Life Transparent, Essay Example

In an attempt to avoid trite avoidance, we can clear the air by starting with the obvious: The Glass Menagerie’s Amanda has a life centered around idolatry. Amanda is the center of the Wingfield family and an abandoned mother whose life centers around former glories. She has no real presence in the 30’s setting that she lives in- other than to live vicariously through her daughter, Laura, whose social capabilities are few and far between- making the play an antithesis of a Jane Austen novel.

The harsh realism in The Glass Menagerie is one unromantic aspect; another is the lack of the traditional male “hero” figure. While Tom’s offerings to the family (a steady income, the premature end to his carefree youthfulness, and the search for possible suitors of Laura) put his family first, it is never good enough for his mother. Likewise, Laura’s constant failures to live up to Amanda’s standards are always given more than their fair share of credit. The reader is aware that Tom’s sacrifices are made begrudgingly, and those of Laura are not. However, Amanda does not care about how her children feel as much as she cares about how their contributions affect her feelings. This Cain and Abel situation drove Tom away, but, even so, he bore the stigma of his mother’s disappointment. Tennessee Williams said of his own mother Edwina, “This masquerade made it difficult for her children to get hold of her or to understand her. She talked but didn’t listen; she smothered but didn’t touch“ (Lahr, 1).

Some cultures had giant jackals, some had golden calves, and some had glass unicorns. When she gazes at the glass figures, she sees through them to her slightly-obscured past and dreams of her old suitors fighting for her attention. She calls them jonquils after the name of a dainty flower- a type of narcissus. Narcissus was a Greek mythological figure who fell in love with himself.  The 2010 Long Wharf Theater reproduction of the play exploited these mythological themes (Lahr, 2). She belonged in that high-status garden. Her husband was such a fragile flower.

In comparison, Laura has nothing substantial in common with these men, her mother, or that Southern belle way of life. Jim calls her Blue Rose. It is fitting. She is no jonquil; she is rare, misunderstood, peculiar. Hard as Amanda tries, Laura will never become the narcissus or the glass unicorn.

The severance of the unicorn’s horn is liberation and Laura’s divine deliverance. Long has she been tempted in the desert. Long has she endured the demands of the mother, but this desecration of the glass unicorn allows Laura to reach a higher state- that of being her own person. As glass, she was fragile, transparent, and weak. Now she is no longer forced into a mold for which she is not entirely suited. Her resignation to her fate is gone, and she can finally bear her thorns with pride.

Amanda’s life will not get better, but she will not stop living for a day that will never come. Her treasured collection of glass animals is the visible representation of her former life. One by one, her menagerie is shattered. She believes so strongly in the reality of those figures that she clings to the hope they represent until it takes pieces from her and her family as well. Perhaps that is why Tom feels affection but little regret about his choice to leave Amanda and Laura; his mother’s lifeblood had long-since grown cold and slipped away. Williams must have drawn upon his admiration of the poetry of Hart Crane and Raine Rilke to make the ugly state of a family much like his own into poetry, into myth, and into legend (Haley, 1).

Works Cited

Lahr, John. “Telling It is Like it Isn’t.” the New Yorker 05 05 2010: 1-2. Web. 1 Jul 2010. <http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/theatre/2010/04/05/100405crth_theatre_lahr>.

Haley, Darryl. “A Phenomenon of Theoretical States.” East Tennesse State University. N.p., 1995. Web. 30 June 2010. http://www.etsu.edu/haleyd/essay1.html.

Williams, Tennessee. The glass menagerie. New Directions Publishing, 1999. Print.