Commentary on The Glass Menagerie Essay

The glass Menagerie Essay

The Glass Menagerie is considered Tennessee Williamss most brilliant dramatic work One of the main character in his play is Southern belle named Amanda, Amanda is from a prominent Southern family and she has received a traditional upbringing. She is the plays most extroverted and theatrical character. She has been considered a role model to women from the south. and she is named one of modern American dramas most coveted female roles.

When the play was written a lot of women from the south related to the character of Amanda. They have had a hard life and had suffered a reversal of economic and social fortune at some point in their life. These women have a hard time coming to terms with their new status in society and especially with modern society in general, Their relationships with men and their families are turbulent and they staunchly defend the values of their past. As with Amanda, their maintenance of gentle manners in very ungentle surroundings can appear very tragic. The character of Amanda is constantly escaping from the real world, by living in illusionary worlds and by reminiscing about the past. She relies heavily on Tom for support. She drives everyone crazy causing her own family to slowly drift away from her. While Amandas life stays the same, she is blind to the rest of the world around her which is continually changing. This explains her repeated failures in life. Amandas character in this play is so warped in her own world that she is left with only broken fragments of what might have been. She uses various escape mechanisms to avoid the truths and realities of her. Society as a whole is at fault for part of Amanda illusions. It is social pressures and high demand expectations from people and force them to hide in a world of fallacy and delusions. Amanda was not strong enough to face the harsh reality so she escapes in her illusionary world. Since the female audience and the readers of this play associate with Amanda than she is considered as the main antagonist. The glass menagerie symbolizes Amanda Wingfields overwhelming need to cling to her past, and her paranoia of being alone. She tends to keep herself surrounded by the menagerie and her memories. She doesnt like the poor neighborhood that she lives in and in order to cope with the situation she tries to mentally escape from it . She invents imaginary romances to escape from the depressing reality of her existence only to indulge in self-deceptions.

The protagonist of the play is considered to be Tom Wingfield. He is the narrator of the play . He address the audience directly and tries to provide a more detached explanation and assessment of what has been happening onstage.. The Glass Menagerie is partly autobiographical, and since Tom is one of the main characters who directly connects with the audience than it can be asserted that these are recollections of his own youth. On the outside, he appears to be both weak and Tom is like the glass collection in that he is also readily breakable, and in the end, he begins to crack and break apart, by the pressures and demands that are caused by the other characters.

In the Glass Menagerie it is clearly stated that the protagonist of this play is Top Wingfield and the antagonist is his mother Amanda Wingielf. AT the end of the drama Amanda says You live in a dream , you manufacture illusions and based on this sentence Amanda has lived most of her life in her own world of illusions .