The Glass Menagerie Analysis

Tenessee Williams is one of the most outstanding playwrights in American Theatre. His play The Glass Menagerie premiered in Chicago in 1944 and was an instant hit. It is set in the days of the Great Depression of 1930s when unemployment, inflation and shortage of necessary things had made the lives of people all over the world miserable. The playwright has sought to evaluate this era that caused financial as well as emotional trauma through depiction of the plight of a middle class family living in St. Louis, Missouri. The play deals with the memories of Tom Wingfield, an officer in the Merchant Navy, who had deserted his poor mother, Amanda, and disabled sister, Laura, in order to pursue a life of adventure but suffers from acute remorse due to his realisation of what his helpless family must have gone through in his absence. The objective of this paper is to study the reasons of Tom’s abandonment of his family and his perpetual anguish as its result.
At the beginning of the play, Tom Wingfield tells the audience that he is the play’s narrator as well as a character in it. The play takes place in his memory. After giving a brief introduction of other characters and social background, he joins his mother and sister at the dinner table. Amanda finds faults with his eating habits and gives him a lecture. She tells him not to push food with his fingers and chew it properly. Tom does not like her constant directions and gets angry. Amanda asks Laura to be prepared in case any