William's Life In St. Louis During The Depression

Tennessee Williams, born Thomas Lanier Williams, wrote The Glass Menagerie, a play which premiered in Chicago in 1944. This award winning play, autobiographical in nature, represented a time in which Williams felt the obligation of his responsibilities in regards to the care of his family. Robert DiYanni, Adjunct Professor of Humanities at New York University, rated it as, “One of his best-loved plays...a portrayal of loneliness among characters who confuse fantasy and reality” (DiYanni 1156). Alternatively, The Glass Menagerie, a play set in the era of the Great Depression and written from the narrator’s memory, was meant to teach us the how our relationships with one another can alter our futures, for better or worse. Everything about this particular play was a direct and clear symbolization of Williams ' life growing up. Williams uses characterization to depict several people from his real life in this play; his sister, himself, his overbearing mother, absent father, and a childhood best friend. Williams does a splendid job transforming his personal life into a working piece of art. In Tennessee Williams ' play, The Glass Menagerie, his character, Laura, is central to the structure and focus of the story due to her individual ties to all of the supporting characters throughout the seven scene play.

Tennessee Williams is known to be a Southern playwright of American drama. Williams knew how to show haunting elements like psychological drama, loneliness, and inexcusable violence in his plays. Critics say Williams often depicted women who were suffering from critical downfalls due to his sister Rose Williams. Rose was always fighting with a mental health condition known as schizophrenia all her life. The character Laura in The Glass Menagerie is always compared to Rose, because they were both socially awkward and very quiet girls. This may be true, but one can look at Blanche DuBois from A Street Car Named Desire shadows his sister’s life and characteristics more than Laura did. In the obituary of Rose Williams that was written by

Established as one of the most prolific playwrights of the 20th century, Tennessee Williams used his writing as a form of therapy. The author came from a troubled background consisting of alcoholism, mental breakdowns, and general unhappiness; Williams exploited these unfortunate events and allowed them to motivate his literature. In A Streetcar Named Desire, Blanche DuBois’ struggles represent the reality of people’s lives, “an enduring concern of [Williams’] throughout his writing career (Henthorne 1). Blanche captures our focus with her seemingly sincere and fragile nature, but it is later revealed that this is just an illusion within her own mind. She resides in a world of fantasy to shield herself against the harsh threats of reality and her own fears. Blanche’s main objective in the play is to keep herself from falling apart in a world of cruelty through alcoholism and illusion. Through the characterization of Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams depicts the coping mechanism of fantasy and its detrimental repercussions by exploring the specific experiences that eventually impede her happiness.

If there is any signature kind of character that marks Tennessee Williams’s plays, it is without a doubt the faded Southern belle. The Glass Menagerie’s Amanda Wingfield, the mother of Laura and Tom, is a perfect representative of this type, not unlike Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire, also by Williams. A proud and effervescent woman, Amanda passionately holds on to memories of a happier time, of days long gone by. Generally, a faded belle in a Tennessee Williams play is from a wealthy Southern family, raised by parents with traditional beliefs, and has suffered an economic or social, or both, downturn of fortune at some point in her life. Like Amanda, these women all have difficulty accepting a status in society different than what they are used to, as

Williams’s play is a tragedy, and one of quietude. He once expressed that “Glass Menagerie is my first quiet play, and perhaps my last.” It is a play of profound sadness, and through relationships between characters, portrays the “cries of the heart.” There is no cry more powerful that the cry and inner desperation of the heart. Williams’s has very little social context, but rather focuses on the conflicts within a domestic family. Such a focus is powerful, and the playwright expresses this power and importance implicitly through the estranged relationship between Amanda and Tom Wingfield.

Many years ago when the Great depression affected the economy and that is known as a big part of history, and a big part of me, especially before my Grandfather passed away he told me as many stories about how he served in the war and how when he was a child and was in the great depression. Now my Grandfather was a man that would keep EVERYTHING i mean like from yogurt cups to boxes with nothing in them. Now i use to ask my mom when i was little why does he do that and she explained that it was because of how he was raised they didn't have anything and when they had anything they would keep it because they could use that one day. That was the one thing i would hear from him over and over “ i can use that one day.” or “ I can use that for something.”

Growing Up As a Child during the Great Depression Life during the Great Depression was very rough on the people that were affected. Living during the Great Depression was not fun at all. Finding work during the this time was a very difficult task. Growing up as a child during the Great Depression, made it harder on the people who were affected further in life. LIFE BEFORE THE GREAT DEPRESSION People during this time thought that everything was going to be alright and nothing horrible would happen.

Tennessee Williams is regarded as a pioneering playwright of American theatre. Through his plays, Williams addresses important issues that no other writers of his time were willing to discuss, including addiction, substance abuse, and mental illness. Recurring themes in William’s works include the dysfunctional family, obsessive and absent mothers and fathers, and emotionally damaged women. These characters were inspired by his experiences with his own family. These characters appear repeatedly in his works with their own recurring themes. Through The Glass Menagerie and A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams presents the similar thematic elements of illusion, escape, and fragility between the two plays, proving that although similar, the themes within these plays are not simply recycled, as the differences in their respective texts highlight the differences of the human condition.

The “other side” in context of the Great Depression, refers to the positives that manifested during that time. Ultimately, members of the upper class benefited the most during this time. Throughout the Great Depression, the upper class found themselves living an ultimately better lifestyle. They were still just as rich as before the depression hit, and continued to live their luxurious lives. The Great Depression resulted in the cost of living, decreasing, which in turn, allowed the wealthy to live even better and maintain or even increase their own wealth. They were also able to buy businesses and properties, and essentially make more money off the lower classes. However, there were positives for the average person as well. People learned

As William R. Linneman says in the article “Will Rogers And The Great Depression”, "We was a mighty cocky nation, we originated mass production, and mass produced everybody out of a job with our boasted labor-saving machinery. They forgot that machinery don't eat, rent houses, or buy clothes” (177). This quotation is especially prevalent in The Devil and Miss Jones due to Mr. Merrick’s lack of care towards his employees and that he does not realize that they are actual living and breathing humans. He sees them only as profit. Fortunately later in the film, Merrick opens his eyes to his employees--Mary, Elizabeth and Joe--to see that they are more than income and invites all of his employees to the wedding of Joe and Mary. [Tayler Kalthoff]

"If there is a signature character type that marks Tennessee Williams's dramatic work, it is undeniably that of the faded Southern belle; Amanda is a clear representative of this type". Amanda fits into the category of a typical William's southern

The members of the family are selfish; everyone is abandoning everyone and everything to chase their own aims and dreams. The character of Tom and Laura portray the story of Tennessee Williams’ life. Like Tom, Tennessee was a shoe clerk that love to write but was held back by his relatives. All the events in the story are based on the life of Williams and his friends. This is like his autobiography with a twist. “All work is autobiographical if it’s serious. Everything a writer produces is his inner history, transposed into another time. I am more personal in my writing than other people, and it may have gone against me.” (Spoto 114) Tennessee was a man that wanted the reader to see what his life really looked like in the time of the Great Depression: how people lived, and how they escaped reality. This tale is a lesson to show the reader that every negative side can have a positive

Tom had a double role in the play as both the narrator and a main character that lived through a recollection of what life was like living with his mother and sister before he abandoned them to seek adventure. Tom’s behavior in the play could lead to question if his memory is truly accurate. SparkNotes comments, “…But at the same time, he demonstrates real and sometimes juvenile emotions as he takes part in the play’s action. This duality can frustrate our understanding of Tom, as it is hard to decide whether he is a character whose assessments should be trusted or one who allows his emotions to affect his judgment” (SparkNotes.com). Through his behavior a person is reminded that memory can be flawed by emotions or time elapsing, this would need to be taken into account when analysis of such a character is done. Tom is full of contradictions as he reads literature, writes poetry, and dreams of an escape; however he also felt bound by duty to his sister and mother. Another contradiction was that while he professed to care about his sister as seen in his ending comments in the play, “…I tried to leave you behind me, but I am more faithful than I intended to be!...” (Williams), Tom never went back to reconnect with his sister. This could be because of the great shame he felt for abandoning his sister or because of another reason. He stated that he had been in several cities over the years but never speaks of going back to St. Louis, making it unclear if he

His complex characterization and difficult subject matter appealed to a new generation of actors” (Sloan). He lived a tough childhood. He had a father who never supported his dreams, and a mother who emotionally neglected him. Those events eventually made him recur to alcohol as a way to deal with his problems. Those life events are seen all throughout the play. The alcoholic father who disappears on Willie, is his father who was never there for him. The heartless mother who prostituted her daughter and abandoned her other one, is his mother who never showed him any love or affection. Finally, Williams’ himself is embedded into play both as Willie and her father. He is the alcoholic father, because he was an alcoholic himself and her at same times because he was a lonely child too. Although, he physically had both of his parents, emotionally neither showed him any love or support. His parents’ beliefs were prioritized over showing their own son any kind of love, support, or affection. He was a clever playwright with a tough childhood. However, it was those events that gave him the inspiration he needed to write the successful plays he did. He turned his suffering into writing, and gave his audiences a look into his life, without them even realizing

Tennessee Williams play, A Streetcar Named Desire, written in 1947 evoked a montage of critical commentaries and reviews about where it stands in terms of its genre. This was due to its intense concentration on realism and the exclusion of any definite protagonists and antagonists. Many assume the play is a tragedy. There is a copious amount of evidence to support this assumption. However, the ambiguity embodied by the play and the melodramatic devices used by Williams, contradicts the classification of the play as a tragedy entirely. Others have defined it as a melodrama with conventions of tragedy included. This is a contentious topic. The answer lies in the interpretation of the characters and the context. In order to explain these interpretations, one must define the