Tennessee Williams: The Glass Menagerie
Considered one of the three most "influential" American playwrights (together with Eugene O'Neil and Arthur Miller), Thomas Lanier Williams was born in Columbus, Mississippi in 1914 to Cornelius and Edwina Williams (4, 2). He knew at a very young age that he wanted to be a playwright: in fact it was after seeing a production of Henrik Ibsen's Ghosts, he decided on his life's profession. In much the fashion of many creative writers, Williams spent his youth moving about and doing a number of odd jobs. He was a bellhop in New Orleans, waited tables in New York City, and operated a teletype machine in Jacksonville. Like his fictional counterpart in The Glass Menagerie, Williams spent time as a clerk in a shoe store--a job he disliked very much. Nonetheless, such broad and disparate travels undoubtedly informed young Williams' creative energies (Kennedy and Gioia).
By the time his family moved to St. Louis, Williams' happy childhood turned sour. As a result, Williams found solace in his writing: it provided an escape from the chaos at home created by his parents' rancorous marriage. Later, when Williams began attending the University of Iowa, his father demanded he come home and work as a shoe clerk--a traumatizing even that resulted in the young man's nervous breakdown (2).
Williams was twice awarded the Pulitzer Prize: once for the epic Streetcar Named Desire, which was translated to the silver screen starring Marlon Brando and Vivian Leigh; and for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, also translated to the screen, starring Paul Newman and Elizabeth Taylor. In both plays, the author treats the topics of southern life, southern characters, and southern mannerisms; however, Williams' life and experience can certainly be read in the ways he treats the themes in his work: family, tradition, dreams and desires, disappointment, and some might say, mental illness.
Critics have often remarked that Williams models the family in The Glass Menagerie, the Wingfields, after his own. His own mother emerged from a line of "blue-blood" Mississippi socialites, and his sister, Rose, was stricken with a paralyzing shyness that made her reclusive. It has been noted as well that Williams was terribly protective of his sister, as his Tom of his, in the play. This relationship might have been born out of the conspicuous absence of a father in the play (Kennedy and Gioia). Some other themes that Williams' play The Glass Menagerie engages include:
Abandonment
Addiction
Duty
Weakness
Marriage
Gender
Love
Deception
Memory (3)
Below is a clip from a live production of the play at the Wherehouse Theater.
Photo: The Los Angeles Times
By the time his family moved to St. Louis, Williams' happy childhood turned sour. As a result, Williams found solace in his writing: it provided an escape from the chaos at home created by his parents' rancorous marriage. Later, when Williams began attending the University of Iowa, his father demanded he come home and work as a shoe clerk--a traumatizing even that resulted in the young man's nervous breakdown (2).
Williams was twice awarded the Pulitzer Prize: once for the epic Streetcar Named Desire, which was translated to the silver screen starring Marlon Brando and Vivian Leigh; and for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, also translated to the screen, starring Paul Newman and Elizabeth Taylor. In both plays, the author treats the topics of southern life, southern characters, and southern mannerisms; however, Williams' life and experience can certainly be read in the ways he treats the themes in his work: family, tradition, dreams and desires, disappointment, and some might say, mental illness.
Critics have often remarked that Williams models the family in The Glass Menagerie, the Wingfields, after his own. His own mother emerged from a line of "blue-blood" Mississippi socialites, and his sister, Rose, was stricken with a paralyzing shyness that made her reclusive. It has been noted as well that Williams was terribly protective of his sister, as his Tom of his, in the play. This relationship might have been born out of the conspicuous absence of a father in the play (Kennedy and Gioia). Some other themes that Williams' play The Glass Menagerie engages include:
Abandonment
Addiction
Duty
Weakness
Marriage
Gender
Love
Deception
Memory (3)
Below is a clip from a live production of the play at the Wherehouse Theater.
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