Scene 1
Stage Directions. Stage directions are notes included in a play, in addition to the dialogue, for the purpose of describing how something should be performed on stage. As you read the stage directions for act 1, scene 1, pay attention to what Williams says about the economic and social setting in which the characters live.
Expressionism. Expressionism is the name given to a twentieth-century movement in literature and art that reacted against Realism in favor of an exaggeration of the elements of the artistic medium itself, in an attempt to express ideas or feelings. As you read the stage directions, determine what elements of the setting are unrealistic and calculated to create emotional responses in the audience.
Scene 2
Irony. Irony is a difference between appearance and reality. As you read, think about why Amanda’s reference to her husband is ironic in view of her plans for Laura.
Character. A character is a person who figures in the action of a literary work. Assess Laura’s character as you read the scene.
Scene 3
Symbol. A symbol is a thing that stands for or represents both itself and something else. Think about what the glass menagerie symbolizes as you read.
Conflict. A conflict is a struggle between two forces in a literary work. A struggle that takes place between a character and some outside force is called an external conflict. A struggle that takes place within a character is called an internal conflict. As you read, determine what Tom’s conflicts are in this scene.
Scene 4
Symbol. A symbol is a thing that stands for or represents both itself and something else. As you read this scene, determine what the magician’s trick symbolizes for Tom.
Character. A character is a person who figures in the action of a literary work. Assess Tom’s character as you read this scene.
Scene 5
Setting. The setting of a literary work is the time and place in which it occurs, together with all the details used to create a sense of a particular time and place. Writers create a setting by various means. In drama, the setting is often revealed by the stage set and the costumes, though it may be revealed through what the characters say about their environs. In its widest sense, setting includes the general social, political, moral and psychological conditions in which characters find themselves. As you read this scene, think about what realities the characters in the play are escaping.
Cliché. A cliché is an overused or unoriginal expression such as quiet as a mouse or couch potato. As you read this scene, notice the clichés Amanda uses.
Scene 6
Dialogue. Dialogue is conversation involving two or more people or characters. Plays are made up of dialogue and stage directions. As you read this scene, determine what the dialogue reveals about Amanda and Tom and how they communicate with each other.
Symbol. A symbol is a thing that stands for or represents both itself and something else. Think about all the symbols in act 1 and decide what they represent.
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The closest companion of Williams’s youth, his sister Rose, provided the model for the central character in the play that was to be his first major success, The Glass Menagerie. This largely autobiographical play, originally called The Gentleman Caller, deals with a socially isolated young woman, Laura, whose intense fragility is symbolized by her collection of glass figurines. Laura’s nickname, “Blue Roses,” recalls the name of Williams’s sister, Rose, and evokes numerous connotations: oddness and rarity (because blue roses do not actually occur in nature), fragility and weakness (because of the association of the color blue with the blue veins that show so clearly against the white skin of a sickly, anemic person), and sadness (because of the use of the word blues to describe a melancholic or depressed state). Such strong symbolism is characteristic of Williams’s work and that of other Expressionist writers. The character Tom in the play, a young writer, is something of a self-portrait, and critics have often expressed the idea that Williams wrote the play because of the guilt that he felt for abandoning his sister Rose, who ended up in a mental institution. Williams’s sister, like Laura, collected glass figures, and this remembered detail became an evocative image in his work. Williams wrote of his fascination with his sister’s glass collection, “They were mostly little glass animals. By poetic association they came to represent, in my memory, all the softest emotions that belong to recollection of things past. They stood for all the small and tender things that relieve the austere pattern of life and make it endurable to the sensitive.”
First staged in Chicago in 1944, The Glass Menagerie was an immediate success, opening in New York the following year. Since that time the play has been produced many times on Broadway and by theater companies throughout the world. Several film versions of the play have been produced, one in 1950 starring Jane Wyman and Arthur Kennedy, one in 1973 starring Katherine Hepburn and Sam Waterston, and one in 1987 starring Joanne Woodward and John Malkovich. The last of these versions was directed by Paul Newman.
Stage production of A Streetcar Named Desire, 1947.
Scene 1: Would you call yourself more of an extrovert or more of an introvert? Why?
Scene 2: When have you disappointed a parent? What happened?
Scene 3: What dreams do you have for the future?
Scene 4: From what have you wanted to escape?
Scene 5: What are your parents’ aspirations for you?
Scene 6: When you invite a guest home, what kinds of plans do you make?
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