Life In The Shadow of Mendacity

“The Glass Menagerie”, the first successful play by Tennessee Williams, is about a young girl named Laura who is fragile and secluded. She walks with a slight limp, and as a result she shys away from the rest of society. She lives with her mother, Amanda, and her brother, Tom. The father was a traveling salesman who left them when Tom and Laura were children; as a result Tom has become the main financial support of the family. Over time Tom has grown very close to his sister and finds it very hard to leave home to experience the world because his sister has always depended on his love and support.

Analyzing “The Glass Menagerie”, we will show the emotional instability of characters in this play as true expressions of conflict in the Williams' family.

Conflict

Conflict takes place from the very beginning of the play. The very absence of the father as the head of the home provides an internal conflict. The mother, Amanda, is mentally unstable, always nagging about peevish matters concerning her children while continuously making negative remarks about her husband. The conflict seems to heavily weigh down on the lives of her children as a result of her own mental anguish, which all originally started from the father leaving the family while the kids were young. The spiritual foundation was ripped out of the family socket causing heartache, mental anguish, and spiritual death. Love was present in the home but in the absence of nurturing, caring, and compassion. The family also was missing order in the home when the father left. The father represented a source for solid support and comfort. A provider and balance for emotional growth and stability of the children. Take that divine surge of power and authority away; you have lack of confidence, instability, and a bleak model for true commitment.

Although the characters lived together, they turned inward and closed off communication with one another in reaction to the agonizing grip of mother and her negative thoughts of the past in which she chose to waddle. We see a good example of this when Tom comes to the dinner table and as he begins to eat; his mother begins to fuss and complain about how he is eating like an animal. As he ignores her and continues to eat, she plants a gross image of salivating animals in this mind. She continues and Tom finally has enough and tells his mother how he disapproves of her constant pecking at how he is eating. This was a good example of how Tennessee did not have a very close relationship with his mother. He could never satisfy her moods. She was always fussing and complaining at Tom and his sister. The underlying issue in much of this conflict is that Tom's mother is deeply hurt by his father leaving her and the kids with the mom having an extra weight of responsibility that she was not ready for. As a result, Tom's mother acts out the pain and sorrow she has hold close to her heart for so long. Even though Tom and Laura are adults, the mother continued to talk to them as if they were still toddlers. She often put them down and made them to experience and face much of the pain and rejection she felt. As a result, Tom and Laura became very close, creating a unique bond of love and support for each other.

The play did an excellent job in expressing the personality of Laura. She avoided conflict by often hiding in her room. Laura also was very meek and had a gentle spirit, which we can see by her quiet nature and passive response to conflict. Laura was also very self conscious which was expressed her limp. She knew this was not the norm; as a result, she selfishly closed off to the rest of the world around her, depriving it of the true essence of who she is.

If one carefully analyzes the very nature and character of Laura, they could see that she was not crazy. The problem of outburst she later experienced may have been caused by separating herself from the rest of society as a result of being overly self-conscious of her limp. It may have also been a result of her mother's treating her with little patience and lack of unconditional love. Laura, which is the character that portrayed Tennessee's real sister, had her heart embedded in the only truly unconditional relationship and love she ever had, her relationship with Tom.

When Tom finally left home, a part of his sister went with him. Without the presence of her brother Tom in her daily life, she could not live a functionally normal life. Tom was her source of strength and stability that she could rely on. Laura had not friends because she always stayed home, and when Tom left, the only friend she ever really knew walked out of her life. She then became like a lonely tulip left to rot as the waters of life finally eroded away her soil of life, leaving no more support base and nutrients of which she could continue to sprout. The mom in the shadow of the absence of the father was the erosion and Tom symbolized the soil.

Atmosphere

The atmosphere of the play is very weighty. It is as if there was a lot of dead weight in the home like old clothes draped on a clothes line in a misty rain representing the vivid and dreary memoirs of the father's inability to provide a strong structural foundation of support and peace in the home. The mother continuously reflects on the past and how their father left them. Her voice and comments are like the continuous crunching of glass against clanging symbols, irritating and provoking in nature, as a result of the pain and resentment she felt for being fooled into a blue lagoon called, “love”, by the father. But, all along the seemingly silent and peaceful atmosphere portrayed by Laura was simply a masking for the constant inner turmoil she sought to suppress by enveloping herself into the magical setting of the glass menagerie.

Setting

The setting of “The Glass Menagerie”, takes place in an alley apartment of St. Louis. The mood of the place is very quiet without the slightest hint of neighboring families. The building in which the family lives is very old and rugged as if to give off an appearance of desolation and seclusion from the rest of society.

Conclusion

Thriving mendacity in a family unit is like a burning fire that never ceases but only spreads to the surrounding brush in its path.

Maggie, Brick's wife, could be fighting for several different reasons. This may be a very important part of her, because she came from a poor environment. Thus, Maggie wants to ensure that she won't have to go back to being poor. To ensure that both Maggie and Brick are in Big Daddy's will, she lies to everybody, even saying that she is pregnant. In this case, she isn't just doing it for herself, but also for Brick, even though he doesn't care whether he's in Big Daddy's will or not. Maggie also could be fighting for Brick's love and attention. For example, in the first act of the play, Maggie is talking to Brick and he isn't listening to what she is saying. Brick keeps asking “Did you say something, Maggie?' Against Brick's will, Maggie keeps talking to him. Maggie seems to be the kind of person who needs attention. So she could be fighting for Brick's attention to ensure that she maintains her position in the family and is able to get closer to Big Daddy. And therefore assure that she and her husband stay in Big Daddy's will.

During the whole play, Gooper, Big Daddy's eldest son and Mae's husband, is fighting for several reasons and still doesn't get what he wants. For one thing, and maybe the most important, Gooper wants Big Daddy's love, but Big Daddy loves Brick instead and doesn't care for Gooper. Big Daddy never has and never will care for Gooper. He did everything that Big Daddy wanted him to do. He went to law school, got married, had six children, and still doesn't get any of Big Daddy's attention or love. He also wants his share of the will, which would be every thing that belongs to Big Daddy. Even when it comes to the will, Gooper won't get anything or much, because Big Daddy prefers Brick. It's apparent that whatever he wants, he will never get, because it involves Brick and Big Daddy. He fights for these certain possessions, because he should get Big Daddy's property and money, since he's the eldest son, and at least some of Big Daddy's love, for he is still one of Big Daddy's son. The audience can feel that Gooper thinks it's unfair and, in a lot way, it is normal for him to think so.

Mae is her husband's shadow or his other half, in a lot ways, because she supports everything he does or says and does what he asks her to do. She probably even thinks the same way as he does. She might be fighting more for Gooper's sake and for the same reasons as he does. Mae is really helping Gooper achieve what he wants and has always wanted. She is always behind him and supports him. She even fights and hates Maggie, because she wants every thing to go to Gooper and thinks it's unfair that the property and the money go to Brick, who is the youngest son, and to his wife. Mae thinks it's unjust, because Gooper has done every single thing that Big Daddy wanted him to do and still doesn't get anything, as mentioned earlier. Brick, on the other hand, is an alcoholic, the youngest son and gets everything. This is the irony. The character that seems least concerned about the family wealth, stands to benefit the most.

In Tennessee William's “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof”, Maggie, Gooper and Mae are fighting for similar purpose, but with different arguments. This play really shows how life is in certain families and the audience may or may not relate to the situation that the characters are living. The will is the focus of emotion and tension in the play. Big Daddy's will is a big part of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof”.

The music in the background symbolized Blanche's past. “Polka music sounds, in a minor key, faint with distance.” (96, Williams). The polka music symbolized Blanche's last dance with her husband. The polka music stops when she mentions the gunshot because that is how her husband died and the dance ended. The polka music plays throughout the play whenever Blanche is behaving in a way that was affected by the death of her husband.

The poker game is used to symbolize the way Stanley's life is going. In the first poker game Stanley is losing, this symbolized the coming of Blanche and the hard times to come with her in the house. During the second game, Stanley has very good luck; this symbolizes the leaving of Blanche from his home. These poker games are also used by Blanche to symbolize Stanley's apish gatherings of his friends.

The paper lantern was a very large symbol in the book. The paper lantern represented Blanche's wish to hide her past. Mitch was suitable to put the lantern on because Blanche was hiding her past from him and starting a new life. It was also great symbolism for Stanley to rip the paper lantern off at the very end of the book because he was the one who revealed Blanche's past.

There are many more symbols in the book as well, but would take much too long to place them all in a five-paragraph essay. The book has many symbols that attribute to it's meaning and its plot. The symbols bring greater meaning to the characters' actions and to their feeling and emotions. The symbols bring more emotion into the play as well. The symbols explained in this essay are very strong symbols in the play and easy to recognize. Though, there are a few symbols in the book that may be difficult to recognize, they are still there.