Key Facts
full title · The Glass Menagerie
author · Tennessee Williams (born Thomas Lanier Williams III)
type of work · Play
genre · Tragedy; family drama
language · English
time and place written · 1941–1943; a number of American
cities, including New York, St. Louis, and Los Angeles
date of first publication · 1945
publisher · Random House
narrator · Tom Wingfield
point of view · Tom both narrates and participates in the play. The
older Tom remembers his youth and then becomes a younger Tom who participates
in the action as scenes from his youth play out. The point of view
of the older Tom is reflective, and he warns us that his memory
distorts the past. The younger Tom is impulsive and angry. The action
sometimes consists of events that Tom does not witness; at these
points, the play goes beyond simply describing events from Tom's
own memory.
tone · Tragic; sarcastic; bleak
tense · The play uses both the present and past tenses. The
older Tom speaks in the past tense about his recollections, and
the younger Tom takes part in a play that occurs in the present
tense.
setting (time) · Tom, from an indefinite point in the future, remembers
the winter and spring of 1937.
setting (place) · An apartment in St. Louis
protagonist · Tom Wingfield
major conflict · In their own ways, each of the Wingfields struggles
against the hopelessness that threatens their lives. Tom's fear
of working in a dead-end job for decades drives him to work hard
creating poetry, which he finds more fulfilling. Amanda's disappointment at
the fading of her glory motivates her attempts to make her daughter,
Laura, more popular and social. Laura's extreme fear of seeing Jim
O'Connor reveals her underlying concern about her physical appearance
and about her inability to integrate herself successfully into society.
rising action · After Laura admits to leaving a business course that
would have allowed her to get a job, her mother, Amanda, decides
that Laura must get married; Tom tells Amanda that he is going to
bring Jim O'Connor to dinner; Amanda prepares extensively, hoping
that Jim will become Laura's suitor.
climax · Each character's struggle comes to a climax at different
points. Tom's decision not to pay the electric bill and to use the
money instead to leave his family in search of adventure reveals
his initial, decisive break from his family struggles. When Jim
breaks the horn from Laura's glass unicorn and announces that he
is engaged, the possibility that he will help her overcome her self-doubt
and shyness is also destroyed. When Amanda discovers that Jim is
engaged, she loses her hope that Laura will attain the popularity
and social standing that Amanda herself has lost.
falling action · Laura gives Jim the broken unicorn as a souvenir; Jim
leaves the house to pick up his girlfriend; Amanda accuses Tom of
not having revealed that Jim was engaged. Addressing the audience, Tom
explains that not long after that incident he left his family but
was never able to emotionally leave Laura behind—in his later travels,
he frequently felt a connection to her.
themes · The difficulty of accepting reality; the impossibility
of true escape; the unrelenting power of memory
motifs · Abandonment; the words and images on the screen; music
symbols · Laura's glass menagerie; the glass unicorn; “Blue Roses”;
the fire escape
foreshadowing · Tom's departure is foreshadowed by his frequent retreats
to the fire escape and the image of a sailing vessel on the screen;
the music from the Paradise Dance Hall across the street foreshadows
Laura and Jim's dancing; Jim's breaking of the unicorn foreshadows
his breaking of her heart.
