Glass Menagerie: Broken Glass
The Glass Menagerie describes the harsh realities people face in a modern world. In my opinion, The Glass Menagerie exposes the lost dreams of a southern family and their desperate struggle to escape reality. Williams' brilliant use of symbols adds depth to the play, allowing it to be interpreted on many levels. The glass menagerie itself is a symbol Williams' uses to represent the broken lives of Amanda, Laura and Tom Wingfield and their inability to live in the present. The remembrance of Mr. Wingfield by the photograph being on the wall also represents the theme of escape. The glass menagerie symbolizes Amanda Wingfield's overwhelming need to cling to her past and her fulfilled fear of being alone. Amanda resents the poverty-stricken neighborhood in which she lives so much that she needs to mentally escape from it by invented romance and self-deception.The common theme of The Glass Menagerie is that hopeful aspirations are followed by inevitable disappointments. It is shown through the use of symbols and characters. "I have only one major theme for my work, which is the destructive impact of society on the sensitive individual." Symbols help to show the dreams and desires that the characters long for and also the restrict
All of this dreaming becomes so unrealistic that it eventually breaks homes because people can only take so many circumstances. Mothers being lost in the teenage years when she was young and popular. As if this is what makes a person real, being popular and pretty. Tom's world, being one of a writer, is living for the future and running from the burdens in his past. Wishing to live the adventures he saw in the movies. And even Jim, when in their presence falls back in to his past when he was a talented singer and athlete. So how could Laura be any different, she being the weakest of all the personalities in the play. So much a victim the circumstances she was surrounded by. At the end of the play when Tom looks at the pieces of colored glass, like bits of a shattered rainbow remembers that he has left his sister behind and prays that he will be able to move on without her. This represents so many modern families that break up families and then end up hurting the innocent person the most. Even though the rainbows appear to be positive signs throughout the book, they eventually all end in disappointment. The fact that rainbows are not what they appear to be helps to bring a sense of irony to Williams' work. "Irony is a device that protects him (the artist) from the pain of his experience so that he may use it objectively in his art. In The Glass Menagerie, it is ironic how Tom speaks badly of his father and his leaving home but in the end he leaves home just like his father, the man "in love with long distances". The fact that Amanda wants what is best for her children is ironic because
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Approximate Word count = 1077
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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