Relevance research is due to the demand for the work of T. Williams in the American, and, above all, in the domestic literary criticism. The development of this topic makes it possible to reveal the rich moral and ethical potential of the playwright's creativity. The results of the innovative aspirations of the artist, which is discussed in the study, are diverse in aesthetic terms and require further theoretical understanding, the successful result of which will enrich our understanding of the expressive possibilities of drama.
Target: Analyze the play "Glass Menagerie", identify philosophical and aesthetic features, determine the specifics of the play's poetics. Based on the goal, the following tasks can be distinguished:
· Consider some biographical information of T. Williams;
· Identify the features of the influence of one's own life on the worldview and work of the playwright.
The name of the American playwright Tennessee Williams (1911-1983) is one of the brightest in modern American and world literature. Having become a legend during his lifetime, he is rightfully considered one of the best playwrights of the 20th century, whose works settled for a long time on the theatrical stage of the world, continuing to puzzle directors with the search for a universal key to them. His dramaturgy combines subtle psychologism with a high culture of the word. The heroes of his plays - romantics living in illusions, noble and vulnerable people - are opposed to rough, ugly reality, deprived of the opportunity to find happiness and harmony in it, overcome loneliness, but, despite this, they are capable of triumphing a moral victory: knowing that they are doomed to death in a pragmatic society, they do not renounce their ideals.
Throughout his work, Tennessee Williams has shown a constant desire for experimentation, innovation, passion for expressionist techniques, the active use of the symbol, subtext. Thus, he developed the concept of plastic theater. The writing style of the American playwright is highly emotional and open to direct expression of the author's moods.
The Glass Menagerie is Williams' first play, which brought him widespread fame. The leading themes of Williams's dramaturgy clearly appeared in the play: the loneliness of people, their mutual misunderstanding, the desire to hide from the cruelty of life in a fictional world, the defenseless vulnerability of beauty, the doom of people emotionally attached to the past. The play is to some extent autobiographical. It is built on the memories of the protagonist Tom Winfield about his mother and sister left by him.
Williams masterfully captures the very atmosphere of memories - ghostly, full of nostalgia and poetry. The play recreates Tom's agonizing attempt to break free from his mother, Amanda Winfield. The image of Amanda, one of the most expressive female images in the work of Williams, personifies the type of lady-behavior that combines sober practicality with a mass of bizarre illusions that are detrimental to her dreamy daughter. Laura Winfield is similar to Williams' sister, Rose (her mind faded, hallucinations and apathy began, she underwent brain surgery, she stopped seeing nightmares, but life and a clear consciousness left her), the madness of which the writer was very worried. Laura appears before the viewer in the gentle glare of her glass menagerie, the graceful figures of which she constantly touches. Laura herself embodies the ideal of defenseless beauty, too unviable in a cruel world. All three - Laura, Amanda and Tom - are "runaways" who do not accept the way the world works and try to escape from it.
The story of the breakup of one family, told by Williams, is ingenuous: mother, son and daughter can no longer endure the hopelessness of the existence of three together in a fictional illusory world, in the reality of which the mother, Amanda, believes. She, although endowed with great vitality and optimism, is not able to fit into the context of the new post-war society, just as she cannot come to terms with the fact that her youth and husband have gone along with many admirers.
Amanda believes that the only romance her son Tom can afford is to speed up his promotion; and daughters need to think about a successful marriage. The fragile, sickly Laura (a very notorious girl, because having survived a serious illness in childhood, her leg became shorter than the other; she is a symbol of defenseless beauty) tries to please the unmarried Jim O'Connor for the sake of her mother, but suffers a crushing failure and hardly ever The mother blames her son for this, and he leaves the family, deciding to start a new life... But he could not do this, because he carries an unhealed wound in his soul and the stigma of an outcast. Thus, we see the family and interpersonal conflict.
It is safe to say that the collection of glass animals is the artistic symbol of the play. Fragile figurines personify both human loneliness, and the ephemeral nature of life's illusions, and the fragility of the surrounding world of heroes.
Already in this play, Williams' unique style can be traced - either emphatically concrete and ironic, or imbued with high lyricism and pathos, marked by poetic intonations and metaphor.
In the images of William's "fugitives" there is a distinctly noticeable influence of the literary tradition of the American South (W. Faulkner, G. P. Warren, etc.), which is characterized by the motif of "lost paradise".
The Glass Menagerie puts forward the concept of a new plastic theater, which is realized in the play with the help of:
Screen - A screen is often used here, the purpose of which is to emphasize a particular episode. In every scene there is a moment or moments that are most compositionally important. The inscription or image on the screen reinforces the hint in the text, helps in an accessible, easy way to convey the desired idea contained in the replicas.
Lighting - The lighting in the play is very interesting. The scene is seen as if in a haze of memories. A beam of light falls on an actor or some object, leaving in shadow what appears to be the center of the action. For example, Laura is not involved in Tom's quarrel with Amanda, but it is she who is flooded with clear light at this moment. The same applies to the dinner scene, when the silent figure of Laura on the sofa should remain the focus of the viewer's attention. The light falling on Laura is distinguished by a special chaste purity and resembles the light on ancient icons or on the image of Madonnas. The free, imaginative use of light is very valuable. It gives the scene mobility and plasticity.
Music - Another non-literary medium that is used in the play is music. The simple through melody of The Glass Menagerie emotionally emphasizes the corresponding episodes. The music emerges between scenes like a memory, like a regret about the past, without which there is no play. This melody belongs mainly to Laura, and therefore it sounds especially clear when the action focuses on her and on the graceful fragile figures that, as it were, embody her.
Introduction to the figure of the narrator.
Throughout his creative career, Tennessee Williams absorbed and rethought many different traditions through the prism of his worldview. The playwright tried to find more and more new verbal forms to describe the inner world of his characters.
His skill and individuality lies in creating a poetic atmosphere in his works, the finest development of characters, creating subtext, symbolism.
Literature
1. Bernatskaya V. Four decades of American drama. 1950-1980 / V. Bernatskaya - M .: "Prompter", 1993. - No. 3. - 215 p.
2. Wulf V. From Broadway a little aside: essays on the theatrical life in the USA, and not only about it. 70s. / Ed.: Wulf V.F. - M.: "Art", 1982. -264 p.
Location: An alleyway in St. Louis.
Part One: Waiting for a visitor.
Part Two: The visitor comes.
TIME: Now and in the past.
CHARACTERS
Amanda Wingfield (mother)
A small woman of enormous but erratic vitality, clinging furiously to another time and place. Her role must be carefully crafted, not copied from an established pattern. She's not paranoid, but her life is full of paranoia. There is much to admire in her; she is funny in many ways, but she can be loved and pitied. Of course, her stamina is akin to heroism, and although sometimes her stupidity unwittingly makes her cruel, tenderness is always visible in her weak soul.
Laura Wingfield (her daughter)
While Amanda, unable to find contact with reality, continues to live in the world of her illusions, Laura's situation is even more difficult. As a result of an illness in childhood, she was left crippled, one of her legs was somewhat shorter than the other, and she was wearing a bracelet. On the stage, it is enough to outline this defect only. As a result, Laura's aloofness reaches the point where she, like the piece of glass in her collection, becomes too fragile to live off the shelf.
Tom Wingfield (her son)
Also the narrator of the play. A poet who works in a store. By nature, he is not insensitive, but in order to get out of the trap, he is forced to act without pity.
Jim O'Connor (visitor)
An ordinary pleasant young man.
REMARKS FOR THE SETTING
Being a "memory play", The Glass Menagerie can be presented with a wide freedom of performance. Situational sketches and subtleties of direction play a particularly important role because of the extreme delicacy and insignificance of the narrative content itself. Expressionism and all other non-traditional dramatic devices have as their only goal an approximation to the truth. The use of unconventional devices in a play does not yet, or at least should not mean, an attempt to free oneself from the obligations of dealing with reality or interpreting experience. Rather, it is, or should be, an effort to find a closer approach, a more penetrating and living expression of things themselves. The play is uncomplicatedly realistic, with authentic Frigideir and real ice, characters who speak exactly as the audience speaks, fits the academic landscape, and has the same merit as a photograph. In our time, everyone must understand the unprincipledness of the photographic in art: that life, truth or reality are organic concepts that the poetic imagination can reproduce or offer in its essence only through transformation, through transformation into other forms different from those found in the phenomenon .
These remarks were not prepared as a preface only to this particular play. They concern the notion of a new plastic theater that should replace the exhausted theater of realistic traditions, if, of course, the theater should regain its vitality as part of our culture.
Screen device. There is only one significant difference between the original and staged versions of the play. This is the absence in the latest device, which I included as an experiment in the primary text. The device consisted of a screen onto which slides with images or titles were projected. I have no regrets that this device was removed from the original Broadway production. The extraordinary power of performance, characteristic of Miss Taylor, made it possible to simplify the material content of the play to the limit. But I think that some readers will be interested to know how this device was conceived. That is why I am attaching these comments to the published text. Images and writing projected onto the screen from behind fell on the section of wall between the front room and the dining area, which was little different from other rooms when not in use.
Their purpose is quite obvious - to emphasize certain values in each scene. In each scene, some thought (or thoughts) is structurally the most significant. The basic structure or thread of the story can easily escape the attention of the audience in an episodic play such as this one; the content may appear fragmented with a lack of architectural integrity. However, this is not so much a shortcoming of the play itself, but rather an insufficiently attentive perception by the viewer. The inscription or image that appears on the screen should reinforce the content that is already implicitly present in the text, and make it easier and easier to highlight the main idea than if the entire semantic load lay only on the characters' replicas. In addition to its structural purpose, the screen, I think, will introduce a positive emotional element, which is difficult to define, but whose role is no less important.
An imaginative producer or director can always find other uses for this device than those mentioned in this article. In fact, the possibilities of the device itself are much more extensive than the possibilities of its application in this particular play.
MUSIC. Another non-literary accent device in the play is music. The only recurring melody, "Glass Menagerie", appears at certain points in the play for emotional reinforcement. Like the music of a street circus, it appears in the distance, when you, being away from the passing orchestra, are most likely thinking of something else. In such an environment, it seems that it continues almost continuously, now intertwining, now disappearing from the absorbed consciousness; it is the lightest and most tender music in the world and perhaps the saddest. It reflects the superficial brightness of life, but with a touch of unchanging and inexpressible sadness underlying it. When you look at a delicate piece of glass, two things come to mind: how beautiful it is and how easily it can break. Both of these ideas must be woven into a recurring melody that comes and goes from the piece, as if carried by a fickle wind. This is the connecting thread and relationship between the narrator with his separate place in time and space, and the characters of his story. She appears between episodes as a return to emotional experiences and nostalgia - the defining conditions of the whole play. This is mainly Laura's music, and therefore the melody comes out most distinctly when attention is focused on it and on the beautiful fragility of glass, its prototype.
Tennessee Williams
glass menagerie
The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams (1944)
Characters
Amanda Wingfield - mother. This little woman has a great zest for life, but does not know how to live and desperately clings to the past and the distant. An actress must carefully create a character, and not be content with a ready-made type. She is by no means paranoid, but her life is full of paranoia. Amanda has a lot of attractive and a lot of funny, you can love and feel sorry for her. Long-suffering is undoubtedly characteristic of her, she is even capable of a kind of heroism, and although she is sometimes cruel out of thoughtlessness, tenderness lives in her soul.
Laura Wingfield - daughter. Having failed to establish contact with reality, Amanda holds on to illusions all the more. Laura's situation is much more serious. She suffered a serious illness in her childhood: one of her legs is slightly shorter than the other and requires special shoes - on stage this shortcoming should be barely noticeable. Hence her growing isolation, so that in the end she herself becomes like a glass figurine in her collection and cannot, due to excessive fragility, leave the shelf.
Tom Wingfield - Amanda's son and lead in the play. A poet who works in a shop. His conscience gnaws at him, but he is forced to act ruthlessly - otherwise he will not escape from the trap.
Jim O'Connor - the guest. A sweet and humble young man.
Scene - street in St. Louis.
Time of action - Now and Then.
I have never seen such thin hands even in the rain ...
E. E. Cummings
The Glass Menagerie is a memory play, so it can be staged with a significant degree of rim in relation to accepted methods. Its thin, fragile material certainly presupposes skillful directing and the creation of an appropriate atmosphere. Expressionism and other conventional techniques in drama have one and only goal - to come as close as possible to the truth. When a playwright uses a conventional technique, he does not at all try, at least he should not do this, to relieve himself of the obligation to deal with reality, to explain human experience; on the contrary, he strives or should strive to find a way to express life as it is as truthfully, penetratingly and vividly as possible. A traditional realistic play with a real refrigerator and pieces of ice, with characters who express themselves in the same way as the viewer speaks, is the same as the landscape in academic painting, and has the same dubious merit - photographic similarity. By now, perhaps, everyone already knows that photographic similarity does not play an important role in art, that truth, life - in a word, reality - are a single whole, and poetic imagination can show this reality or capture its essential features only by transforming the external the shape of things.
These notes are not just a preface to this play. They put forward the concept of a new, plastic theatre, which must replace the exhausted means of external credibility, if we want the theater, as a part of our culture, to regain vitality.
Screen. There is only one essential difference between the original text of the play and its stage version: the latter does not have what I did experimentally in the original. I mean a screen onto which an image and inscriptions are projected with the help of a magic lantern. I do not regret that the screen is not being used in the current production on Broadway. Miss Taylor's amazing skill allowed the performance to be limited to the simplest accessories. However, I think some readers will be interested to know how the idea for the screen came about. Therefore, I restore this technique in the published text. The image and inscriptions are projected from the magic lantern, located backstage, onto the part of the partition between the front room and the dining room: at other times, this part should not stand out in any way.
The purpose of using the screen, I believe, is obvious - to emphasize the significance of this or that episode. In every scene there is a moment or moments that are most compositionally important. In a play that consists of separate episodes, in particular in The Glass Menagerie, the composition or story line can sometimes escape the audience, and then the impression of fragmentation, rather than strict architectonics, will appear. Moreover, the matter may not be so much in the play itself, but in the lack of attention from the audience. The inscription or image on the screen will strengthen the hint in the text, help to convey the desired idea contained in the remarks in an accessible, easy way. I think that in addition to the compositional function of the screen, its emotional impact is also important. Any imaginative director can find convenient moments to use the screen on their own, and not be limited to instructions in the text. It seems to me that the possibilities of this stage device are much wider than those used in this play.
Music. Another non-literary medium that is used in the play is music. The simple through melody of The Glass Menagerie emotionally emphasizes the corresponding episodes. You will hear such a melody in the circus, but not in the arena, not during the solemn march of the artists, but in the distance and when you think about something else. Then it seems endless, then it disappears, then it sounds again in the head, occupied with some thoughts, - the most cheerful, most tender and, perhaps, the saddest melody in the world. It expresses the apparent lightness of life, but it also contains a note of inescapable, inexpressible sadness. When you look at a bauble made of thin glass, you think how lovely it is and how easy it is to break. So it is with this endless melody - it either appears in the play, then subsides again, as if it is carried by a changeable breeze. She is like a thread that connects the presenter - he lives his life in time and space - and his story. It arises between scenes as a memory, as a regret about the past, without which there is no play. This melody belongs mainly to Laura and therefore sounds especially clear when the action focuses on her and on the graceful fragile figures that, as it were, embody her.
Lighting. The lighting in the play is conditional. The scene is seen as if in a haze of memories. A ray of light suddenly falls on the actor or on some object, leaving in the shadow what seems to be the center of the action. For example, Laura is not involved in Tom's quarrel with Amanda, but it is she who is flooded with clear light at this moment. The same applies to the dinner scene, when the silent figure of Laura on the sofa should remain the focus of the viewer's attention. The light falling on Laura is distinguished by a special chaste purity and resembles the light on ancient icons or on images of Madonnas. In general, in a play one can make extensive use of such lighting as we find in religious painting - for example, El Greco, where the figures seem to glow against a relatively foggy background. (This will also allow for more efficient use of the screen.) The free, imaginative use of light is very valuable, it can give static pieces movement and plasticity.
Picture one
The Wingfields live in one of those gigantic, multicellular hives that grow like growths in overcrowded urban areas populated by poor "middle class" people, and which characterize the desire of this largest and in fact the most indentured section of American society to avoid fluidity, differentiation and preserve the appearance and customs of a homogeneous mechanical mass. They enter the apartment from the alley, through the fire escape - there is some symbolic truth in the name itself, because these huge buildings are constantly engulfed in the slow flame of unquenchable human despair. The fire passage, that is, the platform itself and the stairs down, is part of the scenery.
The action of the play is the memories of a person, and therefore the setting is unrealistic. Memory is self-willed, like poetry. She does not care about some details, but others appear especially prominently. It all depends on what kind of emotional echo the event or object that the memory touches causes; the past is kept in the heart. That is why the interior is seen in a foggy poetic haze.
When the curtain rises, the viewer will see the dreary back wall of the building where the Wingfields live. On both sides of the building, which is located parallel to the ramp, are the gorges of two narrow dark alleys; they go deeper, lost among the tangled clotheslines, dustbins and ominous lattice heaps of adjacent stairs. It is through these alleys that the actors enter the stage or leave it during the action. By the end of Tom's introductory monologue, the interior of the Wingfields' apartment on the first floor will gradually begin to shine through the dark wall of the building.
Tennessee Williams
glass menagerie
The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams (1944)
Characters
Amanda Wingfield - mother. This little woman has a great zest for life, but does not know how to live and desperately clings to the past and the distant. An actress must carefully create a character, and not be content with a ready-made type. She is by no means paranoid, but her life is full of paranoia. Amanda has a lot of attractive and a lot of funny, you can love and feel sorry for her. Long-suffering is undoubtedly characteristic of her, she is even capable of a kind of heroism, and although she is sometimes cruel out of thoughtlessness, tenderness lives in her soul.
Laura Wingfield - daughter. Having failed to establish contact with reality, Amanda holds on to illusions all the more. Laura's situation is much more serious. She suffered a serious illness in her childhood: one of her legs is slightly shorter than the other and requires special shoes - on stage this shortcoming should be barely noticeable. Hence her growing isolation, so that in the end she herself becomes like a glass figurine in her collection and cannot, due to excessive fragility, leave the shelf.
Tom Wingfield - Amanda's son and lead in the play. A poet who works in a shop. His conscience gnaws at him, but he is forced to act ruthlessly - otherwise he will not escape from the trap.
Jim O'Connor - the guest. A sweet and humble young man.
Scene - street in St. Louis.
Time of action - Now and Then.
I have never seen such thin hands even in the rain ...
E. E. Cummings
The Glass Menagerie is a memory play, so it can be staged with a significant degree of rim in relation to accepted methods. Its thin, fragile material certainly presupposes skillful directing and the creation of an appropriate atmosphere. Expressionism and other conventional techniques in drama have one and only goal - to come as close as possible to the truth. When a playwright uses a conventional technique, he does not at all try, at least he should not do this, to relieve himself of the obligation to deal with reality, to explain human experience; on the contrary, he strives or should strive to find a way to express life as it is as truthfully, penetratingly and vividly as possible. A traditional realistic play with a real refrigerator and pieces of ice, with characters who express themselves in the same way as the viewer speaks, is the same as the landscape in academic painting, and has the same dubious merit - photographic similarity. By now, perhaps, everyone already knows that photographic similarity does not play an important role in art, that truth, life - in a word, reality - are a single whole, and poetic imagination can show this reality or capture its essential features only by transforming the external the shape of things.
These notes are not just a preface to this play. They put forward the concept of a new, plastic theatre, which must replace the exhausted means of external credibility, if we want the theater, as a part of our culture, to regain vitality.
Screen. There is only one essential difference between the original text of the play and its stage version: the latter does not have what I did experimentally in the original. I mean a screen onto which an image and inscriptions are projected with the help of a magic lantern. I do not regret that the screen is not being used in the current production on Broadway. Miss Taylor's amazing skill allowed the performance to be limited to the simplest accessories. However, I think some readers will be interested to know how the idea for the screen came about. Therefore, I restore this technique in the published text. The image and inscriptions are projected from the magic lantern, located backstage, onto the part of the partition between the front room and the dining room: at other times, this part should not stand out in any way.
The purpose of using the screen, I believe, is obvious - to emphasize the significance of this or that episode. In every scene there is a moment or moments that are most compositionally important. In a play that consists of separate episodes, in particular in The Glass Menagerie, the composition or story line can sometimes escape the audience, and then the impression of fragmentation, rather than strict architectonics, will appear. Moreover, the matter may not be so much in the play itself, but in the lack of attention from the audience. The inscription or image on the screen will strengthen the hint in the text, help to convey the desired idea contained in the remarks in an accessible, easy way. I think that in addition to the compositional function of the screen, its emotional impact is also important. Any imaginative director can find convenient moments to use the screen on their own, and not be limited to instructions in the text. It seems to me that the possibilities of this stage device are much wider than those used in this play.
Music. Another non-literary medium that is used in the play is music. The simple through melody of The Glass Menagerie emotionally emphasizes the corresponding episodes. You will hear such a melody in the circus, but not in the arena, not during the solemn march of the artists, but in the distance and when you think about something else. Then it seems endless, then it disappears, then it sounds again in the head, occupied with some thoughts, - the most cheerful, most tender and, perhaps, the saddest melody in the world. It expresses the apparent lightness of life, but it also contains a note of inescapable, inexpressible sadness. When you look at a bauble made of thin glass, you think how lovely it is and how easy it is to break. So it is with this endless melody - it either appears in the play, then subsides again, as if it is carried by a changeable breeze. She is like a thread that connects the presenter - he lives his life in time and space - and his story. It arises between scenes as a memory, as a regret about the past, without which there is no play. This melody belongs mainly to Laura and therefore sounds especially clear when the action focuses on her and on the graceful fragile figures that, as it were, embody her.
Lighting. The lighting in the play is conditional. The scene is seen as if in a haze of memories. A ray of light suddenly falls on the actor or on some object, leaving in the shadow what seems to be the center of the action. For example, Laura is not involved in Tom's quarrel with Amanda, but it is she who is flooded with clear light at this moment. The same applies to the dinner scene, when the silent figure of Laura on the sofa should remain the focus of the viewer's attention. The light falling on Laura is distinguished by a special chaste purity and resembles the light on ancient icons or on images of Madonnas. In general, in a play one can make extensive use of such lighting as we find in religious painting - for example, El Greco, where the figures seem to glow against a relatively foggy background. (This will also allow for more efficient use of the screen.) The free, imaginative use of light is very valuable, it can give static pieces movement and plasticity.
Picture one
The Wingfields live in one of those gigantic, multicellular hives that grow like growths in overcrowded urban areas populated by poor "middle class" people, and which characterize the desire of this largest and in fact the most indentured section of American society to avoid fluidity, differentiation and preserve the appearance and customs of a homogeneous mechanical mass. They enter the apartment from the alley, through the fire escape - there is some symbolic truth in the name itself, because these huge buildings are constantly engulfed in the slow flame of unquenchable human despair. The fire passage, that is, the platform itself and the stairs down, is part of the scenery.
The action of the play is the memories of a person, and therefore the setting is unrealistic. Memory is self-willed, like poetry. She does not care about some details, but others appear especially prominently. It all depends on what kind of emotional echo the event or object that the memory touches causes; the past is kept in the heart. That is why the interior is seen in a foggy poetic haze.
When the curtain rises, the viewer will see the dreary back wall of the building where the Wingfields live. On both sides of the building, which is located parallel to the ramp, are the gorges of two narrow dark alleys; they go deeper, lost among the tangled clotheslines, dustbins and ominous lattice heaps of adjacent stairs. It is through these alleys that the actors enter the stage or leave it during the action. By the end of Tom's introductory monologue, the interior of the Wingfields' apartment on the first floor will gradually begin to shine through the dark wall of the building.
Peru outstanding American playwright and prose writer, winner of the prestigious Pulitzer Prize Tennessee Williams (full name - Thomas Lanier (Tennessee) Williams III) owns the play "The Glass Menagerie" (The Glass Menagerie).
At the time of writing this work, the author was quite young - he was 33 years old. The play was staged in Chicago in 1944 and was a resounding success. Reviews of "The Glass Menagerie" by Tennessee Williams were so numerous that the author quickly became famous. This served as a good springboard for him to start a successful writing career.
Very soon, the replicas of the characters in the "Glass Menagerie" were heard already in the theater on Broadway, and, having received the New York Theater Critics Circle Award "for the best play of the season", the play began to be considered a hit.
The further fate of this work was also successful - many times it went on the stage and was filmed.
The article presents a summary of "The Glass Menagerie" by Williams and an analysis of the play.
Topic
It is no coincidence that this work is designated by the author as a "memory play", that is, it is partly written on autobiographical material. It can be said that the Wingfield family depicted in the play is "written off" from the playwright's own family, in which he grew up. Among the characters there is a mother prone to fits of anger, and a sister with depression, and even an absent, but as if invisibly influencing the fate of the protagonist, father.
Illusions or reality - which is more important? To understand this, the main character will have to make his choice. The existential theme of the uniqueness of each human being is one of the main ones in the play.
At the same time, according to reviews of Tennessee Williams' "Glass Menagerie" by contemporary critics, the material from an emotional point of view is not yet presented with such force as in subsequent works of the playwright. In fact, this is only the first, rather timid attempt.
Title of the play
The author called the glass menagerie a collection of figurines that the hero's sister Laura collects. According to Williams, these few glass figurines were supposed to symbolize the fragility, playfulness, illusory life in which the characters, members of the Wingfield family, live.
Mother and sister are so well "hidden" in this glass world, absorbed by it, that they themselves, indulging in self-deception, become fake, and have no desire to think about the goals and tasks that reality sets before them.
"The Glass Menagerie" as an Experimental Play
So the play is called a memory play. In a brief summary of the "Glass Menagerie" we mention the introductory word of the narrator. He says that memories are an unstable thing, everyone has their own, so some, when staged, should be muffled depending on its significance for the rememberer, and some, on the contrary, should be presented brightly and convexly. To emphasize the importance of individual memories, the author at the beginning of the play explained by what means this artistic task could be achieved.
From the point of view of textual material, the play "The Glass Menagerie" contains many remarks, which is uncharacteristic of an ordinary dramatic work.
The designation of time is also unusual: "now and in the past." This means that the monologue is worn out by the narrator at the present time and talks about the past.
visual range
According to Tennessee Williams, a screen should be installed on the stage, on which a special lantern would project various images and inscriptions. Actions must be accompanied by a "single repeated melody". This is the so-called cross-cutting music, which serves to emotionally enhance what is happening.
To accentuate events on the hero who is on the stage, a ray of light should fall. If there are several characters, the light spot will highlight the one whose emotional stress is stronger.
All these violations of tradition, according to Williams, should prepare the emergence of a new plastic theater,
Which should replace the exhausted theater of realistic traditions.
Main character
Tom Wingfield, the protagonist and "narrator of the play" is
A poet who works in a store. By nature, he is not insensitive, but in order to get out of the trap, he is forced to act without pity.
The hero lives in St. Louis and works for the Continental Shoes Company. This work torments him. More than anything in the world he would have dreamed of dropping everything and leaving as far as possible. There, far away, he would live his life, doing only writing poetry. But this plan is impossible to implement: he has to earn money to support his mother and sister with a disability. After all, after their father left them, Tom became the sole breadwinner of the family.
To forget from the oppressive dreary everyday life, the hero often spends time in cinemas and reading books. His mother criticizes these classes severely.
Other actors
There are only four characters in the play besides Tom Wingfield. It:
- Amanda Wingfield (his mother).
- Laura (his sister).
- A significant character for the development of the plot is Jim O "Connor, a visitor, an acquaintance of Tom.
Let us give the characteristics of these characters, according to the text of the play and the comments of the author himself.
Laura, Tom's sister. Due to illness, the girl's legs have become of different lengths, so she feels uncomfortable in the company of strangers. Her hobby is a glass figurine collection located on a bookcase in her room. Only among them she is not so alone.
A small woman of enormous but erratic vitality, clinging furiously to another time and place. Her role must be carefully crafted, not copied from an established pattern. She's not paranoid, but her life is full of paranoia. There is much to admire in her; she is funny in many ways, but she can be loved and pitied. Of course, her stamina is akin to heroism, and although sometimes her stupidity unwittingly makes her cruel, tenderness is always visible in her weak soul.
The narrator himself calls the father the last and inactive character - in the photograph. Once he left the family "for the sake of fantastic adventures."
It is called "Waiting for a Visitor".
The narration is led by Tom, who appears and moves across the stage towards the fire exit. He says that with his story he turns back the clock, and his speech will be about America in the 30s.
The play begins in the living room of the apartment where Tom lives with his mother and sister. The mother looks forward to the fact that the son is about to build his career in a shoe company, and the daughter will marry favorably. She does not want to see that Laura is unsociable and is not going to seek love, and Tom hates his job. True, the mother tried to attach her daughter to typing courses, but this work turned out to be beyond Laura's strength.
Then the mother turned her dreams to a good marriage and asked Tom to introduce Laura to a decent young man. He invites Jim O "Connor, his colleague and only friend.
The second part
Laura immediately recognizes Jim - she remembers him from school. Once she was in love with him. He played basketball and sang in school plays. To this day, she keeps his photograph.
And shaking Jim's hand at the meeting, the girl is so embarrassed that she runs away to her room.
Under a plausible pretext, Amanda sends Jim to her daughter's room. There, Laura confesses to the young man that they have known each other for a long time. And Jim, who has completely forgotten about this strange girl, whom he once called the Blue Rose, remembers her. Thanks to Jim's benevolence and charm, a conversation is struck up between them. Jim sees how awkward the girl is and how insecure she is, and tries to convince her that her lameness is completely invisible. Don't think she's the worst.
In the summary of Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie, let us note the culmination of the play: a timid hope appears in Laura's heart. Trusting her, the girl shows Jim her treasures - glass figurines standing on a bookcase.
From the restaurant opposite, the sounds of a waltz are heard, Jim invites Laura to dance, and the young people begin to dance. Jim compliments Laura and kisses her. They hit one of the figures, it falls - it's a glass unicorn, and now its horn is broken off. The narrator emphasizes the symbolism of this loss - from a mythical character, the unicorn turned into an ordinary horse, one of many in the collection.
However, seeing that Laura is fascinated by him, Jim is frightened by her reaction and, in a hurry to leave, tells the girl common truths - that she will be fine, you just need to believe in yourself and so on. Saddened, deceived in her dreams, the girl gives him a unicorn - in memory of this evening.
The final
Amanda appears. Her whole appearance exudes confidence that the groom for Laura has been found, and it's almost on the ointment. However, Jim, saying that he needs to hurry to meet the bride at the station, takes his leave. In the summary of Williams' "Glass Menagerie", we especially note Amanda's ability to restrain her emotions: smiling, she escorts Jim and closes the door behind him. And only after that she gives vent to her emotions and, furious, throws herself at her son with reproaches that, they say, what was the dinner and such expenses for, if the candidate is busy, etc. But Tom is no less furious. Tired of constantly listening to his mother's reproaches, he also yells at her and runs away.
Silently, as if through glass, the viewer sees Amanda comforting her daughter. In the form of a mother
Stupidity disappears, and dignity and tragic beauty appear.
And Laura, looking at her, blows out the candles. So the play is over.
Epilogue
In summarizing Williams' play The Glass Menagerie, the importance of the final scene should be noted. In it, the narrator reports that shortly after that he was fired from his job - for a poem that he wrote on a shoebox. And Tom left St. Louis and went on a journey.
When analyzing the play by W. Tennessee "The Glass Menagerie", it is worth noting that Tom acts exactly like his father. That is why, at the beginning of the play, he appears before the audience in the form of a sailor of a merchant ship.
And yet the past in the form of a sister haunts him:
Oh Laura, Laura, I tried to leave you behind; I am faithful to you more than I would like!
His imagination once again draws him the image of a sister blowing out a candle: "Blow out your candles, Laura - and goodbye," Tom says sadly.
We have provided an analysis, summary and reviews of Tennessee Williams' "Glass Menagerie".
