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Summary: The Glass Menagerie
Review: I really enjoyed the play "The Glass Menagerie", by Tennessee Williams. It was very well written and at times you felt as though you were a part of the cast. The way Williams has made Tom the narrator and character is unique and interesting. The characters are very real and you are able to see each of their faults, which enables you to relate more to each character. The thing I most enjoyed about the play was that it was a pretty easy read, and it had an important underlying meaning. As you read, you realize that there are many things you miss out on in life while living in an "imaginary" world; you have to take time to come back to reality and see what you're missing.
One thing in particular that I didn't like about the play was the fact that the characters were so engaged in their fantasies that they could not snap back to reality.The mother, Amanda, is so consumed with controlling the lives or her children and attempting to make their lives what she wants them to be, that she has missed out on living her own life. Laura and Tom allow themselves to be whisked away into her world and they become stranded on their own island of fantasy in her fantasy world. Tom walks away leaving the entire situation behind him, but is never really able to forgive himself for not finding a way to save his sister.
Overall, the play is engaging and fun to read and even more interesting to see on stage. I would recommend it whether you've never read a play or read one hundred plays ,it will definitely keep your attention.
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Summary: The Glass Menagerie
Review: "The Glass Menagerie" by Tennessee Williams was very well written. Williams did an excellent job of portraying life-like characters. They were so well written, that they seemed real, like us at certain points in our lives. At one time, we were all like the mother, Amanda, who seems to live in the past, and be kind of overbearing at times, for example when Laura only went to three days of her business class that she was sort of forced into going to. Laura, the shy character, also is very life like in the fact that we all were a bit like her too. Everyone, at one point in their life was really shy and just wanted to stay locked up in their room. Tom, the son, is the narrator in the story. He constantly tries to escape reality by going outside and to the movies. He's the sort of person who just needs to constantly escape from life. The main theme of "The Glass Menagerie" is just that. Trying to escape from the sometimes-disappointing reality called life. The plot was simple, yet very effective. A reason for the simplicity I think is that this book is meant for us to realize that even though things may have been better in the past, not to live in it, but rather to live in the present, because we may be missing something even better than what we had that is right in front of us, waiting for us to notice it, but we're so enthralled in the what has happened in the past we don't see it. Basically what "The Glass Menagerie" is trying to tell us is that we need to live in the future and if we don't, then we will miss out on all the un-lived life that lies right in front of us, waiting for us to discover it.
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Summary: Glass Menagerie
Review: The Glass Menagerie is a play by Tenessee Williams. It stars out int he mid 1940's with a family of three. Amanda is the overbearing mother who wants nothing more than to see her children succeed. Her husband was always smoking and going out without her. He left the family about 5 years ago. The family is dependant only on Tom the oldest son for income. He is a rebellious kid in his mid 20's who works at a factory. He is much like his father, goes out all the time and smokes too much. He would rather write poetry than work. His sister Laura is very shy. She is younger than he is and Amanda wants nothing more than for her to have male suitors. With Laura being shy this is hard, not to mention the fact that Laura is slightly crippled. Amanda asks Tom to bring home a suitor for Laura. He brings home a friend named Jim. Jim went to high-school with Laura, and they are very attracted to each other. Tom also reveals to Jim that he is a member of The Union of Merchant Seaman, and is planning on running away. will Jim and laura follow what they feel, will Tom run away leaving his family without an income? The answers to these questions l within the pages of The Glass Menagerie.
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Summary: ...
Review: if you think this is too boring, then you are too dumb
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Summary: Fabulous Play!
Review: I am very impressed with this play and Tennessee Williams in general. His plays are filled with emotion, depth, and integrity while at the same time the play is not cryptic, but easy to understand. His characters are complex and compelling, especially Amanda and Laura in this play. Also, the play is set in my hometown of St. Louis, and thus I have a personal appeal for the novel. In terms of the book itself, the text is nice and big and the characters' lines, stage directions, and descriptions are easily distinguished from one another. There is also a nicely written introduction and a bonus essay by Mr. Williams himself entitled "The Catastrophe of Success." Also included are passages preceeding the play that describe the characters and location.
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Summary: Heartbreaking Autobiography
Review: Tennessee Williams very thinly masks his own family in this heartbreaking play. Amanda Wingfield is the mother of Laura and Tom - they have been abandoned by their father and, after a few short scenes with Amanda, you can see what drove him away.
This awful woman lives in her imagined past of gentility and gentleman callers. One doubts her memories even closly mirror the reality of her past.
Laura, her daughter, has been so brow beaten by Amanda that she has retreated into an imaginery world where her glass animals are her only friends. She is painfully shy, has a slight limp and has been made to feel horribly handicapped and unattractive by Amanda. Tennessee Williams mother actually had a lobotamy performed on his beloved sister and it is not a stretch to see the similarities.
Tom, Laura's brother supports the family and dreams of leaving it all behind. He would except for his love for and loyalty to his sister.
Although the story elevates the dysfunctional family to an entirely new level, the writing is beautiful and each character is memorable. The frustration and sadness are palatable. The writing is marvelous and the characters will stay with you forever.
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Summary: Ranks as One of the Finest
Review: There are few American playwrights who rank as highly in the Pantheon as Tennessee Williams. He is up there with O'Neill, Miller and Albee as amongst the quintessential dramatists of the 20th century. This is one of his earliest, and in some respects his most timeless, of his scripts. No one can argue that it his most autobiographical, as it portrays a cloyingly suffocating matriarch, Amanda, and a younger sister, Laura, who are both interchangable characters for Williams' own little St Louis family. Actually, in real life, the outcome was much more tragic, as Williams' mother had a frontal lobotomy performed on his actual sister. One can see how Williams may have harbored some deep resentments towards his mother, and he spends most of his time getting even with her in this Euripidean play.
Though recent adaptations of this play have emphasized the "touchy-feely" aspects of the relationship between brother and sister (Why does Treat Williams come to mind?), the actual script lends itself to a much darker, Medea-like interpretation, which I believe Williams originally intended. This is Williams way of getting back at the evil Witch of the West who dominated his youth and who would exert her influence upon him for the rest of his life. It doesn't take a Freud to untangle this thread.
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Summary: A great modern drama
Review: Amanda Wingfield always tells her daughter, Laura, she should look nice and pretty for gentleman callers, even though Laura has never had any callers at their St. Louis apartment. Laura, who limps because of a slight physical deformity, would rather spend her time playing with the animals in her glass menagerie and listening to old phonograph records instead of learning shorthand and typing so she can be employable. When she learns Laura has only been pretending to go to secretarial school, Amanda decides Laura must have a real gentleman caller and insists her son Tom, who works at a shoe factory, find one immediately. After a few days, Tom tells Amanda he has invited a young man named Jim O'Connor home for dinner.
The night of the dinner Amanda takes charge personally to make sure Laura looks more attractive. However when Laura realizes that the Jim O'Connor who is visiting is possibly the same Jim on whom she had a crush in high school, she does not want to go through with the dinner. Although she has to be excused from the dinner because she has made herself physically ill, Laura is able to impress Jim with her quiet charm when the two of them keep company in the living room and she finally loses some of her shyness. When Jim gives Laura her first kiss, it looks as if Amanda's plans for Laura's happiness might actually come true.
THE GLASS MENAGERIE is the first big success in the long and storied career of playwright Tennessee Williams. This "memory" play tells of a family trapped in destructive patterns. After being abandoned by her husband, Amanda Wingfield has become trapped between worlds of illusion and reality. She says she wants what is best for her children, but seems incapable of acknowledging what that would be or actually providing it for them. Tom, tired of only watching adventure at the movies, is determined to break away from his dominating mother, but stays only for the sake of his sister. Laura may not be the dominating belle of the ball her mothers wants, but she has her own inner charm and when confronted with Jim, a visitor from the normal world, there is the chance that she will finally claim her life as her own. A poignant drama on the importance of love.
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Summary: The Picture on the Wall
Review: Sometimes, the most important and influential characters are those that never come forth and make an appearance. This is the case in Williams' The Glass Menagerie. The absent father serves as an explanation and a foreshadow for why his wife, Amanda; his daughter, Laura; and his son, Tom behave as they do. The story has somewhat a dry line; however, it is not so much the plot but the characterization that makes this story memorable, introducing odd and unique characters that can be, unusually enough, identified with. Many who venture into this work see the characters by their surfaces only-a loony, demanding mother; a shy daughter; and an uncaring brother. However, this play requires a deeper look, a search for an explanation that reveals that the mother is not nuts, only lonely and worried her son will abandon her, just as her worthless husband has. She has fears, such as worrying that her Laura will become alone and unsupported, just as she is. Laura can also be examined, discovering she is not only shy, but is a victim of low-self-esteem, for her disability causes her to believe she is unable to be like others, never able to partake in the activities other girls enjoy, such as dancing; thus, she lives a life in solitude, for that is where she feels unexposed. Tom, too, with a closer look, can be viewed as a man tiresome of being treated as a boy, stuck in a world he is unhappy with, desiring escape to follow his dreams. A close characterization reveals the turmoil inflicted by the father, exposing characters with problems, worries, fears, and desires. This is a play about real life, a dysfunctional family who wants only the happiness that they cannot achieve. This, by far, is Williams' greatest work yet.
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Summary: Glass Menagerie Review By Trevor Barnabee
Review: The Glass Menagerie was a good story of human desire. The characters in the story were very much like ordinary people; They were selfish, selfcentered, and some hit quite close to home. I enjoyed the book very much but thought that it could use more information on the ending, not too much but some just to let us know more about the way the different characters ended up. Did Tom end up where his dad ended up did he regret leaving or was it more of a relief as he thought it would be. All and all it was a good book and I recommend it to any one searching for a little escape into someone's life who has it worse than them.
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