... has abandoned her and their children. She has to live with the fact that her son, Tom could turn out a drunkard and also her daughter, Laura who in life may not achieve much because of her shyness. Amanda is a strong human being even though her family life as well as her own ... needs her children to be proud of their mother. Amanda needs to release her grip on this past and move on. Amanda's personality reflects a domineering character. She cannot refrain herself from making decisions for her two children. Her many ways of motherly love, sometimes seems too much for any person. At one...

• Word Count: 532
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... this paper I would like to compare the lives of two fairly young adults, Tom and Laura Wingfield. Being brother and sister, living in the dream world of their mother, they both hide from what reality has to offer. Their Mother, Amanda Wingfield, loved her children dearly. Maybe too dearly, she loved her children in such a way she ... long. Amanda, deep down knows the day is coming that Tom will leave. She says "But not till there's someone to take your place." She wants Laura, not herself to be taken care of. At that moment in the play Tom is the breadwinner in the family and up to this ...

• Word Count: 547
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... causing his own seclusion. The name Tom is something that both of them share. This is an interesting phenomenon because since they are so close in character and in symbolism that one wonders if the names were not just a coincidence. However, at the culmination of each work of literature, the characters, ... through a similar action, display their distinct differences. Both Tom Joad and Tom Wingfield leave their families. The difference in character lies in the motives behind each Tom's departure. Tom Joad exists in a family with strong family ties. The family is intertwined and relies ....

• Word Count: 861
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... Glass Menagerie takes place in the Wingfied's apartment in St. Louis, 1937. This play is framed around the memory of its narrator, Tom Wingfield. Tom's predicament is one of the play's major themes. This theme can be best described as the conflict between responsibility for one's family ... throughout the play Tom seems to be struggling to just tolerate Amanda and while Amanda is loving, she is demanding beyond reason. Tom is character of true melancholy. Though he longs for freedom, his obligatory feelings toward his family keep him in St. Louis. Despite his feelings of obligation, Am...

• Word Count: 458
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

Scenes 1+2 The Wingfield apartment faces an alley in a lower middle class St. Louis tenement. There is a fire escape with a landing that serves as a porch. "The ... play, from the rainbow reflections of the dance hall's glass ball to the magician's rainbow scarf. Delicate, illusory, fragile, fleeting, they capture something essential of Laura's character. Christian religious imagery also abounds, though not perhaps in any coherent way. In this scene, Tom's inebriated account of the magic show ends with his description ... boredom. On a larger level, that coffin can be seen as membership in t...

• Word Count: 5517
• Approx Pages: 22
• Grade Level: High School

... technology and gives it a high regard because the emphasis society places on it. Thus, Jim symbolizes the only aspect reality in the play. Opposite to Jim is Laura, who represents illusion. Laura Wingfield portrays a dependent female; whose crippled leg foreshadows the crippling of her emotions and her ability to communicate with people other than Tom and Amanda. She evades the characteristics ... of reality entirely through her imagination. Laura's damaged leg began to haunt her throughout high school. Amanda would tell Laura that she just had "a little defect, hardly noticeable even- ...

• Word Count: 1784
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: High School

... put the past behind her. Amanda is obsessed with her past as she constantly reminds Tom and Laura of that one Sunday afternoon in Blue Mountain. She chooses to live in the past. She hopes that the gentleman caller is not handsome because Mr. Wingfield is handsome and he wins her heart in a second. She does not want Tom to be a drunk ... 't have much of at work, so I go to the movies." Since his life is full of responsibility, money, future of Laura, boring job. He wanted more in his life than just a worker in a shoe factory. Tom is very much like Mr. Wingfield because they left home to s...

• Word Count: 1092
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... technology and gives it a high regard because the emphasis society places on it. Thus, Jim symbolizes the only aspect reality in the play. Opposite to Jim is Laura, who represents illusion. Laura Wingfield portrays a dependent female; whose crippled leg foreshadows the crippling of her emotions and her ability to communicate with people other than Tom and Amanda. She evades the characteristics ... of reality entirely through her imagination. Laura's damaged leg began to haunt her throughout high school. Amanda would tell Laura that she just had "a little defect, hardly noticeable even- ...

• Word Count: 1745
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: High School

... leading impoverished lives of symbolic displacements, they are almost a family of outcasts. Laura Wingfield is the main focus, who is living in a world of glass ornaments. Amanda Wingfield, Laura's mother, suffocating in her own affections, places her desires indirectly towards Laura. Additionally, there is Tom Wingfield, Laura's brother, who is immersed within a world of movies. Laura resembles a wounded animal, mirroring her own fears of failure. The "Glass Menagerie ... to collect her trinkets of glass. In his play, "The Glass Menagerie", Tennessee Williams uses the imagery of a glas...

• Word Count: 1214
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

... me down again. That's mostly what kept me interested. To me all the family wanted was happiness and the tragic part was they never got it. The first character in the play is Tom Wingfield, he seems to be in his late 20's, and he works in a factory but aspires to be a poet/writer. He supports his "crippled" sister and mother because ... her benefit not his. The next character in the play is the mother, Amanda Wingfield she is extremely overwhelming and pushy, as you know, to her son. She is also constantly protecting her daughter from reality at the same time without realizing she was tr...

• Word Count: 850
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... these relationships is a significant theme throughout the play. These "escapes" may be related to the fire escape, the dance hall, the absent Mr. Wingfield and Tom's inevitable departure. The play opens with Tom addressing the audience from the fire escape. This entrance into the apartment provides a different purpose for ... Her escape seems to be hiding inside the apartment, not out. The fire escape separates reality and the unknown. Across the street from the Wingfield apartment is the Paradise Dance Hall. Just the name of the place is a total anomaly in the story. Life with the Wingf...

• Word Count: 840
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... set in St. Louis in 1937. " The Glass Menagerie" is a memory play drawn from the narrator, Tom Wingfield played by Michael A. Newcomer. Tom Wingfield who is also a character in this play is an aspiring poet who works in a shoe warehouse to support his mother Amanda played by Darrie ... Lawrence, and his sister Laura played by Christi Craig. Jim O' Connor played by Derek Phillips is the guy from high school who Laura had ... a devastating crush on and who now works with Tom at the warehouse. There is also a fifth character Mr. Wingfield ... , Tom and Laura's father who ran off years ago...

• Word Count: 746
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... since I have a poet's weakness for symbols, I am using this character also as a symbol; he is the long- delayed but always expected something that we live for (23). Williams gives the reader many emblems throughout the play; there are three of them are especially interesting. The unicorn symbolizes Laura's uniqueness, the picture of Mr. Wingfield represents his strong influence on his deserted family, and ... Malvolio's coffin trick signifies Tom's suffocating lifestyle. The unicorn is a symbolic representation of ways that Laura is unique or unusual. The first facet of the unicorn, its...

• Word Count: 531
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... the streets but they are poor enough. Amanda Wingfield is portrayed as a very pushy mother who always tries to urge on and persuade her two children to do exactly what she says. However, it is this sort of behaviour that I feel has lead her daughter Laura to be terribly timid and shy and reluctant ... to be a part of the world. This driving behaviour has lead her son Tom in the total opposite direction, constantly annoyed by his mother waiting for the perfect time to escape. And last but certainly not least, Amanda. The character most longing ... for succession - the American Dream. Ama...

• Word Count: 847
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... flawed and responsible for the tragedy that came upon them even though she didn't realize it. Laura Wingfield is a romantic, who has a physical defect which causes her to limp slightly. Laura is emotionally delicate, which causes her to escape to a world of beauty she created for ... herself. In reality, she is living in a world of despair. When Jim kisses Laura, she comes to reality and forgets about the broken piece of glass, and becomes a real person for a moment. But ... she lacks the strength to stay in reality, for when Jim breaks the news that he is engaged, Laura looks in her ha...

• Word Count: 551
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

This play takes place in the mid forties. It is about a mother, Amanda Wingfield, a daughter, Laura Wingfield, and a son, Tom Wingfield. There are five characters in this play. The other character is a friend of Tom's, Jim O"Connor. Amanda was always successful with men when she was younger. She was always getting proposals from rich and ... feels like a puppet on a string with her. Jim went to high school with Tom and Laura. He now works at the factory with Tom. He is dating a girl named Betty and they are engaged. He is brought to the Wingfield home as a gentlemen caller, and when Top brings...

• Word Count: 709
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... Tennessee Williams uses symbolism throughout his classic play The Glass Menagerie. Through the eyes of Tom Wingfield, a character in the play, the reader gets a glance into the life of his family. Tom's mother, Amanda, is a southern belle desperately clinging to her past. Tom has a sister named Laura and she is a twenty-something woman that is too fragile to function in society. Tom is ... . Symbols are a major part of this play. Symbols used in this classic play are the fire escape, Laura's "glass menagerie," and rainbows. One major symbol presented in the story is that of the fire esca...

• Word Count: 991
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... Frome. In The Glass Menagerie, Tom's actions act upon the similarities and differences to Ethan from Ethan Frome In Ethan Frome, Zeena's character and personality acts upon the similarities and differences to Amanda from The Glass Menagerie Even though both novels have similar and different points, each ... work tells the reader about dreams being unfulfilled. B-1 (Similarity) Ethan Frome and Tom Wingfield were both on a route to escape their obligations. In the beginning of scene four in The Glass Menagerie, Tom states how the coffin in ... both contain characters with comparable simi...

• Word Count: 1101
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... who ran off without a trace years before the story begins. We are led to believe that Amanda's anxiety, paranoia and neediness compelled his actions. Due to the disappearance of Mr. Wingfield, Tom, who is a poet by nature, is left to spend his day working in a shoe factory in order to support his mother and sister. We also start to see early ... convinces Tom to invite a young man from the warehouse to dinner, mostly because he no longer wishes to be pestered about it. This brings about the introduction of our supporting character, Jim O'Connor. Jim is a shipping clerk at Tom's warehous...

• Word Count: 774
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... two children Laura and Tom. Mr. Wingfeild left his family many years prior to the time this play takes place. The only representation, besides memories, is a large picture hanging in the living room. Each character in The Glass Menagerie has a need to escape from he or she's life. Tom Wingfield, a main character and ... sons of planters!"(Williams, 1103) The man she loves, that's why his picture still hangs, abandoned her. The fact that the picture of Mr. Wingfield hangs is an attempt to escape her life. By holding onto the past, and letting the portrait hang, she feels like she still ha...

• Word Count: 1336
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

The Search for Happiness Tennesse Williams examines the main theme of happiness in his play "The Glass Menagerie." The play revolves around the Wingfield family, a family caught in a life just outside the reach of happiness. Each family member strongly acts in different ways to fulfill their interpretation of individual happiness. But the family member's ... , will be left feeling trapped and incapable of finding true happiness. Williams first explores a family that is unable to face reality, using a glass unicorn to represent one family member's uniqueness, Laura. Each Wingfield has a differ...

• Word Count: 1763
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: High School

... in order to survive. Moreover, in Tennessee Williams' play "The Glass menagerie-, he exemplifies the plight of pursuing the American dream through the character of Amanda Wingfield. "The Glass Menagerie" is a memory play set in the 1940's during World War II but is told in retrospect to the late 1930 ... probably due to war, it was concerned with the health and happiness of your family. The main character Amanda Wingfield is a overbearing mother who has an imaginative son Tom and a slightly crippled, overly timid daughter Laura. She is a lonely mother whose refuge are her memories. Aman...

• Word Count: 2761
• Approx Pages: 11
• Grade Level: High School

... avoid reality. Through symbolism, William is able to emphasize how one will create an escape to avoid facing reality. In The Glass Menagerie, Tom Wingfield is unhappy with his life as his primary role is to work and provide for his family. Tom creates many escapes to avoid the reality ... life. Thus, by using these examples of symbolism, Williams is able to prove how one will create an escape to avoid facing reality. Another character in The Glass Menagerie that creates escapes to avoid reality is Tom's mother Amanda. Amanda creates escapes to because she too has difficulty accepting ma...

• Word Count: 1274
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

... " (439). She does not mind him leaving, but she wants him to make sure that she and Laura will be financially taken care of. Tom, also referred to as Shakespeare, is the main character in the play. He spends much of his time at home standing on the balcony, smoking, listening to ... concern whatsoever. He does leave the family, but belatedly realizes how much he cared for Laura. Not only was the coffin damaged in the disappearing act, the magician was hurt as well. Laura is the most secretly absorbed of any character in the play. She rarely speaks, and when she does, it is a response to ....

• Word Count: 875
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... , his traits, and his many other distinguishing characteristics. Our character, Laura Wingfield, from Tennessee Williams" play, The Glass Menagerie, suffers from a crippled leg that causes her to limp whenever she walks. Over time, her crippleness has ... up on the first day of class and never returned. Her shyness has alienated her to a point where even the most slightest conversation can frighten her. Laura is also afraid of confrontations. When she dropped out of business college, she walked around town or through the parks for months in cold and freezing weather ... just because of...

• Word Count: 759
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School