The glass menagerie

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Data
Title: The glass menagerie. A game of memories
Original title: The Glass Menagerie
Genus: Family drama
Original language: English
Author: Tennessee Williams
Premiere: December 26, 1944
Place of premiere: Civic Theater in Chicago
Place and time of the action: a back street in St. Louis in the 1930s
people
  • Amanda Wingfield ; the mother
  • Laura Wingfield ; her daughter
  • Tom Wingfield ; her son
  • Jim O'Connor ; a work colleague of Tom

The glass menagerie (original title: The Glass Menagerie ) is a play by the American author Tennessee Williams (1911-1983). The family drama, subtitled as A Game of Memories , premiered on December 26, 1944 in Chicago at the Civic Theater. The German-language premiere took place on November 17, 1946 at the Basel City Theater . In Hollywood, the script for The Glass Menagerie was initially rejected before it marked the artistic breakthrough for Williams on stage. Like many of his works, this play also has strong autobiographical features.

action

The actual plot of the piece is both framed and interrupted several times by an epic narrative level: Tom Wingfield , who is also involved in the plot as a character, steps in front of the audience and reports on his previous cohabitation with his family. In the game of memories  - the actual plot - the audience witnesses Tom Wingfield's flashback.

The location of the action is St. Louis in the 1930s, more precisely the Wingfields' apartment, which is located there on a side street. The aged Amanda Wingfield lives here with her slightly disabled adult daughter Laura and her adult son Tom (the narrator is now a character in the play), who feeds the family from his work in a shoe factory. Amanda's husband left his family a long time ago.

All family members take refuge in another world in their own way: Amanda raves about her long-forgotten youth in the southern aristocracy , with which the poor conditions in which she now lives have nothing in common. Tom is tired of his simple warehouse worker existence and overwhelmed by the father role that he has to fulfill in the family. To compensate for this, he likes to go to the cinema, stays out late at night and comes home drunk early in the morning. He also feels ambitious as a poet. His sister Laura withdraws into her own dream world. The shy girl, who threatens to fail completely in real life outside of the family, has found her vanishing point in the world of her glass menagerie , a collection of fragile glass animals .

The family lives together in this constellation until one day Tom invites his work colleague Jim to visit him. Amanda's hopes for a son-in-law are immediately attached to the young visitor. She arranges an exaggerated festive dinner and causes some embarrassment with her intrusiveness. Laura, who secretly had a crush on Jim during her school days, thrives in his presence for a short time after initial embarrassment. In a central scene of the play, the two dance together, although Laura initially resists it because of her walking difficulties. Jim accidentally breaks the unicorn's horn from Laura's glass menagerie. Before Jim says goodbye at the end of the evening, it turns out to everyone's surprise and disappointment that he is already engaged. As a farewell, Laura gives him the broken unicorn, which was now a horse.

When he disappears, the family is left behind, deprived of their illusion and hope. Amanda blames Tom for the failure, whereupon Tom leaves the family following the example of his father. Laura sinks into a great depression.

interpretation

Typical of the works of Tennessee Williams is the extensive use of symbols and the strong autobiographical relationship. This is especially true of The Glass Menagerie . The central symbol in this play is the eponymous glass menagerie (which for Laura represents the vanishing point from reality) with the associated unicorn . A unicorn is a fantasy that does not exist in reality, to which properties such as shyness, rarity and loneliness are ascribed. Laura Wingfield - the central figure in the piece - is also characterized by these same qualities. It is no coincidence that Laura's glass unicorn breaks due to Jim's carelessness - just as the glass-fragile Laura breaks inside at the end of the piece, also due to an unwanted "carelessness". However, this is only one of many symbols found in the glass menagerie.

The figure of Laura is also worth mentioning in connection with the autobiographical references. There are parallels here with Tennessee Williams' sister Rose, who was mentally ill. Equally noteworthy is the fact that the action of the Glass Menagerie takes place in St. Louis . Here Williams spent part of his youth in cramped, poor conditions. This gloomy mood in the play becomes particularly graphic in the portrayal of the social conditions that are full of privation and the confinement of families.

Amanda's husband, Laura's and Tom's father, left his family a long time ago. In the piece it becomes clear that he must have fled; his last sign of life was a postcard with the words “Hello! Farewell!". Despite his absence, the father is present in many parts of the play. According to one of the numerous, detailed stage directions from Williams, a photograph of the father is part of the set design. In addition, he is frequently mentioned by Amanda Wingfield. And for Tom, the father is a role model, because he is the only person in the family who has escaped the hopeless lack of prospects without taking the remaining family into consideration. Tom does the same, he "follows in the footsteps" of his father, as he explains at the end of the play (again in the narrative role facing the audience). He doesn't do this without a remorse; Tom's insertions as the narrator are characterized by a doubtful, self-accusing mood. And so his final monologue ends with the memory of his sister: “[...] just to escape you! - your candlelight - […] Laura… Well then - goodbye! "

In many of Tennessee Williams 'plays, the characters' self-actualization is a theme. The motif of escape from reality is a determining element in the glass menagerie in this regard . While Amanda and Laura are not (any longer) able to realize their “self” to the outside world, and therefore seek refuge more or less in their dream worlds (Amanda, by constantly raving about their blossoming youth, and Laura, by gets lost in her glass animal collection), Tom finally breaks out of his dream world (cinema, alcohol) and creates a new life for himself through his “real” escape. The memory of his family - especially his sister Laura - does not let go of him.

literature

Adaptations

Feature films:

Television films

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ "Death of a Salesman" and "All my sons"
  2. ↑ also about his "The sandbox"