Issue 44
Analysis and Exercise - Tennessee Williams

Welcome!

This month we offer an Analysis and Exercise newsletter for The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams.

In This Issue

• INTRODUCTION
  A look at the play.
• BACKGROUND
  Is the play autobiographical?
• THEMES AND SYMBOLS
  What is the play trying to say?
• CHARACTERS
  Are they real or are they fragmented memories?
• RESOURCES
  More to learn about The Glass Menagerie
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• IN THE NEXT ISSUE
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Introduction

'I have found it easier to identify with the characters who verge upon hysteria who were frightened of life, who were desperate to reach out to another person.' – Tennessee Williams

'For the first 30 years of his life [Williams] was living The Glass Menagerie.' – Lyle Leverich, Tom: The Unknown Tennessee Williams, xxiii

Williams' plays are known for their lyrical poetic dialogue, and characters on the brink. The characters make Williams' work so dynamic and universal; they are more than the cardboard 'types' Williams characters are sometimes reduced to. The men and women in his plays are always flawed, filled with emotion, and locked in the frustration of straining for something beyond reach.

We start with The Glass Menagerie. This is the play that made Williams a  'famous' and sought after playwright.

I find The Glass Menagerie an enjoyable play. That might not sound like a compliment (like I feel when someone calls my plays clever, that's not really positive) but it truly is. The play doesn't fall into the 'I love it with an unfailing passion' category perhaps because its despair is so touching and gentle.

The impending doom for the Wingfield family seeps into your lungs like dust from a room that hasn't been cleaned in decades. Hard to gush over dusty lungs. Again, that doesn't sound like a compliment. But I fully stand behind The Glass Menagerie as a classic work, a great work that should be studied and produced. The play would not be out of place on any 21st century stage.

Classic or Dated?

Is The Glass Menagerie a relevant play to study? Is it a work of classic literature or is it faded and dated?

When I studied Literature in school I was often amazed at what fell under the 'classic' label. (If I never have to read a word from Tess of the D'Ubervilles again I'll be very happy.) Just because something is old and written by an author of note does not make a work classic.

The origin of the word 'classic' comes from the 1600's and deals with work of the first or highest class. Over time the word has taken on additional meanings:

• Of endearing interest
• Of literary renown
• Considered a standard (something to follow)
• Noteworthy and worth remembering
• Definitive
• Fundamental
• Traditional

When I think about what makes a classic, I'm particularly drawn to the notion of 'endearing interest.' While classics can and do remain static in their particular era, I like it when a work of literature continues to find relevance over time. There is something to the characters, stories or themes that still resonates in the current era, in our society.

For example, Romeo and Juliet is a classic work in its own era and yet has strong relevance in ours: girls continue to fall in love with boys they shouldn't. Families continue to hate each other for no particular reason. Couples make choices (rightly or wrongly) based on love every day.

This is why I consider The Glass Menagerie a classic. It may be set in 1937 pre-war America, but the motivations of the characters and the themes of the play still resonate today. How many of us have trouble with the present because the past has such a tight grip? How many of us desire to leave home for adventure? How many of us have family issues? The dysfunctional family is alive and well in our time and in The Glass Menagerie:

• Parents trying to control their children: Amanda's first moment in the play is a diatribe on how Tom should eat his dinner (chew your food, don't push it with your fingers). She tries to orchestrate a future for Laura by sending her to business college, and when that doesn't work forces Tom to look for potential suitors.
• Parents who have failed in life and are trying to live through their children: Amanda is obsessed with 'gentlemen callers.' She wants them for Laura in part because they remind her of her past and allow her to re-tell her past over and over again.
• Children trying to escape their parents' control: Tom physically escapes Amanda by spending night after night at the movies (and also by drinking). The need to escape becomes so desperate for Tom, he chooses to put the family's money toward joining Merchant Marines rather than the light bill.

When studying a classic, a great place to start is to define what a classic is, what makes the work you're studying a classic, and what resonates in the characters/story for today's world.

Questions:

• What 'classics' are you studying this year?
• What makes these works classic?
• Do you agree with that determination? Why or why not?
• Is The Glass Menagerie a classic in your mind? Why or why not?

Realism or Beyond Realism?

'The straight realistic play with its genuine frigidaire and authentic ice-cube, its characters that speak exactly as its audience speaks, corresponds to the academic landscape and has the same virtue of a photographic likeness. Everyone should know nowadays the unimportance of the photographic in art...'
(production notes written by Tennessee Williams)

Tennessee Williams had a distinct and defined vision for his plays and the style in which he wanted to present them. There should be no attempt to create a photograph, a copy of the real world on stage. For Williams, The Glass Menagerie is not a realistic play. It's right there in Tom's opening monologue: 'The play is memory. Being a memory play, it is dimly lighted, it is sentimental, it is not realistic.' (scene one)

The notion that the play is not realistic is interesting and potentially confusing – considering the number of productions that steep the play in a wash of realism. Take a look at the following production photos: it looks like The Glass Menagerie is a traditional realistic play.

North Dakota State University

Saratov Academic Theatre

Berkshire Theatre Festival.

These types of productions are not uncommon. Everything is straight forward and linear, against what appear to be the intentions of the playwright. Actors eat real food in the opening scene when Williams clearly states in the stage directions that it is mimed. Sets are done in minute realistic detail instead of memory abstract, or 'dim and poetic' as Williams describes.

This is not entirely the fault of the productions. It doesn't help either that several movies have been made of the play, encouraging realism:

Add to that the potential confusion over the different versions of the play. There are two script versions of The Glass Menagerie: a reading version and an acting version. The acting version was used in the original Broadway production and it is the one most commonly used in subsequent productions. A big difference between the two, keeping in mind Williams' desire to step away from straightforward realism, is the use of a screen in the reading version. The screen was used to project images or title cards (called 'Legend on Screen' in the script).

_{IMAGE: AMANDA AS A GIRL ON A PORCH, GREETING CALLERS
LEGEND ON SCREEN: THIS IS MY SISTER: CELEBRATE HER WITH STRINGS!}

The images and title cards were used to emphasize moments, provide flashes of background and commentary. Some have felt the use of the screens pretentious and unnecessary. It would, if you were going for a traditional realistic production. Williams himself has said that he didn't regret taking them out of the Broadway production.

But knowing that the play is memory and the intention of the playwright is to have the play step away from realism, the images and title cards help provide that step the story needs. (Other elements used to support this 'step' are music and lighting, which we'll talk about later.)

Memories are more often than not, pictures and sounds in our heads – a flash of an image, a memorable word, a laugh. Why not have that represented visually on stage? And now with the current technology available, the effect of the screen could be quite magical.

The concept of memory must be always at the forefront when studying The Glass Menagerie. The play is memory. And memory is never real. Memories are never as concrete as when the events originally unfolded. Memories aren't tangible, no matter how strongly we believe our capacity to remember. Williams makes it clear that the truth of his memories is 'disguised in illusion' and shouldn't be taken as hard cold fact. The truth is there, the facts are there, but it's fragmented and sometimes gauzy.

Here's a production set (Kansas City Rep) that clearly combines the technical aspect of the screen and the emotional impact of memory.

Go to this page and see the other pictures from the production. It presents quite a stunning picture of the play.

Activities: 

• Find a story in the newspaper; something that comes across as straightforward and factual. 
  1. Come up with a character who lived through that story.
  2. Create a short character profile for them: name, age, family situation, job/school grade, where do they live, financial situation.
  3. Write out a monologue that is set 10 years in the future, you are writing the character's recollection of the event. Make the recollection not exactly clear. The character doesn't remember the story the same way as the newspaper tells it.
  4. Come up with five pictures – image flashes that express the story. Be clear that the pictures do not have to be realistic, or factual. What image does the character see in their head as they tell the story?
  5. Do the same by coming up with five sounds.
• At the beginning of the day have the class make arrangements to meet up in pairs to observe the cafeteria (or another area of the school where large groups hang out before school starts)
  1. The pairs are not to talk, the only thing that is important is that both observe the same area, and that they don't write down what they saw.
  2. When students come to class, each writes down their memory of what they saw. These observations are then shared between the partners.
  3. What specifically did they remember? Was it easy or hard to remember? Did the partners have similar memories, or did they each see something completely different?
  4. Have a larger class discussion on the tangibility or intangibility of memory and how then it relates to The Glass Menagerie.

The Technical Elements

'Expressionism and all other unconventional techniques in drama have only one valid aim, and that is a closer approach to truth.' (Williams, Production Notes, The Glass Menagerie)

The Technical elements in The Glass Menagerie were very important to Williams. He is extremely specific as to how the play should be lit, and how it should sound. I've never read a more detailed approach to the technical elements in a play than Williams':

• Lighting: 'The lighting in the play is not realistic. In keeping with the atmosphere of memory, the stage is dim. ' (production notes)
• Music: 'A single recurring tune, is used to give emotional emphasis.... it expresses the surface vivacity of life with the underlying straining of immutable and inexpressible sorrow.' (Production notes)

Indeed it is almost as if they are additional characters in the play. At the very least, they are the support beams to the experience Williams wanted the audience to have. Light and music go a long way to solidifying the elusive, less-than-tangible memory quality the play should have.

Question

• Do you agree that the use of technology and other unconventional elements to support a story brings it close to the truth? Why or why not?

Activities

• Take a scene from a modern play that doesn't give such specific indications of lighting and sound.
• In groups, describe the lighting and sound in the same manner that Williams does in his production notes – meaning, describe the look and the music with vivid, descriptive, words. The lighting and sound must support the scene.
• Tell the story of the scene by describing the lighting and the sound.

No Subtext Here

Subtext refers to 'the underlying meaning or theme in a literary work' and in that regard there is no subtext in The Glass Menagerie. There's very little hiding at all in the play; the symbols are all out in the open and take centre stage. No need to figure out what the title is referring to. Laura is meant to be seen and portrayed as another figurine in the menagerie. The set itself is a symbol: The fire ESCAPE, is a means of ESCAPE, for those who choose to.

Having said that, there are many productions that strive to implant further subtext into the play, such as showing Tom and Laura 'in love'. Or, because the play has strong autobiographical elements, productions blanket the play in autobiography, playing Tom as gay because Williams was.

Creating subtext is something that an actor can bring to the table as part of their work on a character. If the actor simply plays the page, the effect can come across as two-dimensional. Having said that, Williams had a very clear image of the play and the expression of the play; no playwright has ever written such detailed and poetic stage directions as he did. Sometimes a glass figurine is simply a glass figurine.

Questions:

• Do you believe there is hidden subtext in The Glass Menagerie? If so, what is it and why is it there?

Background

'Why did I write? Because I found life unsatisfactory.' – Tennessee Williams

Background: Tennessee Williams

• 1911. Born as Tom Lanier Williams. His father is a traveling salesman and is rarely with the family. They live with grandparents in Mississippi.
• 1918. The family moves to St. Louis. City life is much different and much harder for the family. They are all together in one cramped apartment. His parents' relationship is very tense and turbulent. Williams spends a lot of time with his sister, Rose.
• 1929. Attends the Missouri School of journalism.
• 1931. Is pulled out of school because of low grades. He goes to work in a shoe factory, the same his father works in.
• 1935. After suffering a health breakdown, Williams leaves the factory and enrolls first at Washington University and then the University of Iowa.
• 1938. Graduates from University of Iowa. This is when he emerges as Tennessee Williams.
• 1940. Starts work on a short story Portrait of a Girl in Glass which is the starting point for The Glass Menagerie.
• 1943. Tennessee's sister Rose, who has a history of mental issues, has a lobotomy, leaving her institution-bound. Williams felt guilty about this for the rest of his life. 
• 1943. Hired by MGM to write screenplays, one of which is The Gentleman Caller - another step toward The Glass Menagerie. When the screenplay is rejected, Williams turns it into a play.
• 1944. The Glass Menagerie is first produced in December in Chicago. It becomes an instant success.
• 1945. The Glass Menagerie opens on Broadway in March.
• 1950. First film version of The Glass Menagerie.
• 1983. Williams dies at the age of 71.

Williams wrote 25 full length plays, some of which include

• 1947 A Streetcar Named Desire
• 1951 The Rose Tattoo
• 1955 Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
• 1958 Suddenly Last Summer
• 1961 Night of the Iguana

Further biographical information on Tennessee Williams' later life can be found at the following links:

• Wikipedia
• Imagi-nation
• PBS
• Kennedy Center

And the following books about Tennessee Williams:

• Hayman, Ronald. Tennessee Williams: Everyone Else Is an Audience. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993.
• Holditch, W. Kenneth. Tennessee Williams and the South. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2002.
• Leverich, Lyle. Tom: The Unknown Tennessee Williams. New York: Crown Publishers, 1995.
• Rasky, Harry. Tennessee Williams: A Portrait in Laughter and Lamentation. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1986.
• Spoto, Donald. The Kindness of Strangers: The Life of Tennessee Williams. Boston: Little, Brown, 1985.

General Themes in Tennessee Williams' work

• The faded Southern Belle – the myth of living in the south.
• The dysfunctional family.
• Lyrical language.
• Suppressed violence, sexual frustration.
• The past vs. the present.
• Characters wishing for a life they do not have but was once in their grasp. They search for a self that once may have been, but can never be again.

Background: The Play

'…the saddest play I have ever written. It is full of pain. It's painful for me to see.' – Tennessee Williams on The Glass Menagerie

The play started out as a short story called Portrait of Girl in Glass. When Williams began work at MGM as a screenwriter, he turn the story into a screenplay called The Gentleman Caller. When the screenplay was rejected, Williams turned it into a play. The play opened in late 1944 and moved on to Broadway. There have been two screen movies made of the play (1950 & 1987) and two television movies (1966 & 1973).

Autobiographical elements in The Glass Menagerie

'If the writing is honest it cannot be separated from the man who wrote it.' – Tennessee Williams

There are many common elements between Williams' life and the Wingfield family of The Glass Menagerie, so much so that many define the work as autobiographical. Consider the following:

• Tenneesse's real name is Tom.
• The Williams family lived in a cramped apartment as do the Wingfields in St. Louis, the play's location.
• Amanda is thought to be similar if not identical to Williams' mother Edwina, just as his older sister Rose is thought to be the inspiration for Laura.
• Edwina had a gentile southern background as Amanda does.
• Rose was Williams older fragile sister and had a glass menagerie. Laura's nickname in the play is 'Blue Roses.'
• It is alluded to in the play that Mr Wingfield was a drinker, William's father was an alcoholic.
• Williams was pulled out of college by his dad and sent to work at the Imperial Shoe Factory. He dreamed of being a writer while working in the factory, just as Tom does.
• His mother Edwina tried again and again to push Rose out into society – Rose was unsuccessfully sent to business college.

Question: Is The Glass Menagerie an autobiography? Is Williams trying to put his own life on stage, or is he using his life as a catalyst for fiction? What do you think? State why or why not in your answer.

Click here for my take on the question.

Activities:

1. Write down the following about three members of your family:
   
   • A list of facts: names, ages, relation to you, where they were born.
   • An element of their personality. 
   • An important moment in each family member's life.
   • A favourite thing (eg. food/movie/colour)
   • A hated thing (eg. food/movie/colour)
2. Take a completely made up scenario and give the characters attributes from your own family. You could alternatively re-write the opening dinner scene between Amanda, Tom and Laura using elements from your own family.
3. Discuss the outcome. How did the scene turn out? How much of the new scene was fact and how much was fiction?

Historical Context

This is the social background of the play. – Tom, Scene One

To fully understand the struggle of the Wingfields, it's important to look at the historical framework. Williams is very specific in his choice of time period and the social background. The depression-era America of the 30's is shown as suspended in time, while other parts of the world churn in turmoil:

• Tom references the civil violence in Spain the attack at Guernica in 1937 (scene one)
• He also talks about the looming war: “Suspended in the mist over Berchtesgaden, caught in the folds of Chamberlain's umbrella.” (scene five)

When Tom talks to Jim on the fire escape he describes Americans as barely experiencing life:

'People going to the movies instead of moving! Hollywood characters are supposed to have all the adventures for everybody in America, while everybody in America sits in a dark room and watching them have them!' (scene six)

America is in a trapped state, much like the characters in the play.

Questions:

1. Why does Tom compare events in the world with what was going on in America at the time?
2. Given Tom's world view, why does he choose to become a Merchant Marine?
3. Tom speaks the following in scene one as he describes America in 1937: 'I reverse it to that quaint period, the thirties, when the huge middle class of America was matriculating in a school for the blind. Their eyes have failed them, or they have failed their eyes and so they were having their fingers pressed forcibly down on the fiery Braille alphabet of a dissolving economy.' What does the quote mean in an historical context?

Activities:

Look at this picture of Picasso's Guernica. Using the same style, create a picture (either on paper or as a human picture in a tableau) for the America described in The Glass Menagerie.

Cultural Context

The Glass Menagerie is chock full of cultural references. Here are a sampling of cultural references, depression-era references and geographical references mentioned in the play that might not be familiar to a 21st century reader:

Berchtesgarden

A retreat in Northern Germany which Hiltler enjoyed.

cat-house

Brothel

Century of Progress

a technology exhibition at the Chicago World's Fair in 1933-34

Cotillion

A formal ball given especially for debutantes.

Chamberlain's Umbrella

Neville Chamberlain was the Prime Minister of England at the time. He was often pictured carrying an umbrella and making nice with Hitler.

D.A.R

Daughters of the Revolution, a ladies society that promoted patriotism. They trace their descendants back to the Revolutionary War.

Mr. Lawrence

D.H. Lawrence, novelist best known for Sons and Lovers.

Dizzy Dean

A ball player for the St. Louis Cardinals in the 1930's.

Famous and Barr

A St. Louis department store.

Hogan Gang

A St. Louis crime ring.

Jewel Box:

A floral green house in Forest Park in St. Louis, built in 1936.

Mazda Lamp

Electric lamp invented by Thomas Edison

Merchant Marine

The Merchant Marines deliver goods and services during peacetime. During war they were part of the Navy.

Purina

A hot whole grain cereal.

Extras

Click Here for an additional Cultural Context Worksheet.

Click here for a Vocabulary Worksheet for students.

Themes and Symbols

'Oh, be careful - If you breathe, it breaks! (Laura, Scene six)

The Past vs the Present

'Isn't it funny what tricks your memory plays?' (Jim, Scene seven)

Everyone is affected by their memories. In extreme cases (and really are we interested in any other kind?) either the memories are so good the present can't live up to expectation, or so bad that one is unable to escape their grip. That is the essence of the theme of past vs present in The Glass Menagerie.

The past and the present engage in a rather quiet but violent tug of war for all the characters in the play.

The characters want the present to be better. They either want to be free of the past or experience the freedom they had in the past. None are able to achieve that freedom and it hampers their ability to live successfully in the present:

• The whole play is Tom's re-living of the past. There is a suggestion this is something he does often. At the end and after everything, he admits his memories of Laura continue to haunt him; he desires anything that 'can blow [her] candles out' and leave the past behind. Though Tom has physically freed himself from the past, emotionally he's still quite caught.
• Amanda desires to travel back to her youth, back to Blue Mountain with her seventeen gentlemen callers, and her obsession for jonquils. She fully associates the past with freedom and would do anything to return there. Amanda's struggle between past and present is also shown through the looming, ever-present smiling portrait of Mr. Wingfield. She loves him and wants him to return so that their life can pick up where it left off.
• Jim was a hero in the spotlight back in high school and he has been unable to keep up the same aura in his current less-than-glamorous shipping clerk job. He is in constant motion to improve himself with public speaking and radio engineering classes and talking about the future of America. But because Jim is trying to recapture his youth, he never moves forward with his life. He only moves in circles; he'll be at the shoe warehouse fifty years from now wondering where all his ideas went.
• Even Laura uses the past to freeze herself in a motionless present. The memories she has of the sound of her brace, 'like thunder' appear more traumatic that the reality of her actual disability. She uses these past memories to define herself as a 'cripple' and as an excuse not to do anything in the present. Laura's memories of her disability strangle her completely, even though it's clear she's strong enough to walk all day, as she does instead of attending business school.

Questions

1. Why does Tom relive this story, the time leading up to his leaving?
2. Why does the father's picture remain on the wall?
3. Is there any truth to Amanda's memory? How many callers were there?
4. Do you have a memory from the past that still affects you in the present?

Activities

1. Improv a scene when the Wingfield family was all together. What was it like?
2. Improv the scene where Amanda accepts her 17 gentlemen callers. Knowing what you know of her present personality, what was she like as a girl? Was the actuality anything close to Amanda's memory?
3. Improv a conversation between Jim and Laura in high school. Decide if Laura's brace is as obtrusive as she thinks.

Traps vs Escapes

'We nailed him into a coffin and he got out of the coffin without removing one nail. There is a trick that would come in handy for me – get me out of this 2 by 4 situation!' (Tom, scene four)

All of the characters in The Glass Menagerie are trapped, and desire some form of escape. The only character who feels trapped and actually manages to escape is Mr. Wingfield. He abandoned the family sixteen years ago with only a postcard from Mexico as a good bye. The rest of the characters are not so successful:

• Amanda is trapped both by the vision of how a southern gentile woman should live her life and her current environment which is as far from southern gentile as one can get. Amanda feels that others should provide an escape for her – Tom should keep his job, Laura should work toward a career or learn how to 'trap' a man, Mr. Wingfield should return.
• Tom is trapped under Amanda's thumb as he toils day by day as the sole breadwinner. He is caught between his duty to his family and his desire to escape his family. He uses temporary escapes by going to the movies and drinking heavily. When he does eventually physically escape, just as his father did by abandoning the family, he is still trapped by his memories.
• Jim is trapped in his vision of past success and what he should be doing to recapture it. He completely resists the notion that it's not happening nor will he ever escape his humdrum life at the factory. He wants to escape the ordinary and reclaim the hero status he has as a youth. But the bubble of delusion is hard to break.
• Laura is trapped in her own mind. She lives in such an illusionary world she can hardly leave the house. Every time there is stress or conflict, the outside world invades, she escapes into the glass menagerie or by winding records on the victrola. She would rather the outside world not exist at all. The only reason that she can let Jim in, is that the high school version of Jim is very present in her imaginary world.

Even the world at large is full of traps and escapes. Tom talks about America being trapped in the Depression, a 'school for the blind,' a period of waiting with no movement forward.

Question

• If Tom imitates his father's means of escape, has he really escaped? Or just exchanged an physical trap for an emotional one?

Activities

• In groups build a physical representation of the trap that holds each character. What is it made of? What elements of the play can you use in the trap?
• In groups, come up with the ideal world for each character. What is their perfect escape?

Reality vs Denial

'So what are we going to do the rest of our lives? Stay home and watch the parades go by? Amuse ourselves with the glass menagerie, darling?' (Amanda, Scene two)

The theme of reality vs denial is different than traps and escapes in a very interesting way. It's not that the characters aren't aware of the real world:

• Amanda sees Laura 'drifting' and knows what Tom is planning with the Merchant Marines. She's not above working unsavory jobs such as magazine subscriptions. She knows what the future will hold if something doesn't happen.
• Tom knows the real world is moving in slow motion in circles around him. If he's not careful he'll be fifty years at the shoe factory going to the movies and never moving.
• Jim can see the reality of getting ahead. He's actually right on the money when he talks of science, technology, and television.
• Certainly Laura's grasp on reality is the most tenuous of the four, but she's not completely in the dark. Laura knows she's destined to be an old maid, knows it's better to deceive her mother than tell the truth about the business college because of how Amanda will act, and knows that it's Tom who has to apologize to get Amanda talking. She defines herself by the unicorn figurine and therefore, since she knows the unicorn is a 'freak' she must know that she herself is a freak too.

These characters know the real world exists around them. But they do not accept it. Laura is not the only character living in a fantasy world. They each do not accept their reality. They actively deny reality.

• Amanda, who has no control of her impending descent, imagines a world in which she is in complete control. Amanda denies the reality of her situation by trying to control those around her with an iron fist. Laura is not cripple and will see as many gentlemen callers as Amanda did long ago on Blue Mountain. Tom will not read the books she's disapproves of. Jim will marry Laura.
• At the beginning, Tom denies his reality by going to the movies and in booze to manufacture the adventure missing in his life. It may seem that he faces reality when he joins the marines and escapes, but abandoning the family doesn't solve any of his problems. It's just another aspect of denial. He doesn't move forward in the real world, he still wallows in his memories.
• Jim denies reality because he would rather be the high school hero than an adult moving forward in the real world. This is shown by the fact he's achieved nothing since leaving high school, working in a job not much better than Tom's. He has to be happy noticing the size of his shadow when he stretches as that's the only 'big' thing about his accomplishments.
• And poor Laura denies reality to the point that she would prefer it not exist at all. She gets sick so she doesn't have to go to the business college, she faints so she doesn't have to eat dinner with Jim, she slips on the fire escape when she has to leave the house. She denies reality by creating her own world of illusion centred around glass figurines and the victrola.

Building upon the theme of traps and escapes, the characters cannot accept reality because to them reality is a trap. They don't see the real world as viable or wonderful.

Questions

• How does each character see the world around them? Think in terms of colours and emotions.
• What is the difference between how Laura denies reality and the way the other characters do?

Symbols

'I have a poet's weakness for symbols.' (Tom, scene one)

A symbol is a representation of something else. Almost every person, place and thing, represents something else in The Glass Menagerie. Tom himself could be considered a symbol if you think of him as a direct representation of the playwright! It's important to embrace the symbols, they are a part of the play's expression and Williams' desire to keep away from straightforward realism.

The Menagerie

'Glass is something you have to take good care of.' (Laura, scene seven)

Menagerie: a collection of wild or unusual animals.

Laura has a large collection of glass figurines that she's been collecting for at least thirteen years. She spends time polishing them and watching the light shine through them. She defines herself by the unicorn – alone in the modern world but never complaining.

Poor Laura. There is nothing tangible in her life but fragile pieces of old-fashioned glass. She has no life other than the glass. When Jim asks her what she's been doing since high school, she has no answer but to refer to her menagerie:

'Oh, please don't think I sit around doing nothing! My glass collection takes up a good deal of time.' (Laura, scene six)

The menagerie is the physical symbol of the life that Laura leads. She desires to be frozen like her glass. Laura is the human embodiment of the menagerie; delicate and old fashioned as she winds the victrola in times of stress. Williams is very clear of this association as in scene six he describes in the stage directions Laura standing in front of the mirror in her new dress:

A fragile, unearthly prettiness has come out in LAURA: she is like a piece of translucent glass touched by light, given a momentary radiance, not actual, not lasting. (scene six)

In one light Laura is nothing but a blank page, completely invisible and see through. In another, she shines like a rainbow.

The symbol of the menagerie goes further than Laura. The notion of frozen glass that is sometimes see through, and sometimes temporarily radiant appears in other connotations in the play. Tom talks about the glass sphere in the Paradise Dance hall that filters the light 'with delicate rainbow colors.' (Tom, scene five) When Amanda and Tom are looking at the moon, Amanda admits that her wishes are 'transparent' for her family. (scene five)

The other characters are versions of frozen glass. Amanda would love to be frozen in time as the young debutante, Jim as the high school hero. They live in cages of their own making.

And finally, all the characters in the play are frozen glass because they are memories. They are never-changing, never moving forward or back. Just like the frozen glass of the animals, the characters themselves are trapped in a menagerie.

Questions

• Two of the menagerie are broken during the course of the play. Who breaks them? What is happening at the moment of the breakage? How does Laura react in each moment? What is the significance?
• What happens to the unicorn figurine? What is the significance?
• Why does Laura give Jim the unicorn?

Activities

• In groups, create your own glass menagerie. Have each person in the group come up with an animal that represents them the most, with an explanation as to why they chose it.
• What happens when Laura looks through her glass? In groups decide what she sees. What image of the world appears? Are the images clear or distorted? Now have each of the other characters look through the glass. What do they see? What image of the world appears?

The Fire Escape

'The apartment faces an alley and is entered by a 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.' (opening stage direction, The Glass Menagerie)

Again, there's no subtext here. As we've talked about, escape is a buzz word for these characters. The Fire Escape is an escape. An escape to the real world (Tom very specifically talks about descending the fire escape for the last time at the end of the play) and an escape from the real world – it's no accident that the only time Laura leaves the house within the play she slips on the fire escape. The fire escape is the bridge between worlds and it's significant that this is how the characters enter and exit the Wingfield home.

Why is Tom always on the fire escape? It's not to smoke; it's to escape the world Amanda would like to confine him in. Amanda works to fit the fire escape into her southern persona. Though she says the fire escape is 'a poor excuse for a porch,' (scene five) she 'sits down gracefully and demurely as if she were settling into a swing on a Mississippi veranda.' (scene five)

Questions

1. What does the fire escape look like?
2. What does Tom think of the world inside the house?
3. Why is Laura so determined to stay inside her own little world? What does it hold for her that the outside world does not? Why does Laura fear the outside world?
4. Why does Laura slip on the fire escape?
5. Why does Tom call the fire escape, 'the terrace' when Jim is there?

The Magician

'Yes I have tricks in my pocket, I have things up my sleeve. But I am the opposite of the stage magician.' (Tom, scene one)

The Magician and the magic referenced in the play directly represent the magical escape that Tom desires. He wants to be whisked away from his life. He views his life as a coffin from which he fears he will never escape.

Also, as the narrator, Tom orchestrates the action, the audience sees what he wants them to see much like a magician does.

• 'Tom motions for music and a spot of light on Amanda.' (scene one)
• 'Tom motions to the fiddle in the wings.' (scene two)

Being a memory play filled of Tom's memories, we only see what he wants us to see,which begs an interesting question: how much is real and how much is magician's illusion in The Glass Menagerie?

As a pure side note, Williams had a very difficult time dealing with his father. His father's middle name was Coffin. Coincidence? In this play, nothing is a coincidence!

Questions

1. Why does Tom give Laura the scarf from the magic show? Does Tom want Laura to escape as well?
2. A recent Florida Rep production of The Glass Menagerie had Laura gently place the scarf over the sleeping Tom and then whip it off to see if he had transformed. Discuss this simulation of magic in this moment.
3. When Tom says that he is the opposite of a stage magician, what does that mean? Since the magician refers to Tom's escape, does the 'present' Tom feel that he has ever escaped?
4. Is the name 'Malvolio the Magician' significant?

Activities

• Read the paragraph in Scene Four where Tom describes the magic show. Discuss the paragraph in groups. What is Tom trying to say? Did he actually see a magic show? What is the significance of the scarf? Why do the stage directions say to illuminate the father's picture at the end of this moment?

Extras

Click herefor a Symbol Worksheet.. There are other symbols in the play such as the victrola, jonquils, the gentlemen caller, the candelabrum, the movies, the Paradise Dance Hall, the father's portrait, Amanda's cotillion frock, and Blue Roses. This sheet can either be completed individually or in groups with each group responsible for one symbol.

Characters

Questions

• Who are the characters? Are they real? Are they ghosts? Are they nostalgic memories?
• Who is the main character? Is it Tom because he is the narrator? Is it Amanda because she rules and drives the story forward? Or is it Laura, who is everyone's focus?

Activity

• Everything we see in the play is from Tom's memory, and therefore, Tom's perspective. In groups, re-write moments in scenes six and seven (anything to do with the gentleman caller in the house) from another character's perspective. For example, how would Jim see his conversation with Laura? Would Laura see herself as so frightened and timid in the moment when Jim is first at the door?

Amanda

'A little woman of great but confused vitality clinging frantically to another time and place.'  (Tennessee Williams describes Amanda in the Dramatist Play Service version of the script, page 8)

Clings is an excellent word to describe Amanda. She clings to a vision of who Tom and Laura should be. She clings to the notion that Laura will receive a gentleman caller. She clings to the idea if Tom doesn't drink he'll be a good man. She clings to the idea that she loves Mr. Wingfield and he will one day return (why else would his picture remain on the wall?). And mostly, she clings to the vision of herself in the past living a gentile socialite life with seventeen gentlemen callers awaiting her every word.

Amanda, despite all this clinging, is quite practical. She has a strong mind and a strong will: She raises the family when the father leaves, she is willing and able to step into the real world and take on horrible jobs. She has a strong love for her children, and believe it or not, wants the best for them – whether they agree with her or not. Amanda is a strong woman,who uses her strength on on the wrong things. She uses her strength to try and wrench the world around to they way she wants it. She tries to force reality to her whim. She fails at every step but never gives up.

Character Moment: Read scene six where Amanda appears in all her 'girlish' splendor, reliving for herself and everyone what she was like as a young girl taking callers. It is a sight to behold as Amanda works herself up into a fever first describing the cotillion and then putting on a southern show for Jim and Tom. The following two moments are perfect examples of Amanda trying to wrench the world to her way of thinking and failing miserably. Her vision of the past is so strong, but so pathetic at the same time. It's important to play Amanda as equally strong and pathetic so that she doesn't come across as a caricature.

In groups read aloud these two moments: 

One: When Amanda first appears in the dress for Laura and tells her 'fever' story ' 'This is the dress in which I led the cotillion...' to, 'And then I met your father!'

Discuss:

1. What possesses Amanda to wear the dress?
2. How does Amanda come across? Why is she telling this particular story?
3. Amanda tells so many stories, has Amanda ever told the 'how I met your father' story?
4. What is Laura's reaction? What is she doing in this moment?

Two: When Amanda appears in front of Tom and Jim. 'Well, well, well, well, so this is Mr O'Connor...' to, 'But feels so good – so good an' co-ol, y'know...'

Discuss:

1. When Jim arrives, is Amanda taking on the role of the young girl for herself or for Laura?
2. Amanda sounds different in this monologue. What does she sound like? Why does she make this change? Why is it significant?

Questions

1. What flower represents Amanda? What does it say about her?
2. Does Amanda ever realize that she is responsible for the way her children have grown up?
3. Is Amanda an evil character?
4. What is Amanda trying to do when she gets rid of Tom's books?
5. Does Amanda understand her children?
6. Does Amanda love her children? Why or why not?
7. Why does Amanda refer to Laura as 'sister' or 'little sister?'

Activity

• Improv a scene in which Tom and Laura are the perfect children in Amanda's eyes. What would make them ideal to her?

Tom

'You think I'm crazy about the warehouse? You think I'm in love with the Continental shoe makers?' (scene three)

Whatever the discussion about who is the main character, or who is the focus of the play – nothing happens without Tom. Tom is the one who remembers, who opens up his memory to share this little slice of life from his past. He is the only real character in the play – the rest are fragments.

We see two versions of Tom:

Tom in the present looking back, reflective and poetic. He speaks in vivid often sorrowful images:

'The cities swept around me like dead leaves, leaves that were brightly colored but torn away from the branches.... (Scene Seven)

Then there is Tom in the past – always seething, always angry, one foot out the door, and one foot firmly caught in the trap that is his family.

'Look! I'd rather somebody picked up a crowbar and battered out my brains than go back mornings!' (scene three)

This Tom is always ready to fight, to yell, to run, to do anything to escape, if but temporarily, from his existence. This Tom is a lover of words. He writes poetry (writing poems on the inside covers of shoeboxes gets him fired), and he reads. The contradiction between angry outburst and a love of poetry is a great one to have in a character. Tom should always be played pursing those two emotions.

Character Moment: In groups, compare and contrast present Tom and past Tom. What remains the same between the two versions? What differs? Is the present Tom is looking back on his past with nostalgia or with pain? Is this look back something that he desires, or is the guilt so intense that he forces himself to remember?

In groups read aloud these two moments:

One: Tom's last monologue in scene seven starting with, 'I didn't go to the moon...' to 'Blow out your candles, Laura – and so good-bye...'

Discuss:

1. What does 'Blow our your candles' mean?
2. Has Tom really escaped? Does he find happiness away from his family?
3. Has Tom's escape turned out the way he imagined?
4. Does he feel guilt or freedom?
5. What does Tom think of his sister? How does he treat her throughout the play?
6. Why does Tom remember Laura at the end of the play and not his mother? 
7. Are Tom's actions (leaving the family) justified? Why or why not?

Two: The monologue at the end of scene three, beginning with, 'I'm going to opium dens!'

Discuss:

1. Tom calls his mother 'a ugly babbling old witch.' Is this the first time he's done so? Is he speaking in the heat of the moment or does he know how much those particular words would hurt her?
2. Why is Tom so angry?
3. The lead-up to this monologue is that Amanda doesn't believe Tom spends all his time at the movies. Do you? Is he lying? What do the movies (whether he goes or not) represent for Tom?
4. Is Tom an alcoholic?

Question

• Some productions split the role of Tom so that there is a young man playing the past version and a middle-aged man playing the present. What do you think of this theatrical choice?

Laura

'Laura is very different from other girls.' (Tom, scene five)

Laura is the focus of the play, whether she is speaking or not. Lights shine on her even when she's not in conversation. Amanda is obsessed with Laura's tendency to 'drift.' Jim is overcome enough to kiss Laura even though he has a fiancee. At the end of the play Tom pleads with her to let him go.

Laura is an interesting character and one who is very easy to mis-play. Her symbolism is pervasive; she is practically another figurine in the menagerie after all. Time and time again she is symbolically described as something unreal - she is linked to the unicorn, her nickname is blue roses. And with the intense attention paid to her 'sickly' demeanor it would be easy to portray her as a frozen, fragile, one-dimensional character.

There's more to Laura than that. For example, Laura is very specifically described as different. Jim uses the word as a compliment:

You know – you're well – very different! Surprisingly different from anyone else I know! Do you mind me telling you that? I mean it in a nice way...' (Jim, scene seven)

The description comes across as someone who is unique, not a frozen piece of glass. There is strength in Laura as well:

• How could a supposedly fragile girl walk in the dead of winter from 7:30 am to 5 pm?
• Instead of hiding from Tom and Amanda's fight, she convinces Tom to apologize.
• She is strong enough to give away her most prized possession to Jim.

As with Amanda, Laura's strength is misplaced. Her energy goes into retreating from the world rather than learning how to live in the world. Characters with potential, no matter how faint, who fail at reaching that potential are always interesting to watch.

Questions

• How crippled is Laura? Does she still wear braces? Laura uses her limp as an excuse not to do anything with her life. How valid an excuse is it?
• Everyone in the play has a dream. What is Laura's?

Activities

1. In groups stage the dance between Laura and Jim. Have some groups pronounce Laura's limp, and have other groups have her hardly limp at all. Which is more effective to the portrayal of her character?
2. Improvise a scene with Laura at the business college. How does she act in the outside world?
3. What will Laura's life be like in ten years? Improvise a scene.

Jim

'My interest happens to lie in electro-dynamics. I'm taking a course in radio engineering at night school, Laura, on top of a fairly responsible job at the warehouse. I'm taking that course and studying public speaking.' (scene seven)

Jim speaks like an infomercial. That's how you know he's full of something, and it isn't roses.

When I was reading and researching The Glass Menagerie in preparation for this newsletter, Jim is the character who intrigued me the most. Williams describes Jim as 'a nice ordinary young man.' And within the play itself, Tom describes Jim as the 'most realistic character,' and as an 'emissary from a world of reality.' Both descriptions paint a specific picture of Jim – ordinary and real. But when I look at this character I see him as anything but real and far from living in the real world.

Jim is the oft-mentioned gentleman caller. He works as a shipping clerk at the shoe factory along with Tom. He's the guy who, in Amanda's mind, is going to instantly fall in love with Laura, marry her and save the family (i.e. Amanda) from their situation. This does not happen.

I suppose when you're thinking about Jim and his connection to reality, he is the element that is supposed to draw Laura out of her own world and into the real world. But even at that, I see Jim as just as caught up in his own version of a glass menagerie as Laura is.

Jim speaks in platitudes and sound bites. He still lives in the glory of his high school days and has a vision that his future will recapture that glory. It's not hard to imagine that he will spend the rest of his days at the shoe factory. If he were really an ambitious fellow, he would have done much more with the six years than land a job that pays only slightly more than Tom's does. If he were some one who lives in the real world, he wouldn't have got so caught up in Laura's attention (of his high school self) and kissed her when he has a fiancee.

This might be a completely different view than what is often thought of for this character, but that just means it's a great jumping off point for discussion.

In groups read aloud the following monologues

• 'You know what I judge to be the trouble with you?'
• 'Why, man alive, Laura!'
• 'Because I believe in the future of television!'

Discuss

1. How do you see Jim? Is he realistic, or is he deluded?
2. What is his place in the play? 
3. Do you think Jim will achieve his goals for the future?
4. Does Jim know his adult life thus far has been disappointing?

Activities

1. Read Jim's words like a TV infomercial, like a tele-evangelist, like a door-to-door salesman. How do these styles change the intention of his words?

Mr. Wingfield

'A telephone man who fell in love with long distance!' (Amanda, scene six)

Of course, we can't leave a discussion of characters without talking about Mr. Wingfield. Always present, with his smiling face looking down at the family, yet never-present, with his escape to Mexico, Mr. Wingfield has a grip on this family.

Mr. Wingfield is the only character who physically escapes the world and the family by disappearing without a trace.

Questions

1. Why does the picture remain?
2. What does the picture represent in the play?
3. Does Amanda believe he will come back and save them? 
4. Amanda says that she loves her husband. Does she really? Why or why not?
5. How much is Tom like his father?

Activity

• In groups highlight all the lines that reference Mr. Wingfield. Make a list of what you know about him, and then fill in the blanks to create a character profile. With this character profile create two scenes: the day that Amanda and Mr. Wingfield first met, and the last conversation between Amanda and Mr. Wingfield.

Resources

• An indepth look at the play from a pretty jaunty, tongue in cheek point of view.
• Review of the original production
• Lesson Plans
• An Internet Webquest focusing on Laura
• Study Guide Questions
• Another Study Guide

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Free Resources

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Conference Alert

Here's our upcoming conference schedule. If you're attending, please drop by and say hi!

• NCTAE - North Carolina Theatre Arts Educators Fall Sharing 2010 Monroe, NC
  Sep 18, 2010 to Sep 19, 2010
• Educational Theatre Association,Annual Conference New York
  Sep 30, 2010 to Oct 4, 2010
• FATE Conference
  Oct 16, 2010 to Oct 16, 2010
• CODE Conference Niagara on the Lake Queens Landing
  Oct 29, 2010 to Oct 31, 2010
• Texas Thespians
  Nov 18, 2010 to Nov 20, 2010
• Missouri Thespians
  Jan 5, 2011 to Jan 9, 2011
• 2011 TETA Conference Houston, Texas
  Jan 27, 2011 to Jan 31, 2011
• Florida Junior Thespians
  Feb 11, 2011 to Feb 12, 2011
• Florida Thespians
  Mar 16, 2011 to Mar 20, 2011

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