Writing Assignment Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams

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Illusions and Reality in the Glass Menagerie
“The Glass Menagerie” is a memory play that was written by Tennessee Williams. In both style and content, the events of the play are inspired by memory. The play revolves around two siblings and their overbearing mother as they try to survive hard economic times. One thing that becomes evident about the purpose of the play is the memories and illusions that bombard the characters. Each character faces a realization that the life they are living does not represent the life they envisioned for themselves and so they have found comfort and containment in fantasies or illusions that they cannot find in reality. For this reason, the play largely reflects on how the main characters Amanda, Tom, Laura, and O’Connor face difficulties accepting reality and so they have developed illusions and fantasies that are contrary to the reality they face. It is also important to access the literacy devices used to develop these illusions and fantasies.
Amanda Wingfield is one character who is living through illusions and does not seem to accept the reality of things. Amanda lives with her fantasies of her youth when she was young and admired by many suitors. This is evident in the way she repeatedly tells stories of her youth to Tom and Laura despite the fact that Tom seems fed-up with these stories. Amanda narrates “One Sunday afternoon in Blue Mountain, your mother received seventeen gentleman callers!” Amanda’s enthusiasm with her past youth shows that she has not let go of her Southern upbringing where she was a revered as a beautiful girl. Now that she is old and divorced, her constant stories of her past shows that she is living in fantasies. Further, Amanda’s difficulties in accepting reality is evident in the way she believes that Laura would also get a suitor to take care of her. When Tom says he has invited a man for dinner, she instantly believes that Laura has now gotten a suitor to marry her. She has not even met the man or know anything about his life but she instantly believes he is going to marry Laura. On the day Jim O’Connor is set to come for dinner, Amanda wears the dress that she used to wear in her youth. She says, “I wore it on Sundays for my gentleman callers!” This shows that Amanda is still living with illusions about her past and has not really accepted her current status.
Laura is also living through fantasies and illusions and facing a lot of difficulties fitting in the real world. Williams describes Laura as a young lady who is obsessed with a collection of glass figurines as her source of happiness. Laura spends hours each day cleaning and organizing the collection of her glass figurines. She is completely unable to cope in the real world as seen in her excessive shyness and fear that cripples her more than her physical disability. This fear forces her to retreat to illusions and fantasies as the only way to survive in her own world. For example, Laura drops out of Business College after only a few days because she was extremely nervous and shy. Williams writes, “Her hands shook so that she couldn’t hit the right keys!&rd...