Glass Menagerie

full title Ð'* The Glass Menagerie

author Ð'* Tennessee Williams (born Thomas Lanier Williams III)

type of work Ð'* Play

genre Ð'* Tragedy; family drama

language Ð'* English

time and place written Ð'* 1941Ð'-1943; a number of American cities, including New York, St. Louis, and Los Angeles

date of first publication Ð'* 1945

publisher Ð'* Random House

narrator Ð'* Tom Wingfield

point of view Ð'* Tom both narrates and participates in the play. The older Tom remembers his youth and then becomes a younger Tom who participates in the action as scenes from his youth play out. The point of view of the older Tom is reflective, and he warns us that his memory distorts the past. The younger Tom is impulsive and angry. The action sometimes consists of events that Tom does not witness; at these points, the play goes beyond simply describing events from Tom's own memory.

tone Ð'* Tragic; sarcastic; bleak

tense Ð'* The play uses both the present and past tenses. The older Tom speaks in the past tense about his recollections, and the younger Tom takes part in a play that occurs in the present tense.

setting (time) Ð'* Tom, from an indefinite point in the future, remembers the winter and spring of 1937.

setting (place) Ð'* An apartment in St. Louis

protagonist Ð'* Tom Wingfield

major conflict Ð'* In their own ways, each of the Wingfields struggles against the hopelessness that threatens their lives. Tom's fear of working in a dead-end job for decades drives him to work hard creating poetry, which he finds more fulfilling. Amanda's disappointment at the fading of her glory motivates her attempts to make her daughter, Laura, more popular and social. Laura's