Model Answer
Evening All,
Here (behind the link) is the Glass Menagerie Model Essay, in case you lose the paper copy. Hope it's useful.
Ms B
Choose a play whose main theme is made clear early in the action.
Show how the dramatist introduces the theme and discuss how successfully he or she goes on to develop it.
‘The Glass Menagerie’ by Tennessee Williams is an unusual play for many reasons. For one, it is semi-biographical, which lends an urgency and poignancy to the action. In addition, as the narrator himself suggests, this is a play drawn from memory, and which is not designed to be realistic – events are often shrouded in symbolism and overstated depending on their importance in the narrator Tom’s memory. I will be addressing how the author introduces the theme of ‘the unrelenting power of memory’ and showing how he successfully develops it through the play.
We are made aware of the theme from the start of the play. The opening stage directions of scene one instruct the reader, actor or director that:
‘The scene is memory and is therefore non-realistic. Memory takes a
lot of poetic licence. It omits some details; others are exaggerated,
according to the emotional value of the articles it touches’
This lets us know from the start of the play that we should expect an unconventional experience from ‘The Glass Menagerie’. Memory will clearly be a powerful force in the play, as the author intends that his story be shaped and influenced by it. When we meet Tom, the narrator and alter-ego of the playwright, he further emphasises that is play is a creation from memory – his memory in fact:
“The play is memory.
Being a memory play, it is dimly lighted, it is sentimental,
it is not realistic.
In memory everything seems to happen to music. That explains
the fiddle in the wings.”
We begin to see that, for Tom, memory is something tangible yet fluid, with what we see on stage depending on what Tom remembers as important. Even Tom’s physical appearance is warped by memory at this stage of the play, as he is wearing the uniform of a merchant sailor, when in fact at the start of the actual action Tom is still a humble warehouse worker. This helps the audience to understand that Tom is relating his earlier experiences, which will be at times incongruous and unexpected.
The power of memory is introduced by Tom as he informs us of the nature of the play, but it is intensified through the character of Amanda, Tom’s mother, who at times becomes lost in memories of her childhood. Her constant reminiscences and inability to accept her current reality show how powerful a hold memory can have on a person:
“My callers were gentlemen – all! Among my callers were some of the most prominent young planters of the Mississipi Delta – planters and sons of planters!”
Tom and his sister Laura have been subjected to this speech more times than they care to remember. Memory’s hold on Amanda is clear through the breathless punctuation, indicating the power and significance that these memories have for Amanda. This characterisation of Amanda as a woman trapped in her past is effective in showing how Tom inherited the trait of living in the past from his mother.
Just as her mother seems trapped in a rose-tinted past, Laura too has a rich fantasy life, at the centre of which are her memories of a boy, Jim, she knew from school. In scene two, when Amanda realises that her daughter will never make a businesswoman, she falls back on the idea that Laura should be married, and we are made aware of Laura’s enduring crush on Jim:
“Screen image: Jim as a high-school hero, brandishing a silver cup.”
The images on screen always indicate the key ideas and emotions being expressed in each scene, and this image, and the following image of ‘Blue Roses’ (Jim’s nickname for Laura) show that the memory of Jim is still fresh, perhaps painfully so for the girl. The images intensify the effect of Laura’s memories on the audience, and show that she too is pinned to a point of pleasure in the past. The playwright successfully shows how both of the Wingfield women are in some way trapped by their own memories, and in the following scenes he looks at how Tom’s memories hold sway over him.
The opening of scene three continues to develop the theme of the unrelenting power of memory. Tom, speaking from the fire escape, introduces the scene, narrating the events from his own past. The tone of his speech is that of someone telling a story, convincing us further that this play is drawn from memory:
“It became an obsession. Like some archetype of the universal unconscious, the image of the gentleman caller haunted our small apartment…
[IMAGE:YOUNG MAN AT DOOR WITH FLOWERS.]”
The choice of the word ‘haunted’ suggests that this memory for Tom, perhaps subconsciously, has never died and still troubles him. His memories have the power to affect him, even in his ‘new’ life years later.
In scene five, Tom puts events into context, by referring to the bombing of Guernica in Spain, and Neville Chamberlain’s meeting with Hitler in Berchtesgaden, and juxtaposes the turmoil and change in Europe with the Youth of America’s desire for adventure and escape from the depression through:
“Hot swing music and liquor, dance halls , bars and movies,
and sex that hung in the gloom like chandeliers and flooded the
world with brief, deceptive rainbows.”
I believe that Williams, through Tom, uses his memories of this delirious and expectant era to excuse his later behaviour. If “all the world was waiting for bombardments!”, for release of tension, for escape, then how can Tom be blamed for wishing to be liberated from his suffocating and claustrophobic situation? Tom is using one of the main powers of memory, the ability to revise and make sense of events in the past in order to remove or assuage feelings of guilt, which would otherwise be unbearable.
As the play nears its climax, the sense of memory is mingled with imagination, as the action focuses on Laura and Jim’s encounter, which Tom himself did not witness. This part of the play is not memory, as such, but a reconstruction of events, inspired by both memory and assumptions. The theme is always present, however, as the entire play is woven from the fabric of Tom’s past experiences. Scenes six and seven seem even more stylised and exaggerated in their detail than the rest of the play, as if Williams has tried to make the idea of memory more and more obvious as the play progresses. In stage directions in scene seven Laura’s appearance is explicitly derived from Tom’s memory:
“The dress is coloured and designed by memory…a fragile, unearthly prettiness has come out in Laura: she is like a piece of translucent glass,
touched by light.”
This description of Laura seems mystical and slightly unreal, like the quality of memory. The reference to light is significant, as this motif, which has surfaced regularly through the play, becomes more and more frequent through the final scenes Each reference to light, from the cutting off of the electricity representing Jim’s impending separation from his family, to the evocative description of the lightning-struck candelabra, seem to reinforce the importance of each event in Tom’s memory. Even the yearbook, over which Laura and Jim reminisce about the ‘good old days’ is symbolically named ‘The Torch’. The many references to light perhaps show that Jim’s visit and its catastrophic ending is the clearest and most important event among Tom’s memories of his family. This assumption is reinforced by the end of the play, as Tom, and indeed Williams, ‘close the book’ on this painful time. Tom continues to be haunted by the memory of his family, and by his sister in particular.
“I was pursued by something. . . . Then all at once my sister touches
my shoulder. I turn around and look into her eyes. Oh, Laura, Laura,
I tried to leave you behind me, but I am more faithful than I intended
to be! I reach for a cigarette, I cross the street, I run into the movies or
a bar, I buy a drink, I speak to the nearest stranger...anything that can
blow your candles out. For nowadays the world is lit by lightning!
Blow out your candles, Laura – and so good-bye…”
These concluding lines of the play leave us with the image of an extinguished light, as Tom once again tried to black out the memory of abandoning his family. The references to light grew more and more frequent towards the end as Tom related the most intense and painful memories, those just before he left home. The blowing out of the candles may show that, at least for a time, Tom has purged his painful memories through reliving them, and can now leave the memory of his past shame and return to his present life.
As a self-confessed memory play, the theme of the power of memory was obvious throughout ‘The Glass Menagerie’. Williams clearly showed how events in the past, whether clear as day or half remembered, (and thus embellished), have the power to influence us throughout our lives, if we allow them to. Tom’s life is tainted by the memory of abandoning his family, and the guilt of following in his wayward father’s footsteps. Through his skilful use of dramatic conventions, including characterisation, staging devices and symbolism, Williams developed the theme of the power of memory throughout the play to the haunting, moving climax, gaining sympathy from the audience for both his own and Tom’s circumstances.
Words: 1570 Times memory/remember etc used: 50 (approx)
Here (behind the link) is the Glass Menagerie Model Essay, in case you lose the paper copy. Hope it's useful.
Ms B
Choose a play whose main theme is made clear early in the action.
Show how the dramatist introduces the theme and discuss how successfully he or she goes on to develop it.
‘The Glass Menagerie’ by Tennessee Williams is an unusual play for many reasons. For one, it is semi-biographical, which lends an urgency and poignancy to the action. In addition, as the narrator himself suggests, this is a play drawn from memory, and which is not designed to be realistic – events are often shrouded in symbolism and overstated depending on their importance in the narrator Tom’s memory. I will be addressing how the author introduces the theme of ‘the unrelenting power of memory’ and showing how he successfully develops it through the play.
We are made aware of the theme from the start of the play. The opening stage directions of scene one instruct the reader, actor or director that:
‘The scene is memory and is therefore non-realistic. Memory takes a
lot of poetic licence. It omits some details; others are exaggerated,
according to the emotional value of the articles it touches’
This lets us know from the start of the play that we should expect an unconventional experience from ‘The Glass Menagerie’. Memory will clearly be a powerful force in the play, as the author intends that his story be shaped and influenced by it. When we meet Tom, the narrator and alter-ego of the playwright, he further emphasises that is play is a creation from memory – his memory in fact:
“The play is memory.
Being a memory play, it is dimly lighted, it is sentimental,
it is not realistic.
In memory everything seems to happen to music. That explains
the fiddle in the wings.”
We begin to see that, for Tom, memory is something tangible yet fluid, with what we see on stage depending on what Tom remembers as important. Even Tom’s physical appearance is warped by memory at this stage of the play, as he is wearing the uniform of a merchant sailor, when in fact at the start of the actual action Tom is still a humble warehouse worker. This helps the audience to understand that Tom is relating his earlier experiences, which will be at times incongruous and unexpected.
The power of memory is introduced by Tom as he informs us of the nature of the play, but it is intensified through the character of Amanda, Tom’s mother, who at times becomes lost in memories of her childhood. Her constant reminiscences and inability to accept her current reality show how powerful a hold memory can have on a person:
“My callers were gentlemen – all! Among my callers were some of the most prominent young planters of the Mississipi Delta – planters and sons of planters!”
Tom and his sister Laura have been subjected to this speech more times than they care to remember. Memory’s hold on Amanda is clear through the breathless punctuation, indicating the power and significance that these memories have for Amanda. This characterisation of Amanda as a woman trapped in her past is effective in showing how Tom inherited the trait of living in the past from his mother.
Just as her mother seems trapped in a rose-tinted past, Laura too has a rich fantasy life, at the centre of which are her memories of a boy, Jim, she knew from school. In scene two, when Amanda realises that her daughter will never make a businesswoman, she falls back on the idea that Laura should be married, and we are made aware of Laura’s enduring crush on Jim:
“Screen image: Jim as a high-school hero, brandishing a silver cup.”
The images on screen always indicate the key ideas and emotions being expressed in each scene, and this image, and the following image of ‘Blue Roses’ (Jim’s nickname for Laura) show that the memory of Jim is still fresh, perhaps painfully so for the girl. The images intensify the effect of Laura’s memories on the audience, and show that she too is pinned to a point of pleasure in the past. The playwright successfully shows how both of the Wingfield women are in some way trapped by their own memories, and in the following scenes he looks at how Tom’s memories hold sway over him.
The opening of scene three continues to develop the theme of the unrelenting power of memory. Tom, speaking from the fire escape, introduces the scene, narrating the events from his own past. The tone of his speech is that of someone telling a story, convincing us further that this play is drawn from memory:
“It became an obsession. Like some archetype of the universal unconscious, the image of the gentleman caller haunted our small apartment…
[IMAGE:YOUNG MAN AT DOOR WITH FLOWERS.]”
The choice of the word ‘haunted’ suggests that this memory for Tom, perhaps subconsciously, has never died and still troubles him. His memories have the power to affect him, even in his ‘new’ life years later.
In scene five, Tom puts events into context, by referring to the bombing of Guernica in Spain, and Neville Chamberlain’s meeting with Hitler in Berchtesgaden, and juxtaposes the turmoil and change in Europe with the Youth of America’s desire for adventure and escape from the depression through:
“Hot swing music and liquor, dance halls , bars and movies,
and sex that hung in the gloom like chandeliers and flooded the
world with brief, deceptive rainbows.”
I believe that Williams, through Tom, uses his memories of this delirious and expectant era to excuse his later behaviour. If “all the world was waiting for bombardments!”, for release of tension, for escape, then how can Tom be blamed for wishing to be liberated from his suffocating and claustrophobic situation? Tom is using one of the main powers of memory, the ability to revise and make sense of events in the past in order to remove or assuage feelings of guilt, which would otherwise be unbearable.
As the play nears its climax, the sense of memory is mingled with imagination, as the action focuses on Laura and Jim’s encounter, which Tom himself did not witness. This part of the play is not memory, as such, but a reconstruction of events, inspired by both memory and assumptions. The theme is always present, however, as the entire play is woven from the fabric of Tom’s past experiences. Scenes six and seven seem even more stylised and exaggerated in their detail than the rest of the play, as if Williams has tried to make the idea of memory more and more obvious as the play progresses. In stage directions in scene seven Laura’s appearance is explicitly derived from Tom’s memory:
“The dress is coloured and designed by memory…a fragile, unearthly prettiness has come out in Laura: she is like a piece of translucent glass,
touched by light.”
This description of Laura seems mystical and slightly unreal, like the quality of memory. The reference to light is significant, as this motif, which has surfaced regularly through the play, becomes more and more frequent through the final scenes Each reference to light, from the cutting off of the electricity representing Jim’s impending separation from his family, to the evocative description of the lightning-struck candelabra, seem to reinforce the importance of each event in Tom’s memory. Even the yearbook, over which Laura and Jim reminisce about the ‘good old days’ is symbolically named ‘The Torch’. The many references to light perhaps show that Jim’s visit and its catastrophic ending is the clearest and most important event among Tom’s memories of his family. This assumption is reinforced by the end of the play, as Tom, and indeed Williams, ‘close the book’ on this painful time. Tom continues to be haunted by the memory of his family, and by his sister in particular.
“I was pursued by something. . . . Then all at once my sister touches
my shoulder. I turn around and look into her eyes. Oh, Laura, Laura,
I tried to leave you behind me, but I am more faithful than I intended
to be! I reach for a cigarette, I cross the street, I run into the movies or
a bar, I buy a drink, I speak to the nearest stranger...anything that can
blow your candles out. For nowadays the world is lit by lightning!
Blow out your candles, Laura – and so good-bye…”
These concluding lines of the play leave us with the image of an extinguished light, as Tom once again tried to black out the memory of abandoning his family. The references to light grew more and more frequent towards the end as Tom related the most intense and painful memories, those just before he left home. The blowing out of the candles may show that, at least for a time, Tom has purged his painful memories through reliving them, and can now leave the memory of his past shame and return to his present life.
As a self-confessed memory play, the theme of the power of memory was obvious throughout ‘The Glass Menagerie’. Williams clearly showed how events in the past, whether clear as day or half remembered, (and thus embellished), have the power to influence us throughout our lives, if we allow them to. Tom’s life is tainted by the memory of abandoning his family, and the guilt of following in his wayward father’s footsteps. Through his skilful use of dramatic conventions, including characterisation, staging devices and symbolism, Williams developed the theme of the power of memory throughout the play to the haunting, moving climax, gaining sympathy from the audience for both his own and Tom’s circumstances.
Words: 1570 Times memory/remember etc used: 50 (approx)
posted by Ms B at
8:47 PM
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