The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams

Synopsis:

This is a play by Tennessee Williams. It is a memory play based on Tom’s recollection of his mother Amanda and sister Laura that takes place in the 1930s in St. Louis.

Tom works at a shoe warehouse to support his family, but wishes to become a poet and escapes from reality by going to the movies every night, and feels burdened by the pressure of having to support his family.

Amanda is Tom and Laura’s mother and a Southern belle who grew up in Mississippi. She was abandoned by her husband and had to raise Tom and Laura on her own. Amanda lives in the past and can not accept reality. She is obsessed with finding a gentleman caller for Laura and worries about Laura’s future because of her illness and her extreme shyness and isolation from the world.

Laura is Tom’s sister and has a limp because of a childhood illness. She is very fragile, shy, and isolated from the outside world, and lives in a world of her own because of her own with her collection of glass figurines. Laura dropped out of high school and a secretarial course because of her shyness.

Jim works with Tom at the warehouse as a shipping clerk. He was a popular athlete and actor in high school and studies public speaking and radio engineering.

Tom invites Jim over for dinner as a possible suitor for Laura. Laura had a crush on Jim throughout high school, but because of her shyness nothing happened between them. Jim sees Laura’s lack of confidence and encourages her to have faith in herself. He compliments Laura and kisses her, but afterwards tells Laura he is engaged.

Amanda finds out that Jim is engaged and is angry with Tom, but Tom did not know. At the end of the play, Tom leaves home permanently and does not come back.

Review:

I enjoyed this play and found it to be very touching and heartwarming.

“We have to do all that we can to build ourselves up. In these trying times we live in, all we have to cling to is each other.”

“When you look at a piece of delicately spun glass you think of two things: how beautiful it is and how easily it can be broken.”

“Why, you’re not crippled, you just have a little defect-hardly noticeable, even! When people have some slight disadvantage like that, they cultivate other things to make up for it- develop charm and vivacity and charm.”

“I wish that you were my sister. I would teach you to have some confidence in yourself. The different people are not like other people, but being different is nothing to be ashamed of. Because other people are not such wonderful people. They’re one hundred times one thousand. You’re one times one. They walk all over the earth. You just stay here. They’re common as weeds, but you’re blue roses.”