... characters in Tennessee Williams's Glass Menagerie are Jim O'Connor and Amanda Wingfield. Amanda is a Southern Episcopalian and the typical southern belle. Jim is an Irish Catholic that is not much of a gentleman, which is seen when he calls his ex, Emily, a kraut-head. Amanda is very protective of her children. She does not want ... has an inferiority complex. His advice is to think of herself as superior in some way and to have faith in herself. Jim and Amanda are also people who had higher expectations in life than what they are doing and what they have done. Jim was voted most likely...

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• Grade Level: High School

... who played a drastic role in life of the other characters; they were Blanche DuBois and Amanda Wingfield. Written by the same playwright, these two main female characters featured characteristics that were similar to both. Blanche and Amanda were "southern belles" who couldn't adopt a new lifestyle other than that of the southern ... ordeal that both characters had problems dealing with. Their inability to change to the urban lifestyle caused them to be inferior to society. Amanda's experiences from the South caused her to push Laura into doing things that she thought was customary. She...

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• Grade Level: Undergraduate

The action of The 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 and the need to live one's own ... life. The outer conflict lies in the clash of Tom's hunger for independence and discovery versus Amanda's archaic, "old south" Christian morality. Tom seethes for freedom and adventure; joining The Union of Merchant Seamen as a scapegoat from a perfunctory,...

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... psychological disarray. Anyone who is sheltered in a minute space for an extensive period of time is susceptible to some unhealthy side effects. Because Amanda does not leave the shelter of the apartments, she continues to treat her adult family as if they were children, she is not aware that ... not all people are like her, and she constructs and inhabits a false reality to replace the real world existing outside the apartments. Amanda's isolation causes her the inability to view her children as adults with rights, desires, and feelings. She does want the best for her daughter. ... th...

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... from his reality by leaving his family and not contacting them after he has done so. Each member of the Wingfield family has their own escape mechanism which they use to hide or escape from the real world. Amanda has chosen to hide from reality by trying to relive her past. She is living in the unreality of her youthful memories and ... that word.? (p 247). Amanda believes that if she denies something so much, that it will not be true. This also occurs when Laura thinks that the gentleman caller will be her high school crush, and Amanda denies that it could be,It won't be him! It isn't ...

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... larger level, that coffin can be seen as membership in the "fundamentally enslaved section of American society" that Williams describes in the stage directions. The Wingfield's apartment does not have a balcony or porch; it has a fire escape landing. This is no accident. Turning once more to the stage ... fires" of her family's desperation. And it is Laura, crippled physically but much more so emotionally, for whom there is no escape. Tom and Amanda have a brief exchange about instinct versus civilized adulthood. Tom yearns for true adventure: "Man is by instinct a lover, a hunter, a fig...

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• Grade Level: High School

... the world exists. While Jim O'Connor exemplifies these characteristics and represents reality in the play while each of the members of the Wingfield family are living in their own manufactured illusions to escape reality. Indeed, to survive in the tawdry confines of lower-middle working ... . The Wingfield family was deserted by the father and left to fend for themselves. The father's desertion can be blamed on society. What was a happy home has now turned into a home without a future. All of the Wingfields have their own problems; the mother, Amanda lives in ... play. Opposite to Jim ...

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• Grade Level: High School

... the world exists. While Jim O'Connor exemplifies these characteristics and represents reality in the play while each of the members of the Wingfield family are living in their own manufactured illusions to escape reality. Indeed, to survive in the tawdry confines of lower-middle working ... . The Wingfield family was deserted by the father and left to fend for themselves. The father's desertion can be blamed on society. What was a happy home has now turned into a home without a future. All of the Wingfields have their own problems; the mother, Amanda lives in ... play. Opposite to Jim ...

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• Grade Level: High School

... The past was a wonderful experience for her compare to the reality which she a now an abandoned wife with two children. Mr. Wingfield was cruel to leave the family but Amanda still loves him. She wears his bathrobe and often looks at the portrait of her husband. She can not put the past behind ... 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, have manner in eating, and stop smoking. ... devot...

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... and 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 each ... . 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 wit...

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... different interpretations and one of the plays" main themes is that it is about a family trying to succeed. The Wingfield family, aren't quite living on 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 ... Keeping her Glass Menagerie safe and secure is also an important factor in keeping Laura happy too. Laura is forever stuck in her small world that Amanda has forced her into. The audience begins to have hope for Laura to find her feet in the world when Jim enters her l...

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... manipulation, and subservience. The playwright demonstrates Tom as a subservient male who is unhappy with his life. Williams displays Amanda as a manipulative well-spoken Southern woman who cannot let go of her past. The writer expresses Laura as a dependant female with fragile emotions. Laura Wingfield portrays a dependent female; whose crippled leg foreshadows the crippling of her emotions and her ability to communicate with ... becomes frightened to see him. Laura acts so frightened that she tells Amanda that she will "have to excuse her, she won"t come to the dinner table," when Jim ...

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... The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams revolves around the flaws of each of the Wingfields: Amanda Wingfield, a woman of a very confusing nature; Laura Wingfield, one who is partially crippled and lets that make her extremely self conscious; and Tom Wingfield, one who is seen as selfish, and feels trapped and is looking for a ... way out. Williams" characters are all lost in a dreamy state of illusion or escape wishing for something that they don't have. The mother, Amanda Wingfield, was at one time the pick of the crop during her grandeur days of the Old South, but now she is weak an...

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... '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 ... Wharton) B-2 (Difference) Both characters differ in that Tom is obligated to his sister, Laura, and Ethan is obligated to his wife, Zeena. Amanda had always told Tom that if he were ever to leave, he would've needed to make sure that Laura was doing okay. Becau...

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... In Tennessee Williams the "Glass Menagerie" the members of the Wingfield family are all trapped in menial existences. Enveloped in their delusions or 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, ... feelings of being...

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... an alcoholic 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 ... Jim O'Connor. Jim is a shipping clerk at Tom's warehouse, and makes a larger salary than Tom, but not quite enough to satisfy Amanda. At first Amanda seems disappointed in this, but once she learns that Jim takes public speaking lessons her disappointment fades away, because she believes this will lea...

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... 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 and felled in love with l...

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... a family that is unable to face reality, using a glass unicorn to represent one family member's uniqueness, Laura. Each Wingfield has a different way to avoid reality. Amanda will constantly refer everything in her life to the past, comparing her youth to the modern world ... sick in front of everyone (1413). She hides from everything that challenges her to be independent and make her own critical decisions. When Amanda confronts Laura about not attending her business classes, Laura unconsciously goes over to the Victrola and begins playing. People choosing to ignore their problems ... i...

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... Menagerie 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 ... and rainbows. One major symbol presented in the story is that of the fire escape, which has a different meaning and function for each of the Wingfield characters. For Tom, the fire escape is a means of escape from fire, not the type of fire that burns structures down bu...

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... try to prevent their children from repeating mistakes they may have made earlier in life. This is the case with the Wingfield family in The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams. Amanda Wingfield attempts to do what is best for her children, although she often provokes responses opposite of her reactions ... . Amanda is always trying to improve upon her children's lives. Amanda signs Laura up to go to Rubicam's Business College. She wants Laura to get a degree and be ... job to support herself. She wants Laura to be more independent, unlike herself, so she won't have to depend on other ...

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... was written and first performed in 1944. In the play, Williams describes the three members on the Wingfield family, their dreams, and the harsh realities they face in the society of the 1930s. The mother, Amanda, clings to her past life as a Southern debutant and hopes desperately that her daughter, Laura, ... will follow in her footsteps. Tom Wingfield, the narrator and Amanda's son, dreams of breaking free from the mundane, simple life he is forced to lead once his father has ... abandoned the family. Williams is able to incorporate elements such as setting, symbolism, and conflict to...

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... only four main characters or actors; a mother, brother, sister, and the gentleman caller round out the people. The names given by Williams are; Amanda Wingfield to the mother, Laura the daughter, Tom the brother who narrates the play, and Jim the gentleman caller. The story progresses along the lines of ... dark skin folk and very close-minded when recalling these times. The three can't agree on whatever they"re talking about and the scene end's with Amanda feeling as though she is going to be an old maid. In the next scene, Laura catches her mother missing the D.A.R. (Daughters of the A...

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... 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 ... do it but, what she doesn't realize is that he is staying for 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 ... real...

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... of the 1930's. As a lower class family, the characters are placed in the slums of St. Louis in 1935. The protagonist, Tom Wingfield, is the narrator and Williams" surrogate. Living with his mother and sister, Tom supports them by working in a shoe manufacturing warehouse. He should ... Marine. Unhappy with what life has dealt him, Tom strives for adventure and longs to turn his back on his responsibilities. His mother, Amanda Wingfield, abandoned by her husband almost sixteen years ago, tries to keep her family together through tough times. Although her love and hopes for her ... the rea...

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... 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 of ... his escape. Lastly, Williams uses alcohol as a symbol of escaping reality. Tom also often gets drunk to escape his complications. This is noticeable when Amanda says "you had been drinking the night you were in that - terrifying condition! Laura says that you hate the apartment and that you go out ....

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• Grade Level: High School