The Glass Menagerie first opened on March 31, 1945. It was the first big success of Tennessee Williams' career. It is in many ways about the life of Tennessee Williams himself, as well as a play of fiction that he wrote. He says in the beginning, "I give you truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion" (1147). The characters Tom, Laura, and Amanda are very much like Williams, his sister Rose, and his mother Edwina. We can see this very clearly when we look at the dialogue, and the relations between the action in the play and the actions in Tennessee Williams' life.

The first character that we will look at is Tom, the narrator. It can be interpreted that Tom is a likeness of Tennessee Williams. There are many similarities between his life and Tom's life. Some of them are about his own actions, and some of them are about the actions in the life of his family. First we will look at Tennessee Williams life, and how it is much the same as the life of the character Tom in The Glass Menagerie.

He is the narrator, "an undisguised invention of the play. He takes whatever license with dramatic convention as is convenient to his purposes" (1147).

The last thing is that Tennessee Williams and his sister were very close. She followed him around like a ghost through his life and his art, because she was not really there with him. But he loved her very much, like Tom in The Glass Menagerie loves his sister Amanda. Tom says to his mother, "Laura seems all those things to you and me because she's ours and we love her. We don't even notice she's crippled anymore" (1166).

After this in real life and in the play there was one "gentleman caller" for Rose/Laura, who never returned. "Resume your seat, little sister - I want you to stay fresh and pretty - for gentlemen callers! I'm not expecting any gentlemen callers" (1148). "We are going to have one ... What? ... A gentleman caller!" (1164). "Do you realize that he's the first young man we've introduced to your sister? It's terrible, dreadful, disgraceful that poor little sister has never received a single gentleman caller!" (1164). Both in the play and also for the real Rose Williams, many hopes were pinned on this young man who in the play is called Jim.

Tennessee Williams dropped out of school when his father asked him to. He went to work in a shoe factory, but he hated it. In the play, Tom says, "Listen! You think I'm crazy about the warehouse! ... You think I'm in love with the Continental Shoemakers? You think I want to spend fifty-five years down there in that - Celotex interior! With - fluorescent - tubes! Look! I'd rather somebody picked up a crowbar and battered out my brains - than go back mornings!" (1156) . Both Williams and Tom blamed their families for the horrible jobs that they were in.

Another fact is that Jim in the play calls Laura "Blue Roses". This is also a sign that Laura is Rose. In one scene they even have the same name, where Jim calls her this.

Edwina tried to find Rose a mate by sending her to Business College, but her first assignment failed and she did not continue with it. In the play Amanda says to Laura, "No dear, you go in the front room and study your typewriter chart. Or practice your shorthand a little. Stay fresh and pretty! - Its almost time for our gentlemen callers to start arriving ... Mother's afraid I'm going to be an old maid" (1150). Amanda had also sent Laura to some kind of a school for secretaries. But also in the play it fails and Laura does not get a job to support herself or to meet some men who can take care of her.

Tennessee Williams also had a great depression, like Tom. He managed his depression by writing poetry and plays that we just talked about. He left home to live in New Orleans when he

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Approximate Word count = 1761
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)