'nailed - up coffin...without
removing a nail' and he wants to do it too, but he doesn't know how without damaging
Laura's fragility. He knows that Amanda expects expects him to leave too, and he needs to
go to make a new life, away from this 'coffin'.The only problem is that he cannot get
away from Laura without the guilt catching up, as we see in the end scene.
He wants to taste the adventure, to get away from the methodicality of the warehouse and
the movies. He wants to be one of those to live the American dream, to see everything.
Not to be sitting the other side of the street watching couples dance and kiss behind the
Paradise Dance Hall. There are rainbows of promise in sight, and he really wants to taste
it. He knows he's wasting his life.
Laura is crippled physically which in turn has crippled her mentally. She is self
conscious of her disability and therefore cannot easily build it up. Amanda's stories of
Blue Mountain interest her because she has never lived a life remotely like it. She knows
that one day she needs a future, and that she cannot sit and play 'those wornout
phonograph records' and 'stare at the glass menagerie.'
Jim knows that 'Knowledge, Money and Power..are...the cycle democracy is built on. He
wants to gain all three. He dreams of making something of himself from nothing, like 'the
guy who invented the first piece of chewing gum,{[and] ..the fortune he made.' Jim
believes that something as simple as a piece of chewing gum could make him a millionaire.
He looks into the future, as does Tom, while Laura stays comfortably in the present and
Amanda just as comfortably in her past.
All of these characters have dreams, some larger than others, but only one manages to
achieve it, and I didn't write about him. This is Mr Wing field, Tom and Laura's father,
who managed to get out of it all by simply running away. Tom tried to follow in his
footsteps but found it hard on his conscience. Amanda and Laura are left to face life
together, perhaps Amanda's dreams are shattered after finding out that Jim is engaged and
any other chance for Laura is unlikely. Laura herself has nothing much to look forward to
in life, but is happy enough to stay in her present. Perhaps this saddening ending of a
family is what should have been expected. After all, Jim was described as 'the long
delayed, but always expected something that we live for' in the play, and he turned out
to already have his future worked out. They are left with nothing much else to live for.
Bibliography
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