Barn Burning

Tennessee Williams' play, The Glass Menagerie, is about a family's struggle to survive the trials and tribulations of life in the early nineteen hundreds. The Wingfield family is faced with many tough times which include Laura's inability to attract a gentleman caller, Tom's mischievous behavior, and Mr. Wingfield's departure from the home. Tennessee Williams created the character, Tom, to act as an inside voice for the audience. He acts as the narrator, central character, and stage manager. Tom's different roles in the play are essential to the understanding of the story line and theme. Tom's quest for an escape passage out of the life he is living is evident through out Tennessee Williams' use of imagery and symbolism in The Glass Menagerie.

Mr. Wingfield left his family behind as he went off to seek a better life. Tom often makes jokes about his fathers prior job at the telephone company, and tells the audience that he "fell in love with long distances"(Williams 695). This is his attempt to ease the pain of abandonment by turning it into something humorous. At one point in the story Tom is talking about a magician he went to see and how he got out of a nailed coffin without removing a nail. " You know

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Tom's habit of going to the movies shows us his longing to leave the apartment and head out into the world of reality. Tennessee Williams: A collection of critical essays. "To leave home and Amanda is to insure self-preservation, but at the same time to kill something vital within the self"(Tischler 160). The guilt of abandoning Laura is overwhelming.

The first and most obvious way to escape is the fire escape that leads him away from his desolate home. The Distorted Mirror: Tennessee Williams' Self Portraits. It is inevitable that the thing that Tom resents most in his father is exactly what Tom himself will carry o!

ut in the end. But who in hell ever got out himself out of one without removing one nail"(Williams 705)? Almost as an answer, his father's picture lights up showing the giant portrait of him grinning. Showing or Telling: Narrators in the Drama of Tennessee Williams. He wants to escape, travel long distances to get the adventure that the shoe warehouse and St. The majority of Tom's monologues take place on the fire escape.

Works Cited

Boxill, Roger. I believe this quote, from Nancy Tischler shows Tom's struggle to be happy: "A man of imagination seldom finds fulfillment in a shoe factory; a boy seldom becomes a man under the watchful eye of a domineering mother; the break for the past is always painful for the sensitive man" (Tischler 166). 158-170

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**Bibliography**

. American Literature, Volume 51, Issue 1(Mar.

Approximate Word count = 1060
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

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