ipl-logo

The Glass Menagerie Gender Roles Essay

856 Words4 Pages

The Glass Menagerie, Tennessee Williams 1944
The text The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams written in 1944 is a semi-autographical drama written in play form. The text can be conveyed differently by two different readers supposing one reader is from 2016 and the other is from 1944. Many of the symbolism used in the drama would represent something different depending on the time era. For example back then Laura couldn’t be what she wanted to be, today on the other hand Laura could be a secretary and more if she wanted to. Women are always most likely to be discriminated upon. Throughout history we have had some catching up to do since women were recently able to enter the workplace versus a male who has always been portrayed as dominant and has always had the opportunity to obtain a career.
Gender roles plays a huge part in this because of the time period of the play. Amanda discusses what roles women have according to her Southern upbringing. Today, that isn’t enforced the same way and girls aren’t held to the high expectations that Amanda had for Lura. Amanda teaches Laura that her looks are the most important thing about her saying “You be the …show more content…

Women had societal roles and expectations that they had to follow. Of course in the 1940’s life for women was then beginning to expand, women at this point were now authorized to serve in the U.S Navy, but even then you must keep in mind that people in the 1940’s still had grown up with the mindset of women having to play a certain role for the family. Just because things were changing does not mean that people’s mindsets followed along right away. Men were constructed with the mentality that they had to be the providers for the families, the “breadwinners”. Women obtained little power being only as much as caregivers and housewives. Today, women are encouraged to to explore who they are and become who they want without gender inequality being the thing to hold them

Show More
Related

  • Women's Role In The Civil War Essay

    1545 Words  | 7 Pages

    Men were always the workers within the family, the ones that were expected to provide for their families. When they went to war, their role within community life needed to be filled. That is when their wives, daughters, and sisters stepped up and took over. “In addition to caring for their families, [women] were left to supervise businesses and farms while the men were away fighting” (Senker). Women were already cooking, cleaning, and caring for their children, but still made time to work and provide as a father figure every single day.

    Read More

  • 1950s Women

    1287 Words  | 6 Pages

    (Stoneham). These statements alone proves that people didn’t want women to follow their dreams or pursue anything out of what society had expected for them, women had to follow the path set in front of them and everything around them continued to push them the “right”

    Read More

  • The Glass Menagerie Compare And Contrast Essay

    1527 Words  | 7 Pages

    Tennesse Williams wrote the play The Glass Menagerie and Lorrain Hansberry wrote the play A Raisin in the Sun, which both similarly talks about families that are very much alike and different consecutively. Two characters really caught the attention of being different and similar in many aspects. These two characters are Laura Wingfield, from The Glass Menagerie, and Beneatha Younger, from A Raisin in the Sun. Laura and Beneatha both live in a fatherless household where their mother’s reign above the household and where their brothers are a primary source of income along with their mother’s income. Though I concede that both Laura and Beneatha are capable of working hard and achieving goals, I still insist that Beneatha has a brighter future

    Read More

  • Flappers Thesis

    938 Words  | 4 Pages

    Before the 1920’s, during World War 1, women were pushing social boundaries by creating large emphases on education, wage gaps, work conditions, and breaking the traditional gender roles that society puts in place . These women were encouraged to leave their housework behind and join the war efforts by taking over their husband’s jobs. During this time, many women's organizations, clubs, and unions were forming all trying to create spaces where women felt safe enough to address their experiences and issues publicly. Although these were very progressive advancements, there was a latent understanding that once the war was over women were expected to go back to their housework, and give the men their jobs

    Read More

  • Hills Like White Elephants Gender Roles Essay

    696 Words  | 3 Pages

    Oday Alyatim Gender Studies Prof Qualls Hills Like White Elephants In the short story Hills Like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway, the characters Jig and the man are out on vacation traveling from Barcelona to Madrid through train. While at the train station, they experience began talking about an operation, how they discuss getting this operation shows the strong gender roles between Jig and the man.

    Read More

  • Gender Roles In Trifles

    1014 Words  | 5 Pages

    The characters in the play reveal some of the gender stereotypes through the way they are presented in the beginning of the play, “The sheriff and Hale are men in the middle life… They are followed

    Read More

  • A Raisin In The Sun Gender Roles Essay

    848 Words  | 4 Pages

    Gender roles play an important role in A Raisin in the Sun. During the time A Raisin in the Sun was written the idea of set in stone positions in a household and society were common. Women were supposed to do house jobs, keep their mouths shut, and support their husbands’ decisions and men were seen as the headman or boss. A Raisin in the Sun shows readers a window into the world where those gender roles have a twist on them. Women in the time of A Raisin in the Sun were supposed to be subservient to men.

    Read More

  • Mademoiselle Reisz And Madame Ratignolle Character Analysis

    838 Words  | 4 Pages

    In today’s society, women still fight for the right to be their own person and exercise their own independence within their own

    Read More

  • A Streetcar Named Desire Gender Roles

    765 Words  | 4 Pages

    Eliza Penn Gender roles in the mid-1900s held a prominent place in society because they defined an individual’s behavior and outlook. In A Streetcar Named Desire, by Tennessee Williams, two of the protagonists, Stanley and Blanche, strongly represent and embody the extremes of masculinity and femininity. Stanley exemplifies the strong and aggressive male in the 1900s, while Blanche represents the frail and superficial woman. When these two types of characters are placed in close proximity to one another, the results can be devastating. Tennessee Williams wrote this play in order to demonstrate what happens when Blanche, a feminine woman, and Stanley, a masculine man, are brought into conflict; when these extremes clash, it can result in violence and the shattering of an individual’s defense system.

    Read More

  • Gender Differences In Lord Of The Flies Gender Roles Essay

    560 Words  | 3 Pages

    Lady of the Flies While reading any novel, watching any movie, or generally just enjoying any sort of story no matter what type of media it is conveyed through, the listener may often ask questions of what could have been. That is to say that they ask themselves what new or different direction the story might go through if one or more certain qualities of the story were to be changed or reversed. One common question, or trope, that comes up is if what if the genders of the main characters were changed from boy to girl, or vice versa? In a novel like Lord of the Flies by William Golding, which contains an all male schoolboy cast, this is bound to be asked.

    Read More

  • Raisin In The Sun Gender Roles Essay

    950 Words  | 4 Pages

    Raisin in the Sun: Gender Roles Defied Following the event of World War Two, America during the 1950s was an era of economic prosperity. Male soldiers had just returned home from war to see America “at the summit of the world”(Churchill). Many Americans were confident that the future held nothing other than peace and prosperity, so they decided to start families. However, the 1950s was also a time of radical changes. Because most of the men in the family had departed to fight in the war, women were left at home to do the housework.

    Read More

  • Expectations In The Glass Menagerie

    790 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Glass Menagerie, by Tennessee Williams, tells the story of how the standards of society influence two siblings. Tom and Laura Wingfield are two miserable people who no matter how hard they try, cannot seem to fit in. The play takes place in St. Louis, 1937, in which men and women have specific roles and expectations. Men are expected to have jobs, get married and provide for their family. Women are expected to get married, have babies and stay home to raise their children.

    Read More

  • Gender Roles In The Glass Menagerie

    891 Words  | 4 Pages

    Trophies are not always made of gold, or even placed on a high pedestal. That’s right, housewives can be trophies as well (at least, that’s what men thought during the early 20th century). Unless they wore an apron, had food in hand, and maintained an hourglass figure, society forced women to believe that this was the only way the could be housewives, and deserved to be married to a husband. Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie featured Amanda Wingfield, a housewife that is unfortunately a victim of societal pressures.

    Read More

  • Beauvoir The Married Woman

    773 Words  | 4 Pages

    Washing, ironing, sweeping, ferreting out the rolls of lint from under wardrobes—all this halting of decay is also the denial of life; for time simultaneously creates and destroys, and only its negative aspect concerns the housekeeper” (Beauvoir 380). "The Married Woman" is a chapter in Simone de Beauvoir’s book, The Second Sex, which demonstrates her negative thoughts about marriage and the overall treatment of a married woman. I agree with Beauvoir’s argument concerning the inequalities between spouses and the exaggeration of house work because of the time the book was written. In 1950, women’s roles were greatly changed because the men came back from war and took their jobs back.

    Read More

  • The Glass Menagerie Analysis

    1897 Words  | 8 Pages

    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.

    Read More

More about The Glass Menagerie Gender Roles Essay

Open Document