Tennessee Williams's first major drama, The Glass Menagerie, is a memory play in which Tom Wingfield, the drama's main character and narrator, is recollecting the events that caused him to leave his family. The play is thought to be solely fiction, concocted by a fanciful mind. A deeper look into the life of Williams reveals that there is little made up about the play. In The Glass Menagerie, Tennessee Williams blends the fictional characters of Tom, Laura, and Amanda with the reality of Williams, his sister Rose, and his mother Edwina to create a truthful drama.

One of the first examples that suggests Williams is describing himself is the depiction of the Wingfield family apartment. The Wingfield family lives in the rear of a large apartment building that over looks an alley in St. Louis. In the play's opening description of setting, Williams calls the apartment ". . . one of those vast hive-like conglomerations of cellular living-units that flower as warty growths in overcrowded urban centers of lower middle-class population . . ." (Williams 693). This description reveals that the Wingfield's live in an overcrowded urban slum. The description of the Wingfield's apartment r

Another example which suggests that Williams is describing himself in the drama is his mentioning of the fire escape outside of the Wingfield's apartment. Toward the end of the play, Tom uses the fire escape as a way to get away from the nuisances that he finds in his family's behavior. In scene five, Tom escapes to the fire escape in order to get away from his mother's constant vocal disapproval of smoking. In scene six, Laura's shyness causes her to retreat from a dinner guest, Jim O'Connor, to the Victrola. When Jim looks to Tom for an explanation, Tom answers in an unconcerned voice, "Laura is - terribly shy," and walks out onto the fire escape (719). These examples depict that Tom uses the fire escape as a real escape from the aspects of his family that he would rather not deal with. The depiction of Tom's utilization of the fire escape as a way to escape from his family resembles the way in which Williams escaped from his disliked living situation. When Williams lived in St. Louis, his family's apartment was very cramped, and had windows in only three of it's six small rooms. There was so little natural light that the lights were left on for much of the day. Williams tried to escape his gloomy apartment by sitting for many hours on the fire escape which was outside the back bedroom's windows (Williams and Freeman 20). The similarity between Tom's and Williams' use of a fire escape again shows that Williams is writing about himself.

Tom Wingfield in many respects is very similar to the young Tennessee Williams; as Laura and Amanda are similar to Williams's sister Rose and mother Edwina. By using this unusual form of narration, Williams could mirror his own personal experiences with his family.

Another example of Williams's depiction of his life in St. Louis is in Laura's recollection of high school with Jim O'Connor. While in high school, Laura wore a brace on her leg that made a noise when she walked. This gave her a feeling of inferiority. During their conversation, Laura tells Jim, ". . . it was so hard for me, getting upstairs. I had that brace on my leg - it clumped so loud . . . it sounded like thunder . . . I had to walk in front of all those people. My seat was in the back row. I had to go clumping all the way up the aisle with everyone watching!" (724). Laura's long walk from the front to the back of the auditorium, at her high school, was an embarrassing experience. Williams's portrayal of Laura's trip from the front of the auditorium to the back, resembles a situation which Williams and Rose may have had to face themselves in high school. According to Hale, Soldan High School, which both Williams and Rose attended, housed an auditorium that seated over 1,000 people. H

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Approximate Word count = 1827
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)