The Glass Menagerie, written by Tennessee Williams, is known world wide because of its extraordinary writing styles, and the simplicity, which is also complicated. Through the years, The Glass Menagerie has achieved a firmly established place in the Canon of American plays, yet the text of the play is many times distorted from what Williams wanted them to be. Some reasons why are because of the usage of allusions, symbolism, and irony. Each of these examples gives reason to why the play is miss-understood so many times. The main theme of the play, according to many other people who critique Williams's play is freedom.
The Glass Menagerie does not have many characters, and the characters in the play each share the same earning for freedom, but it many different ways. Amanda, the mother, wants freedom of her self. She wants to escape the worrying about her children, and she wants to be comfortable knowing her children are well taken care of. Laura, the crippled daughter wants freedom from her mother, and her constant nagging about gentlemen callers. Laura is trapped inside her own little world, and she needs someone to help her escape. Jim, the gentlemen caller, wants to escape his boring dull life, and pursue a career in the entertainment business. Finally, Tom wants to escape his family who nags, and his job, which give no excitement. The main motif of the play is entrapment, and the yearning to be free.
Amanda is a southern lady who dreams of her past, and nags her children. She speaks of all the gentlemen callers she had in the South, and she always refers to the South as being herself. The South that she portrays through out Amanda's recollections is actually a pseudo-history of the region and thus a kind of myth (Scheye 201). Amanda holds Tom responsible of the outcome of Laura, and what will become of her future (Dull). She wants her children to be taken care of first so that s
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