Glass Menagerie

“The Stage Magician gives you illusion that has the appearance of truth. I give you truth in the pleasant

disguise of illusion.”

-The Glass Menagerie

Tennessee Williams:

Tomas Lanier Williams, A.K.A. Tennessee Williams was born in Mississippi on March

26th

1911. He had a younger brother, and an older sister named Rose. Tom began to expand his imagination at

the age of seven when he became ill with Diphtheria. Instead of playing outside with other children, Tom

stayed inside and played with his imagination and his new typewriter. While his mother approved of his writing

ability, his father did not want Tom to become an author, so he had Tom drop out of college in 1930 and begin

working in the shoe industry. However, Tom still wrote at night, and soon the lack of sleep caused a heart

problem. After a short stay in the hospital, Tom’s father agreed to let him go back to college. He attended the

University of Washington, followed by the University of Iowa where he received his nickname from peers

because of his southern accent. He decided to keep the name. While at the University of Iowa, he heard that

Rose had received a prefrontal lobotomy. The operation went badly and she was permanently incapacitated.

The guilt that came with this news would never leave him. In 1945 Tennessee wrote The Glass Menagerie

which earned him several awards and is possibly his most famous play. He won a Pulitzer Prize for Streetcar

Named Desire in 1947, and another for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in 1955. In 1952 he wrote The Rose Tattoo,

which was dedicated to his partner, Frank Merlo. The Rose Tattoo received the Tony Award for best play.

Williams died on February 23rd

, 1983 in a hotel room from choking on a bottle cap.

Williams has described The Glass Menagerie as “the saddest play I’ve ever written. It is full of pain. It

is painful for me to see it.” He also described Menagerie as “my first quiet play, and perhaps my last.” There

are several connections in the script that lead readers to believe that Glass Menagerie is autobiographical. The

main character is based off of Tom himself, hence the name. Laura is based after Tennessee’s sister, Rose, who

was diagnosed with schizophrenia, who also had a small glass collection of animals. Amanda, of course, was

based after his own mother. Both families were from Mississippi and the South, etc. Tom was forced to

maintain other jobs while he wrote at night, all of which he despised. However, there are several things in the

script that differ from Tennessee’s life, like the fact that Tom had a younger brother, and that his father was

definitely in the picture. “My father was home all of the time, that was one of the major problems of our

family.” One of the reasons this caused so many problems was due to his father’s drinking problem. Tennessee

admits that the script is based on his own life, but that instead of being a replication of his life, it was more

loosely based. The reason Menagerie was and is such a famous play is because it deals with typical, not

uncommon problems that most families can relate to. Tennessee obviously could, which is why it was so

difficult for him to watch his own play performed. The play is a memory play, which views memory as a prison

where people are trapped by the realities they created for themselves. That is why the set and clothing are going

to be so binding for the characters, to represent how restricted Tom felt in his own home.

Thirties Society: The Glass Menagerie was set in St. Louis in 1937. In the 1930’s, America was

struggling to find an answer to The Great Depression, and in response to the dreary conditions, a new religious

and conservative wave took over America. The Depression finally ended in 1939 with the beginning of World

War II. The thirties was a time where women Laura’s age (in their twenties) either had to be married or have a

job, otherwise, like Amanda said, they become spinsters whose relatives reluctantly take care of them. (P. 18)

The nineteen thirties also included the construction of the Empire State Building, the first all talking/all color

movies (Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind), the invention of scotch tape, the discovery of nuclear fission,

swing music, animation with Walt Disney, radio as a form of mass media, etc. (See Timeline Link below).

Places:

The Mississippi Delta P. 14

A Delta is a nearly flat plain of deposit between diverging branches of the mouth of a river.

P. 14 St. Louis, MO

The Saint Louis Art Museum (P. 17)

The Jewelry Box (P. 18) St. Louis Zoo (P. 17)

Guyon’s Paradise Dance Hall (P. 32) The Wrigley Building-Chicago (P. 55)

Items:

Victrola/phonograph P. 17 Jonquils (P. 44)

People:

Dizzy Dean (P. 46) Clark Gable (P. 48)

Links:

Williams Bio-

http://www.etsu.edu/haleyd/twbio.html

http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/english/ms-writers/dir/williams_tennessee/

http://www.millikin.edu/aci/Crow/chronology/twilliamsbio.html

Timeline-

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~1930s2/Time/timefr.html

http://history1900s.about.com/library/time/bltime1930.htm