Tennessee Williams

THEMES/IDEAS• Work focuses on Southern experience.• Conflicts between sexuality, society,

and Christianity are large part of his drama and his life.

• All major plays are “memory plays”: a character experiences something profound that causes an “arrest of time,” a situation in which time literally loops around itself.

• That character must re-live that profound experience (caught in the loop) until he or she makes sense of it.

THEMES• Overall theme of his plays:

the negative impact that conventional society has upon the “sensitive, non-conformist individual.”

• Emphasizes the irrational, desperate condition of humanity in a universe in which cosmic laws do not work.

• Examines the conflicts between the gentility of old Southern values and the practical Northern values.

THE GLASS MENAGERIE: SETTING• Time: 1945 (although action in the play

occurs in mid-1930s). • Place: Apartment house in a poor, shabby

section of St. Louis, Mo. The action takes place in the Wingfield apartment and on the fire escape.

• Lighting: Impressionistic, selective (not fully illuminated).

• Music adds to the nostalgic, gently melancholic tone of the play.

• This is a “memory play,” and neither the settings nor the events are completely realistic. Tom, narrating while dressed as a merchant seaman, says he will provide “truth in the pleasant guise of illusion.”

CHARACTERS: AMANDA WINGFIELD

• Grew up as a Southern Belle – has definite ideas of gender roles

• Ignores the present: relives the glory days of her past and tries to make “plans and provisions” for the future for her children

• Denies her daughter Laura is crippled

• Sells magazine subscriptions over the phone to make money

• Her husband was an alcoholic who abandoned the family.

• Obsesses over the futures of her unmarried daughter and moody, ne’er-do-well son

CHARACTERS: LAURA WINGFIELD

• Daughter of Amanda, sister of Tom

• Very fragile and delicate (like the glass menagerie)

• Translucent beauty

• Delicate exterior – freaks out at the slightest social

challenges and runs away

• Has a crippled leg which cripples her socially

• Retreats from reality

• Passes her life going to the zoo, listening to phonograph records, and polishing her collection of glass animals (glass menagerie).

• Homebody- no social interaction

• Acts a mediator between Amanda and Tom

CHARACTERS: TOM WINGFIELD

• Narrator

• Cynical

• Has a burning desire to get the heck out of town

• Feels trapped by his nagging mother and his

boring life at a shoe wharehouse

• Longs to have his own life full of adventure

• Escapes reality by going to the movies and smoking on the fire escape

• Says he and his missing father are similar – willing to abandon the family and never come back

CHARACTERS: JIM O’CONNOR

• Gentleman Caller Amanda is always nagging about – hope for Laura’s future

• “a nice, ordinary, young man”

• Went to high school with Laura – best loved guy in her class – the IT BOY

• Very sincere and has an honest desire to help Laura

• Drawn to her romantically

• Calls Laura “Blue Roses” because she is unique

• Has a secret

THE GLASS MENAGERIE: THEMES

• Appearance vs. Reality• Escape• Deception and Lies• Dreams, Hopes, and Plans • Memory and the Past

MOTIFS

• Obsession

• Escape

• Entrapment

• Deception (reality versus appearance)

LIGHTING

• In the play’s original production notes, Williams describes the lighting as “dim and poetic.”

• The lighting, along with the “gauze curtains,” lends an unreal aura to the set, suggesting that this family functions in a dream world.

• Lighting gives the “pleasant disguise of illusion.”

• It also focuses on absent characters, most notably Mr. Wingfield through his photograph.

MUSIC

• It is used throughout the play to evoke mood and haunt memory.

• Williams once described the recurring glass menagerie theme as a tune that is light, delicate, and as fragile as spun glass. He said: “It is primarily Laura’s music, and therefore, comes out most clearly when the play focuses upon her and the lovely fragility of glass which is her image.”

KEY SYMBOLS/MOTIFS

• The glass menagerie: Laura’s collection of animal figurines represents the fragile relationships among all the characters.

• The glass unicorn is a symbol for Laura.

• The glass motif recurs throughout the play: • For example, Laura visits the conservatory at the zoo, a haven for

tropical flowers that are as vulnerable as she is outside of the glass world they live in.

• A glass ball that hangs from the ceiling of the Riverside Dance Hall reflects rainbow colors and represents the dreams of the dancers.

OTHER SYMBOLS

• The glass unicorn The lampshade

• Blue Roses Father’s picture

• The fire escape Yearbook

• Movies Postcard

• Coffin trick

• Jonquils

• Paradise Dance Hall

IMPORTANCE OF COLORS

Color: blue is associated with Laura, and yellow is commonly linked to Amanda.

• Blue Roses suggests a phenomenon contrary to nature. There is an opposition between these strange, different flowers and the natural, sunny jonquils associated with Amanda.

• In the original version of the play, Amanda’s party dress (in Scene 6) was described as a “girlish frock of yellowed voile” and the light that surrounds her as “lemony.” Yellow equates to Amanda’s outgoing and optimistic attitude; blue denotes Laura’s melancholy outlook.

VOCABULARY & ALLUSIONS: SECNES 1 & 2

• Blue Mountain: small town in northern Mississippi where Amanda grew up.• D.A.R: Daughters of the American Revolution; national women’s organization of descendants of patriots of the American Revolution.• Doughboy: a nickname for WWI infantrymen.

• Guernica: a town in the Basque region of Spain that was the site of a massive and brutal attack during the Spanish Civil War. • Metropolitan star: a star in New York’s Metropolitan Opera.

• “Ou sont les neiges” French: “Where are the snows”• “Ou sont les negies d’antan?” French: “Where are the snows of yesteryear?”

• portiere: a heavy curtain hung across a doorway.

VOCABULARY & ALLUSIONS: SCENES 3 & 4

• pleurosis: inflammation of the lungs

• Celotex: a type of fiber board used for building insulation.

• Hogan Gang: an infamous crime family from St. Louis.

• D.H. Lawrence: English novelist and poet best known at that time for

“Sons and Lovers.”

• Daumier: French painter, sculptor, and caricaturist, known in his

lifetime chiefly as a social and political satirist.

VOCABULARY & ALLUSIONS: SCENES 5 & 6

• ash pits: large mounds of ash left over from coal furnaces.

• Berchtesgaden: an area of southeastern Germany, now a national park, known for breathtaking views of the German Alps.

• Franco: general during the Spanish Civil War who eventually became the ruler of Spain.

• jolly roger: the black flag with skull and crossbones associated with pirates.

• Merchant Marine: the fleet of U.S. ships that carried imports and exports during peacetime and became a naval auxiliary during wartime to deliver troops and war materials.

VOCABULARY SCENES 5 & 6

• Purina: a hot, multi-grain breakfast cereal made from oats, wheat, and millet.

• cakewalk: a dance with a strutting step based on a promenade.

• malaria: an infectious disease transmitted to humans by the bite of an infected mosquito.

• quinine: a bitter extract from cinchona bark used as a tonic to treat malaria.

• jonquils: a species of narcissus having a small yellow flower.

• cotillion: a formal ball where debutantes are presented.

VOCABULARY & ALLUSIONS: SCENE 7

• Century of Progress: an international faire held in Chicago from 1933

to 1934, the theme of which was science and industry.

• Mazda lamp: first lighted lamp invented by Thomas Edison.