...Thomas Lanier Williams was born on March 26th, 1911 in Columbus, Mississippi. Williams wrote fiction and motion picture screenplays but is recognized for his plays. Thomas was the first son and second child of Cornelius Coffin and Edwina Dakin Williams. He was named after his grandfather and he insisted on being called Tom by the age of ten. His siblings include an older sister named Rose and a younger brother named Dakin. Williams spent a great deal of time with his sister Rose because she was not very stable, emotionally or mentally. Daryl E. Haley once said that Rose "was emotionally disturbed and destined to spend most of her life in mental institutions." His mother raised Tom because his father was a traveling shoe salesman. Edwina Dakin Williams was the daughter of a minister and very over protective of Thomas. She began to be over protective after he caught Diphtheria when he was five years old. His mother was also an aggressive woman caught up in her fantasies of genteel southern living. Amanda Wingfield, a character in his play The Glass Menagerie, was modeled after Williams' mother. Cornelius Coffin Williams, Tom's father, spent most of his time on the road. Cornelius came from a very prestigious family that included Mississippi's very first governor and senator. Mr. Haley also states that Tom's father was "at turns distant and abusive," that is, when he was actually around. Toms father also repeatedly favored his younger brother Dakin over both of his older children...
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...Tennessee Williams’s play “The Glass Menagerie” tells about the disappointment that life has brought to the Wingfield family. The characters of this play are people whose dreams and life expectations have been shattered by the cruel reality. This disappointment breeds unrest and dissatisfaction in them, they feel trapped in their lives and are seeking for escape. In this extract there is a mix of registers. Moreover, the registers differ even within the speech of individual characters. While Laura and Amanda are speaking exclusively in formal style, Tom and Jim speak mostly informally; however the two men manage to change the register of their speech several times. Through different features of the characters’ speech, the author reveals their psychological state and intentions, for example, Laura’s feeling of embarrassment and Amanda’s pretence of being a real lady and her intention to give her daughter away to a rich and noble man. The idiolect and qualities of the characters are revealed with the help of phonetic, grammatical, and lexical stylistic devices. In order to achieve an effect of natural speech, the author has used a lot of dashes that represent the gaps and pauses in the speech. They bring out characters’ emotions, for example, Laura’s nervousness and anxiety: “How - how do you do?” We can feel also Jim’s confusion while speaking to Amanda: “[…] no – no – thank you – […]” These dashes also reveal one’s unwillingness to talk about certain issues, for example,...
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...Tennessee Williams: 20th century Playwright (March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983) Origins & family: • Tennessee Williams, real name Thomas Lanier Williams III, was born in Columbus, Mississippi, in 1911, in the home of his maternal grandfather who was the local episcopal rector. At age three his family had moved to Mississippi, and then aged 7 they moved to St. Louis, Missouri. • His father, Cornelius Williams, was a travelling salesman and grew increasingly abusive as Tennessee and his siblings grew older. His father also favoured Tennessee’s brother over him. His mother, Edwina Williams, was a typical ‘Southern Belle’ who tended to be ‘snobby’ towards those who, she felt, were below her. Her behaviour was known to be neurotic and hysterical which could be the reason for the type of characters included in Tennessee’s writing. She was a descendant of a genteel southern family which resulted in her ‘snobbish’ attitudes. • By the mid 30’s his father’s alcoholism and abusive temper led to the separation of his father and mother, although they never divorced. In 1939 the man then known as Thomas Lanier Williams III, changed his name to Tennessee Williams, whether it be a nickname or from an extract from Williams, no one seems to know. His education: • Between 1929 and 1931, he attended the University of Missouri, in Columbia, where studied to become a journalist. However he found these classes tedious and boring. Tennessee was also distracted by his unrequited love...
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...Analysis and Plot Summary of “The Glass Menagerie” by Tennessee Williams Before beginning this summary and analysis of “Glass Menagerie” by Tennessee Williams, it is important to point out that this play is not happening in the narrator’s (Tom’s) present, but it is based on his memories. The setting of “The Glass Menagerie” is a cramped apartment in a lower-class part of St. Louis in the year 1937. The main character and narrator of “The Glass Menagerie” by Tennessee Williams, Tom, is in a merchant sailor’s uniform and he details the setting even further, telling us that America’s lower classes are still recovering from the Great Depression. In the early stages of the plot of the Glass Menagerie, we also learn that his father left the family a long time ago, even though there is a picture of him that is plain sight throughout “The Glass Menagerie”. While Tom is speaking (as well as throughout the play) pay attention to the screen which presents certain words and images important to the text and try to imagine how this might be if you were sitting in the audience. In these first few scenes of “The Glass Menagerie” by Tennessee Williams, we meet the mother, Amanda, who still seems caught up in her life as a former Southern belle. She chides both of her children about being odd (Laura wears a brace on her leg and is painfully shy while Tom writes poetry and disappears every night to go the movies and get away from the depressing house). Laura is a fragile figure and collects glass...
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...Fiction Vs. Reality: Tennessee Williams’s Influences “There is a fine line between a fictionalized autobiography or memoir and autobiographical fiction. In both cases, the author uses tidbits about his or her life. The difference is to what extent” (Houston par. 1).Tennessee Williams was a man who had many stories to share of his experiences and all of the different influences he has had throughout his life. In both Tennessee Williams’s Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, he bases his characters off of his own mother, sister, and homosexuality. Tennessee Williams grew up with his mother and grandparents being his biggest influences of people to look toward because his father was a traveling businessman and not around much. His...
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...The characters in this drama are almost identical to the author himself, in some respect as well as to his parents and older sister in real life. Written in 1945 by Tennessee Williams (Thomas Lanier Williams), The Glass Menagerie depicts a family of three who live in a small apartment in the city. They struggle emotionally and monetarily while mourning the disappearance of their father, who has abandoned the family and moved over seas. Not only does the entire script appear as though it was actual reality for the author himself, but the characters in the play are quite similar to Tennessee’s own family in many ways. In The Glass Menagerie, Tom’s father is a hard drinker, and a telephone salesman who spends most of his time away from home until one day, out of the blue he disappears with no warning. The family later receives a postcard from Mazatlan with nothing more than, “Hello & Goodbye” written on the back. Although Tennessee’s father, Cornelius Williams did not move away and abandon his family as the character in this script did, he still has some of the similarities of the father in the script. Cornelius himself was a hard drinker as well and also involved in sales, but he did shoe sales. Like the father in the script, Cornelius spent most of his time away from the family as well. Tennessee did not have a very strong...
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... Many critics believe that “The Glass Menagerie” is one of Tennessee Williams finest literary pieces, and that like most of his work, it was a reflection of his own life story. Born as Thomas Lanier Williams III on March 26, 1911, in Columbus, Mississippi, he lived with his loving but possessive mother and his older sister, Rose, who later suffered a mental breakdown. His father was a hard man who tended to drink too much and who was often away from home due to his job as a traveling salesman. Through most of his childhood, Mr. Williams felt like an outcast due to both his delicate health and the ridicule he received for his southern accent after his father accepted a job in St. Louis. This ongoing theme of lack of self-worth throughout his life was in large part due to his sexual orientation and lifestyle both of which were not easily tolerated in the early part of the last century. Although Mr. Williams self-doubt is evident in much of his work, the rest of the literary world and his readers feel without a doubt that his work is award winning. His impact on the literary world can be seen by the many awards he received including his winning not one but two Pulitzer Prizes for “A Streetcar Named Desire” in 1948 and for “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” in 1955; as well as the longevity of his work which is proven by its contemporary recognition. Therefore, due to his literary genius and personal life experience, Williams was able to use the powerful combination of style, symbolism...
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...Breaking the Victimizing Bonds Despite being portrayed as the villain of his mother’s unknown fate, Tom Wingfield in “The Glass Menagerie” by Tennessee Williams is a victim held in the life pillaging bonds of his father’s mistakes and the suffocating pressure of his mother Amanda. Thrashing to break free of his bonds, Tom brings about harm and resentment to his family as he abandons his home responsibilities to fulfill the responsibilities he has set for himself. As a victim in his own life Tom’s fate is unavoidable. The reader’s villainizing view of Tom’s leave is onset by his preceding to leave despite his father’s absence, his mother’s inability to fulfill her roles, and her unobtainable goals; however, these tragic couplings of events...
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...Menagerie by Tennessee Williams is a touching play about the lost dreams of a southern family and their struggle to escape reality. The play is a memory play and therefore very poetic in mood, setting, and dialogue. Tom Wingfield serves as the narrator as well as a character in the play. Tom lives with his Southern belle mother, Amanda, and his painfully shy sister, Laura. According to Margaret Thornton: “William wrote to himself about himself” (1). Thus, Glass Menagerie’s plot closely mirrors actual events in the author's life. Because Williams related so well to the characters and situations, he was able to portray the play's theme through his creative use of symbolism. The Glass Menagerie reflects Williams's own life so much that it could be mistaken from his autobiography. The characters and situations of the play are much like those found in the small St. Louis apartment where Williams spent part of his life. Williams himself can be seen in the character Tom. Critic writer Andrea Peterson states: “The third Williams child, a boy named Dakin was born after the family moved from Columbus to St. Louis, Missouri, when Thomas was eight. It wasn’t long before the general malaise and unhappiness in young Thomas Lanier’s life would lead him to writing as an escape” (1). One not so obvious character is Mr. Wingfield, who is the absent father seen only by the looming picture hanging in the Wingfield's apartment. Tom and Williams both had fathers...
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...sculptures, also known as her glass menagerie. Besides the menagerie, there are various symbols throughout the play such as movies and a magician, the fire escape, a Unicorn, and leg braces. Each of these symbols adds to the negativity this household endures as a whole while also adding inspiration when needed. Symbols come in many forms; Tennessee Williams once said “When the sounds are harsh they suggest external realities; when they are soft they identify a thought or gently echo an idea identified before, binding the play together.". These various symbols scattered around the play all have different meaning, but in the end, pull the entire play together with strong meaning, deep influence, and harsh reality. Laura's glass sculpture collection also known as the glass menagerie utilizes powerful meaning with a harsh reality of being easily broken. The glass menagerie is an accurate representation of Laura's life and personality. Having a glass figurine collection is difficult to maintain while being one of the most fragile materials such as Laura, and tends to shatter very easily. The glass sculptures in a way represent Laura just as Tennessee Williams said, "her physical frailty in addition to her fragile prettiness.”(1667). Laura is very different from those around her and her unique collection shows that. However, most people tend to overlook the beauty of glass and what true perfection such material can be. Every so often, in the right...
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...Curtain Call: The Glass Menagerie Throughout Tennessee Williams’ play, The Glass Menagerie, certain symbols and themes are portrayed; among them the fragility of glass in the form of Laura’s glass menagerie and cowardice symbolized by the portrait of Laura and Tom’s father. The thread that runs through both the symbols of glass and the theme of cowardice, is self- image. The way these characters view themselves, and each other, bind them together and tear them apart simultaneously. In fact, the symbol of glass and the theme of self- consciousness are tied together in the mirror that hangs in their apartment. Eric P. Levy writes, the mirror “becomes a vital symbol of the act of self-consciousness by which a character apprehends his or her self-image” (529). We see these themes throughout the play and they are stressed upon the most at the end of the play. One of the most significant symbols, is the fire escape. As Williams writes, the “fire-escape, a structure whose name is a touch of accidental poetic truth, for all of these huge buildings are always burning with the slow and implacable fires of human desperation” (345). This desperation burned in earnest for the entire Wingfield family- Amanda, Laura and Tom- enclosed by their own limitations and views on themselves and each other. Amanda is trapped in her views of her former self, a lovely lady entertaining seventeen gentlemen callers; Tom is wracked with guilt and fury whenever...
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...Hop On the Superego Express “Ok class, raise your hand if you want to meet Barney in person right now!” says the high school teacher. “I love Barney! But I can’t raise my hand in front of everybody. They will think it is strange to like Barney if you are in high school.” thinks the student to himself. Have you ever made decisions, or not made decisions, based on the pressures of society? A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams is a story about a woman named Blanche, who is an extreme example of the people in this world that live their lives the way society dictates. She has a young, predetermined wedding, feels pressured to take over responsibility for a farm, and develops personal/mental problems in the process and is ostracized from her hometown. She desperately goes to her sister for help far from home, but things are not much different for her there, as most people here also judge and live based on society or “peer pressure.” She begins to find hope in a newfound relationship with her sister, a chance for love with her new boyfriend, and a chance for happiness to start over; however, all these dreams are quickly crushed by the menacing forces of people’s fear of not fitting in and doing what’s accepted, as well as Stanley, the main person who is opposite of all this. In this world, most of the characters, mainly Blanche, made the mistake of living and making decisions the way society would expect them to, meaning Freud’s third part of the subconscious, the element...
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...The Dreamer Page 1970 question # 2- Analyze the complexities and contradictions to be found in a well-rounded character from a play of your choice. Tom Wingfield introduces himself as an ambitious man who wishes to escape his own reality in Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie (1945). He is the breadwinner of his family, providing for his mother, Amanda, and his sister, Laura, by working at a “shoe factory where his father worked” (1612). Tom narrates the play from his dreamer perspective. He constantly goes to see movies in an attempt to provide adventure to his lackluster life. At first Tom struck me as sympathetic, but as the play progresses he reveals himself to be a very selfish individual. Tom narrates each scene from “memory and [they are] therefore unrealistic” (1614). He remembers his life as an imprisonment, where he is stuck doing undesirable work to provide for his family. His father’s abandonment left him as the sole provider for his family. His family displays “a blown up photograph of the father [that] hangs on the wall of [their] living room” (1614) in their disheveled apartment “flanked on both sides by dark, narrow alleys” (1614). We are continuously exposed to Tom’s viewpoint and the difficulty he has with separating his life from his vision. Amanda’s son emphasizes the smothering nature of his mother throughout the play. Amanda habitually badgers Tom telling him, “Honey, don’t push with your fingers. If you have to push with something, the thing...
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...In “The Glass Menagerie”, a play by Tennessee Williams, escape is theme that is widely referenced at throughout the story. Laura, Tom, and Amanda continually try to avoid the harsh reality they live in, in their own ways. Tom avoids reality by going to the movies after work and uses the fire escape instead of the front door to go in and out of the house, which symbolizes that the fire escape represents a kind of exit from the hardship that he is going through. Amanda escapes her reality by consistently reminding herself and her family of her past. Laura on the other hand uses the apartment as an escape from the outside world. In this play all the characters seek some kind of haven from the reality they are living. “The whole Wingfield family suffered for this alcoholic ‘telephone man’ because he left them in the midst of misfortune” (Chowdhury). When Mr. Wingfield left his family, Tom was forced to take his father place and be responsible of his disabled sister, Laura and abandoned mom, Amanda. With everything depending on Tom, he was forced to get a job at a warehouse in order to pay the rent and...
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...Ray According to the Free Dictionary by Farlex, a symbol is “Something that represents something else by association, resemblance, or convention, especially a material object used to represent something invisible. In the cinema, entitled The Glass Menagerie Tennessee Williams exercised the use of symbols. One of the most abundant emblems in the play was the glass menagerie. However, other important figures were apparent in the stage play as well. Representations that were iconic in the drama included the glass menagerie, the movies, the apartment, and the fire escape. In the theatrical, Williams used the glass menagerie to represent Laura. This was the perfect symbol for her because it represented her externally and internally. The glass menagerie provided a synopsis for her externally because she was extremely fragile and crippled in the cinema. Evidence of Laura being lame comes from the text because Laura states, “I’m crippled!” (Williams 128). The eradicated menagerie pieces were analogous to Laura because both were easily broken in the play. The glass pieces of the glass menagerie were facilely destroyed in the play because Tom mistakenly annihilated the pieces. Because the glass pieces were demolished, it gave way for Laura to be broken internally. She was shattered with in because Jim broke her heart. According to D. Brent Barnard, he compares Laura and the glass menagerie by saying “Laura and the glass menagerie represent, as we have seen, those things which “relieve...
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