The glass menagerie Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

The glass menagerie - Essay Example tom the vote counter regards his mother with compassionateness which he was unable to express when he lived under the roof. This variation in the wanton away is the slow divagation from the truthfulness of reality. In the play the narrator presents Amanda not as the villain but as a lonely woman caught up in a helpless situation, as a woman whose commodity intentions are not appreciated by anybody. As the narrator Tom is also an emissary from the alfresco valet de chambre. He follow throughs and narrates the ills of the society in conflict. The narrator views the plight of the family against the larger background of the ills of the society at his time. The ills of the microcosmic family are viewed by the narrator as the outcome of the ills of the microcosmic society. Tom the narrator has come to see that the Wingfeild family is not the only family lost in illusion. The whole American society is viewed by the narrator as taking refugee from such unpleasant realities as the depression, the on-coming war, the pettiness of the life of the individual etc. Tom the fount essentially concerned with himself. He sees the outside world as a quest for freedom with an melodic phrase of limitless possibilities. As Bigsby says he has fallen in love with long distance (Bigsby 38) tho Tom the narrator is wiser. He can see the sufferings of the Wingfeld family as being part of vaster social malady. Tennessee Williams in the sugarcoat menagerie has ordered his vision in a clear schematic design. In the opening moments of the play Tom the poet figure, speak to the audience of of the conventions Being a memory play it is dimly lighted, it is sentimental, it is not graphic . When he refers to the gentle man caller he says He is the most realistic character in the play being an emissary from a world of reality that we were somehow set apart from. But since I have poets weakness for symbols, I am using this character also as a symbol The glass menagerie is a synthetic image an illusion projected by an imaginary camera eye, turned inward upon the self and backyard upon the memory. Williams collates several images of past from the fragments of shattered consciousness and in short the play represents a recapitulation of the poetic journey of Tom. Toms last speech in the play summarizes his grasp of universal truth I did not go the moon, I went much further for time is the longest distance two places for now a days the world is lit by lightening There is very little action in the play and in that respect is no pattern of casual development in Toms vision. Thus the glass Menagerie is a memory play both in approach and content. Tom himself says that the drama lack realism but more symbolic in nature. The narrators memory is so clear that he can overt events with more flexibility. The role of Tom is double as the recollection of a narrator and also as the character who acts within the limits of recollections. Thus he is able to depict the tension amidst objectively presented dramatic truth and the truth presented through memory. Tom successfully do this by sometimes addressing the audience and sometimes presenting himself as an actor with the necessary emotions . This double role sometimes confuses the audience. Since the play is autobiographic we can notice the similarity between the playwright and his memories nearly his own youth. Who was Tom or what was his opinions about his poetry or his readings, are unknown to the audience. But Tom