Book Review: The Glass Menagerie
She lives in a world of her own – a world of – little glass ornaments…
This was Tenessee Williams's first big hit. I wouldn't say it is as popular as some of his other works such as ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ - admit it, you all thought ‘STELLLAAAA’. However, that does not make The Glass Menagerie any less poignant. There are some really interesting themes to unpack here, such as mental health in the 40s and 50s America, the American dream, hope and expectations. In the best of times, they can be beautiful things; at the worst, it feels like the weight of the world is on your shoulders.
In a rundown apartment somewhere in the South of 1940s America, Amanda, a faded southern belle, has high hopes and big dreams for her family, all the while rehashing her glory days. Beaten down and abandoned by her husband some years before, she struggles to thrive with a son, Tom, who has dreams of being a poet and resents her domineering nature. Her daughter, Laura, is disabled, socially awkward, self-conscious and shy - preferring to hide away in the apartment tending to her glass menagerie. The play only takes place in this rundown apartment; it is a memory of a time long since passed narrated by Tom from some time in the future. The date is unknown, but the time is meaningless. The apartment is compressed, isolated, frozen in time in a forgotten part of a run-down neighbourhood in a large and unforgiving city. It is suppressed, tense and no place for a glass menagerie.
The play is essentially haunted; it has a gothic atmosphere to it that is subtle and foreboding. Let's take the absent father; we know from William’s stage direction that his photograph is mentioned everywhere, and Amanda is forever telling stories about him. The memory of him haunts Amanda of better days - happier days. Tom foreshadows his later absence with his reflections of his father and the events of the play. To him, all the characters are but ghosts and fragments of memories.
Like all good gothic texts, there are manifestations of fear; for Laura, you have the glass menagerie - that is a blatantly obvious one. But it is the unicorn that breaks in act two that shows where her insecurities lie. The beautiful, mythic and ethereal creature breaking - perhaps it becomes normal, but in the normality, you find the mundane. The breaking of Laura destroys the fairytale magic and shatters the illusions that have thrived within the apartment. Then we have Amanda, our faux fairy godmother - she is a relic of her past. Her tales of ‘gentlemen callers’ date her; post-war modernisation meets old world southern traditions. Her magic touches of new fabrics and drapes do not hide the tired reality or the cracks in her children from the weight of her expectations.
That being said, there is no real antagonist within this play - they are victims of circumstance and unfulfilled dreams - a great piece of theatre and one I would recommend seeing live if, like me, you have seen it.