Glass Menagerie/Coles Notes - Dark Publications

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5 out of 5 stars

Tennesse Williams's memory play about his lost family May 20, 2002
27 out of 31 found this review helpful

Amanda Wingfield, the matriarch of "The Glass Menagerie," always tells her daughter, Laura, that she should look nice and pretty for gentleman callers, even though Laura has never had any callers at their St. Louis apartment. Laura, who limps because of a slight physical deformity, would rather spend her time playing with the animals in her glass menagerie and listening to old phonograph records instead of learning shorthand and typing so she can be employable. When she learns Laura has only been pretending to go to secretarial school, Amanda decides Laura must have a real gentleman caller and insists her son Tom, who works at a shoe factory, find one immediately. After a few days, Tom tells Amanda he has invited a young man named Jim O'Connor home for dinner and at long last Laura will have her first gentleman caller.

The night of the dinner Amanda does every thing she can to make sure Laura looks more attractive. However, when Laura realizes that the Jim O'Connor who is visiting is possibly the same Jim on whom she had a crush in high school, she does not want to go through with the dinner. Although she has to be excused from the dinner because she has made herself physically ill, Laura is able to impress Jim with her quiet charm when the two of them keep company in the living room and she finally loses some of her shyness. When Jim gives Laura her first kiss, it looks as if Amanda's plans for Laura's happiness might actually come true. But no one has ever accused Tennessee Williams of being a romantic.

"The Glass Menagerie" was the first big success in the long and storied career of playwright Tennessee Williams. Written in 1944, the drama consists of reworked material from one of Williams' short stories, "Portrait of a Girl in Glass," and his screenplay, "The Gentleman Caller." In many ways it is an atypical drama from Williams, with the character of Tom (a role I will confess to playing on stage) serving as a narrator who breaks the "fourth wall" and addresses the audience, which evinces Williams' affinity for Eugene O'Neill (e.g., "The Emperor Jones") at this point in his career. Tom tells the audience that this play offers truth dressed up as illusion, and in his stage directions (which are usually not taken full advantage of in the various performances I have seen because what was cutting edge in 1944 is overly quaint today) he uses not only monologues but also music and projections to enhance the memories on display. Williams also explicitly tells his audience that the gentleman call is the symbol of "the expects something that we live for."

This "memory play" tells of a family trapped in destructive patterns. After being abandoned by her husband, Amanda Wingfield, a woman of the Great Depression, has become trapped between worlds of illusion and reality. She says she wants what is best for her children, but seems incapable of acknowledging what that would be or actually providing it for them. Tom, tired of only watching adventure at the movies, is determined to break away from his dominating mother, but stays only for the sake of his sister. Laura may not be the glamorous belle of the ball her mothers wants, but she has her own inner charm and when confronted with Jim, a visitor from the normal world, there is the chance that she will finally claim her life as her own. This is a poignant drama on the importance of love and it represents a memory of not only family but also of loss.

5 out of 5 stars

-What i thought of it- September 12, 1999
25 out of 32 found this review helpful

I enjoyed the book, The Glass Menagerie. It wasn't too long and it was very interesting to read. This was my favorite out of all the summer reading books i had to read. One reason is that it is written as a play. The play focuses on three main characters: Amanda, the mother, her daughter Laura, and her son Tom. I also liked it because it is one of those books you can't put down. I found myself wondering what was going to happen next. I perceived the atmosphere of this play to be a sad one. It's not like a sudden tragedy had occurred, but just their day-to-day life seemed hopeless. I felt sympathy for the characters. I wanted to give them help and support at times! Amanda and Tom always fought with one another. Tom was sick and tired of the way he had been living. He wanted real adventure instead of just watching it on the movies. Laura, on the other hand, was content to sit at home with her glass menagerie. Their mother, Amanda, had become so obsessed with finding a gentleman caller for Laura that everything else almost didn't matter anymore. Amanda always reminisced of how she had so many gentleman callers in her day. She wanted the same for Laura. But Laura was much different than her mother was. It wasn't that easy for Laura to meet gentlemen. Amanda needed to realize and accept that. I was impressed by this play. It was filled with emotion and diverse characters. They were almost oblivious to reality. They had their own worlds and expectations of what life should be. Their struggles to make their lives better were desperate and real. In the end we don't really know how everything turns out, but we were left thinking that anything could happen.

5 out of 5 stars

Ranks as One of the Finest July 18, 2002
12 out of 17 found this review helpful

There are few American playwrights who rank as highly in the Pantheon as Tennessee Williams. He is up there with O'Neill, Miller and Albee as amongst the quintessential dramatists of the 20th century. This is one of his earliest, and in some respects his most timeless, of his scripts. No one can argue that it his most autobiographical, as it portrays a cloyingly suffocating matriarch, Amanda, and a younger sister, Laura, who are both interchangable characters for Williams' own little St Louis family. Actually, in real life, the outcome was much more tragic, as Williams' mother had a frontal lobotomy performed on his actual sister. One can see how Williams may have harbored some deep resentments towards his mother, and he spends most of his time getting even with her in this Euripidean play.
Though recent adaptations of this play have emphasized the "touchy-feely" aspects of the relationship between brother and sister (Why does Treat Williams come to mind?), the actual script lends itself to a much darker, Medea-like interpretation, which I believe Williams originally intended. This is Williams way of getting back at the evil Witch of the West who dominated his youth and who would exert her influence upon him for the rest of his life. It doesn't take a Freud to untangle this thread.

5 out of 5 stars

For those of you who don't like it- PLEASE READ October 27, 1999
10 out of 15 found this review helpful

If you hated this play, chances are, you didn't understand it.With the characters, the plot was inevitable. Have any of you actually read about Tennessee Williams and his life? Its has AMAZING comparisons to his real life. Amanda is stuck in the past, how can she be looking for a suitor? Laura is amazingly timid, and she, like the rest of the family members, lives in her fantasy world, so shy she can barely bare reality. Tom is trapped in-between his fantasy world, reality, and responsibility. Think about it from Amanda's point of view, not just Tom's. For those of you morons who hate the book, not all books have happy endings, just TRY to understand the book before you judge.

5 out of 5 stars

An excellent play March 27, 2000
8 out of 9 found this review helpful

This play is one of the most moving, realistic works ever written. Each character is given such an intricate psychology that they feel real.You are able to empathise with each character's pain, hope and reality. For those of you who say it is boring, don't read classics anymore. The play is not about plot but about REAL people in REAL situations with profound symbolism and harsh, harsh reality. From start to finish, this play shapes itself. Every word must be there. Every scene has to exist or the meaning would be lost. Real life isn't exciting, it is filled with emotion and thoughts that no other writer has ever been able to potray so well as Tenesse Williams. This is definately his finest work and a true gem in American Literature.

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