English Literature 9695

The Glass Menagerie: A Modern Drama

Q. 'Modern American drama teams with a spirit of innovation and experimental dramatic presentation!'. Tennessee Williams' 'The Glass Menagerie' is a good example of this. Discuss.

This play is a close depiction of an auto-biography thus bringing forward realities and tragedies of the American people living in the Great Depression era. He presents fragments of his life through innovative ideas and peculiar stage directions that take the audience by surprise and leave them in awe wanting to know more than what the ambitious ending reveals. This play is considered a modern play due to incorporation of psychology and sociology, urging audiences to reflect over the characters' choices and the result of these choices.

Williams' approach towards depicting realities was considered relatively new, during his time especially when it is compared with the usual fantasy genres that the audiences were exposed to then. Williams focus on social and cultural changes in America, he addresses how 'buildings are always burring its the slow and impeccable fires of human desperation.' and emphasises on how the people suffering from uncertainty and dissatisfaction find they escape in music, dance, movies, sex and drugs. Williams relates the pettiness and deflation of the lower-middle class society as they are trapped in suffocating 'hive-like conglomerations' and are faced to work in warehouses, not being given the option to choose to follow their dreams. Tom is a part of their society, and surprisingly the narrator of this play. Williams is perhaps the first playwright to introduce a character as a narrator and furthermore, Tom supposedly reflects Williams' own personality as well as his dreams and regrets thus making this play a memory play. Even in today's post-modernism era this kind of an idea is considered unique, to allow long narratives by a character who is recalling his memories in a play is daring, yet the audience accept it whole heartedly as it serves to intensify the guilt and gloom hidden behind the irony and dark humour; also introducing the aspect of something new and exciting to them.

Williams has incorporated elements introducing nostalgia and sentimental value to the play making it 'A modern American Drama'. He displays the fading traditions of old South, emerging modernity of industrial St. Louise and a family caught right in between the contrasting setting. The fact that this play revolves around a family is also fairly new as most playwrights tend not to take a whole family as their focus. Williams gives us the opportunity to see all four characters express themselves and their perspectives, through screen images and legends. While some might consider these stage directions unnecessary they are important as they foreshadow events and give us the sense of a memory which is not like a film but a complex series of images and thoughts put together. We also get the sense that perhaps much of it is not real, 'I give you truth in pleasant disguise of an illusion.' which urges the audience to contemplate what reality mixd with one's own perspective looks like. The screen images often depict Blue Roses and gentlemen callers, one of which does truly not exist and one which may or may not have existed for both Amanda and Laura. Amanda's nostalgia creates a memory within a memory and the image of Blue Roses at the mention of Laura is like a thought interrupting the memory. These images provoke imagination of the audience, and to be able to display such thoughts through the use of stage directions in an eye-opening dramatic presentation, like how during the scene in which Amanda and Tom are arguing, we see the light upon Laura, we think of how Tom is thinking of what aura went through during those arguments and we ask ourselves, is that really her reaction or Tom's imagination?

Williams has often presented strong women in his plays one such example is Alexandra from 'Sweet Bird of Youth' who in the end sees an opportunity and grabs it immediately, it can be argued that Amanda is similar to her, although she seems deluded by memories of her youth and unrealistic expectations for her daughter, she is realistic. She knows the world is not a bed of roses, she knows 'like father like son' and she knows Laura would not be able to survive alone, so like any dedicated mother, we see her try her best to make ends meet (even though she is insulted by the women ignoring her subscription calls ad perhaps pretends like she's unaffected in order to keep her spirits alive) and try to get Laura to settled with a man after her attempts at making her independent fail. We see how she first tries to help Laura stand on her own feet which can be considered an attribute of a modern woman. We see how she keeps trying her best to keep her children satisfied and safe from danger when she tries to shield Tom from reading Mr Lawrence's controversial texts but despite all these efforts we are shown that she fails to modernise in terms of gender. Although she has biased Laura over Tom. going against the traditional bias towards sons of that time, she fails to acknowledge Tom's brilliant mind. Williams has challenged the traditional claim that men are more suited for laborious jobs over intellectual literature through the illustration of Tom, a dreamer who just wants adventure and finds escape through his writing and reading. He presents a modern idea that people should be allowed to follow their dreams and not obliged to take the typical roles forced upon them by society and social norms.

Williams evokes thought among his readers of escape, of what is real and what is not, of what can be left behind without changing anything at all. He's presented the cinema and songs such as 'The Glass Menagerie' that signify denial and acceptance, clashing together to give us an idea of the clashing family dynamics in the play like how Laura is perhaps the character attracting the most sympathy yet she has accepted reality and has retired into her own world while Tom tries to deny it and find means to escape that have more consequences than Laura's harmless retreat to her glass menagerie. It can be argued that she is a strong modern woman as well, although she has not been able to build her confidence she has kept the family from breaking apart when she herself is broken, she refuses to do what disturbs her such as going to the business school and faces Jim's rejection alone, with dignity. Williams presents a mythical creature the unicorn and blue roses, both of which do not exist, in reference to Laura. He emphasises how her insecurities are holding her back and as Jim says, 'I happened to notice you had this inferiority complex...somebody needs to build your confidence up and make you proud instead of shy...' he illustrates how proper guidance can groom a person and how sometimes the negative thoughts and doubt about ourselves are just in our minds and not reflecting reality.

Williams also persuades parents to take a modern approach towards raising their children by expressing how Laura and Amanda's miscommunication may have led to Laura's condition as earlier we see how Laura is scared of telling Amanda about her dropping out of business school in order to avoid her disappointed reaction. Furthermore, the unicorn's horn breaking and turning it into an ordinary horse reflects the modern idea of feeling comfortable with yourself when you realise that what makes you different is what makes you who you are. Indeed we see at the end Laura smiling at Amanda even after her misfortune with Jim and giving him the broken unicorn, an important piece of her prized glass menagerie representing that even though the play ends ambiguously with Tom leaving his family, it may have a better ending than expected because maybe Laura found herself, her confidence and maybe that's enough for her to take on the world like a true modern heroine.