Escaping Reality In The Glass Menagerie By Tennessee Williams

Submitted By mattiacono
Words: 1281
Pages: 6
Open Document
Escaping Reality In life, many challenges must be faced. However sometimes, rather than confronting challenges, people see creating an escape to avoid reality as the simpler solution. In The Glass Menagerie, Tennessee Williams shows how a person is capable of creating an escape to avoid facing something in their lives, in most cases, reality. Symbolism extends throughout the play and helps bring out and develop the theme of how escapes are created to avoid reality.

Through symbolism, William is able to emphasize how one will create an escape to avoid facing reality. In The Glass Menagerie, Tom Wingfield is unhappy with his life as his primary role is to work and provide for his family. Tom creates many escapes to avoid the reality of the miserable life he lives. One example of symbolism used is the fire escape. Tom uses the fire escape frequently throughout the play to escape his responsibilities and to enter a deceptive realm where he is free of this burden. An example of this can be seen when, in Scene One, the family is having dinner and Amanda is criticizing the way Tom is eating. Tom gets frustrated and decides to go onto the fire escape to smoke. This is clear when Williams writes “Tom rises and walks toward the living room.” (Williams 7). Clearly Tom’s first choice of action is to avoid reality and to escape. Rather than continuing to deal with his mother Amanda, Tom decides to get up and leave. Another example of symbolism used in The Glass Menagerie is the movies. When Tom decides to leave the apartment, he often goes to the movies. This can be seen when tom says “I go to the movies because–I like adventure. Adventure is something I don't have much of at work, so I go to the movies.” (Williams 33). It is obvious that Tom is miserable living in the apartment and working at the warehouse which are free of adventure. Therefore he uses the movies as an escape from his unhappy life and is able to achieve happiness. Rather than facing the reality of the uninteresting life he lives, he makes the movies his escape. Lastly, Williams uses alcohol as a symbol of escaping reality. Tom also often gets drunk to escape his complications. This is noticeable when Amanda says “you had been drinking the night you were in that - terrifying condition! Laura says that you hate the apartment and that you go out nights to get away from it...” (Williams 32). As the quote indicates, Tom is unhappy with his life; his job, his apartment, and his mother and sister. Tom uses alcohol throughout the play as an escape from the reality of his life. Thus, by using these examples of symbolism, Williams is able to prove how one will create an escape to avoid facing reality.

Another character in The Glass Menagerie that creates escapes to avoid reality is Tom’s mother Amanda. Amanda creates escapes to because she too has difficulty accepting many things in her life, such as her how her son’s job isn’t very noble, how her daughter is awkward and most evidently how she sees the way she, herself, looks. The first symbol of escape Williams uses in the play for Amanda is the way she dresses. Amanda wears clothes that don’t suit her age because she is unable to accept the fact that the clothes she used to wear belong in the past. Amanda wears a dress from her youth to impress Jim. The way she is dressed is described in detail followed by Williams writing “…the legend of her youth is nearly revived.” (Williams 53). She wants to make it seem as if she is young and she does so by changing her appearance. It is obvious that Amanda is unable to accept her age so she uses the clothes she wears to “disguise” herself into looking young. Another example of symbol which represents escape for Amanda is the gentlemen callers. It is clear that Amanda is “spelling out” what life is like for unmarried women throughout her description:
I know so well what becomes of unmarried women who aren't prepared to position. I've seen such pitiful cases in the South­­­–barely
Show More

Related Documents: Escaping Reality In The Glass Menagerie By Tennessee Williams

Week 9 Final Essay Final Final

Week 9 Final Essay COMP/155 “Did you know?” 10 Little Known facts about Medical Marijuana 1. Marijuana is classified as a “schedule 1 drug” by the 1970 controlled substance act, which means the federal government considers marijuana to have: high potential for abuse, No currently accepted medical use, a lack of accepted safety. 2. The US government supplies 320-360 marijuana cigarettes monthly to…

Words 393 - Pages 2

Final Final Essay

The company our group has chosen is the Lehman Brothers Holdings. This company was the fourth largest Wall Street investment firm, which was forced to file for bankruptcy protection on September 2002. It was the largest investment bank to collapse since 1990, and based on assets, Lehman also far surpasses WorldCom as the largest U.S. bankruptcy ever. In order to analysis this company, we selected the mission statement of Lehman Brothers: “Our mission is to build unrivaled partnerships with and value…

Words 4503 - Pages 19

FINAL FINAL Essay

issue before they applied the airbag to the assembly process. This article relates to the quality control issue in the Toyota and Nissan car company’ s problem of having faulty airbags due to incorrect assembly process, affecting the quality of the final output of the overall product. 1.1.2 Quality Assurance Quality assurance refers to the application of international quality standards. Takata’s labour of assembly of the airbag product is trained to apply quality standards throughout working processes…

Words 3269 - Pages 14

English Final Final Final Essay example

psycho-physical problems which cause teenagers to go to extremes in order to achieve what they perceive as the ‘perfect’ body. - Question: Do you feel ashamed, self-conscious and anxious about your body? If you do not, you have a negative body image and this essay is meant for you. Teenage girls have an increasing desire to be either ultra-thin or to have more sex appeal under the influence of the media which cause a negative body image. - In the magazine, you can see what is considered as the ‘perfect’ woman…

Words 2141 - Pages 9

Final Essay

Kennedy Bozek January 14, 2014 English 20-1 Final Essay The Pursuit of Happiness Often when individuals wish to achieve something they are commonly known to be on the pursuit, for they are typically trying to pursue a goal. Usually the pursuit is obtained over a long period of time and holds significant value to whom is striving for their goal and if that goal can be achieved, the results are more than not, rewarding. As we adventure through the novel The Great Gatsby written by Scott Fitzgerald…

Words 676 - Pages 3

Essay on Law Final Final

S1119396 Word count: 2986 “This assignment is my own work. It has not been and will not be presented for assessment of any other module or piece of work which accrues credit for the award for which I am currently studying” This essay will discuss the case of Josie, a single parent of four children between the ages of 3 and 14. A referral has been made to social work by a health visitor on various grounds which include Josie’s physical and mental well-being, she suffers from multiple…

Words 3543 - Pages 15

CLASSIFICATION ESSAY FINAL

CLASSIFICATION ESSAY – FINAL TEMPLATE Step 5: Classification Essay Final Draft Directions: Turn off the “Track Changes” feature. Copy and paste your edited draft. Select the entire essay and choose “Accept Changes” if the document does not automatically make the changes for you. Save the changes to this document; save it as “Classification Essay Assignment.” Then use the link provided in Blackboard to submit the document to your instructor. The instructor should then be able to see the entire process…

Words 850 - Pages 4

Final Project Essay

WRITING When this course began, I didn’t consider myself a writer at all. It was difficult to organize my thoughts and ideas. My note taking was helpful but not enough. After submitting the first draft of my narrative essay in Module Three, I learned a couple things about writing. First, I could phrase a thesis statement and place it in the introductory paragraph without giving away the whole gist of my narrative right off. Professor Stocklos very eloquently guided me…

Words 703 - Pages 3

Final ESSAY

Why We Can’t Wait Figurative Language Analysis In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. It was mid civil war, the newly industrialized North fought for the emancipation of slaves, while the south fought hard to keep slavery. The proclamation was supposed to free all slaves and force the nation into a state of equality, the however was little. The treatment of blacks remained unchanged, poverty plagues the negro population, and many remained at the feet of whites…

Words 837 - Pages 4

Final Essay

Phase 5 Individual Project CJUS448-02 Elizabeth Passer Professor Anthony Nici June 25, 2012 Re: Final Processing the crime scene will be essential to bringing forth criminal charges against any assailant of the crime of rape. In the case of a rape the prime crime scene is the rape victim. Biological evidence is inevitably left behind. There could in this instance be evidence left behind on sheets. In this scenario the bed of the ‘No Tell Motel’ will likely have some physical evidence…

Words 2457 - Pages 10