The Glass Menageriea play by Tennessee Williams

menagerie: a collection of animals

Tennessee WilliamsBorn Thomas Lanier Williams in

Columbus, Mississippi in 1911His family moved frequently but most

of his school years were spent in Missouri near St. Louis

Williams did not get along with his father, a traveling salesman

His mother was overbearing and somewhat hysterical, but supported Williams’ desire to write

Rose WilliamsWilliams had a younger brother, Dakin,

but it was his older sister, Rose, that he was close to

Rose was beautiful, sweet and intelligent, but suffered from schizophrenia which worsened as she got older

In 1937, a devastating event occurred. Tennessee Williams’ parents authorized a prefrontal lobotomy for Rose, who was growing more troubled and paranoid

Rose Williams -ContinuedA prefrontal lobotomy is a procedure

that involved inserting an ice pick through the patient’s eye socket to sever nerves that joined the prefrontal cortex to the rest of the brain-it was suppose to relieve psychiatric strain

This procedure completely destroyed Rose mentally and she was never able to care for herself again. This broke Williams' heart and caused him to suffer his own mental collapse

Williams-The Glass MenagerieTo deal with his fragile mental

state Tennessee Williams would write

He turned Rose’s suffering into a short story and then a play, The Glass Menagerie

Laura=RoseThe Glass Menagerie made

Williams famous! It premiered in 1944 and received excellent reviews and won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award

Williams -continuedHe had difficulty dealing with his

success and moved to Mexico to escape the spotlight and to write

In the 1960s, Williams suffered a mental breakdown

Few of his later works received critical praise, nevertheless he continued to write

Tennessee Williams died in New York City in 1983

The Glass MenagerieTennessee Williams called The Glass

Menagerie a “memory play.” It is a dramatic rendering of the memories of

the narrator, Tom Wingfield.He is not an objective director or narrator,

thus the play unfolds in an impressionistic, highly symbolic fashion.

Though not autobiographical, the play contains characters drawn from his own life.

Williams seeks to show how any artist can engage mental and emotional pain through the process of art itself

The Glass Menagerie- continuedSocial and Historical Background

◦Play takes place in 1937◦The Great Depression-The New Deal-

Labor Disputes-the plight of workers and the trend towards unionism

◦The Little Steel Strike –May 30,1937-protesting steelworkers marched in Chicago and were fired upon by police. Ten of them were killed.

continuedThe Flint Sit-Down Strike-1936 & 1937-

The General Motors Corporation was crippled by the strike, which was orchestrated by the United Auto Workers (UAW)

The bombing of Guernica in Spain-April 26, 1937-bombed by German and Spanish forces during the Spanish Civil War. Revolutionaries were trying to overthrow the leftist coalition that had won the 1936 elections (leftist groups generally support worker’s rights and the organization of labor)

Themes and MotifsTheme- a central idea or main themes of a

work Motif- a reoccurring theme, element, or

dramatic situationThe Absent FatherThe Artistic TemperamentThe Decline of the Old SouthThe Importance of Words, Books, and ArtMagic and IllusionsDifficulty of Accepting RealityThe Power of MemoryAbandonment

Symbolism and ImagerySymbolism-an object, person, or event that

represents something beyond itself such as an idea, belief, or value

Imagery-the use of figures of speech to create vivid images that appeal to one of the senses

The Glass MenagerieReligious ImageryThe Victrola (Music)The Fire EscapeFlowers The Glass Unicorn

The Glass Menagerie CharactersAmanda Wingfield

◦ the mother◦clings to another time and place◦part tenderness, part cruelty

Characters ContinuedLaura Wingfielddaughter, sisterchildhood illness left her crippled,

one leg slightly shorter than the other, and held in a brace

lives in a world of illusions

Characters ContinuedTom Wingfieldson, brothernarrator of the playpoet that works in a warehousedesire to escape his reality

Characters continuedJim O’Connor (the gentleman

caller)a nice, ordinary, young mancoworker of Tomwent to high school with Laura