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What
is the nature of the illusion in The
Glass Menagerie? In what ways are
you prompted by Tennessee Williams to
find it pleasant?
Almost
all the characters in the play resort
to illusion as a defense against the
harsh realities of life. An illusion
is a faulty notion of happiness when
life is surrounded by bitter and harsh
facts. The play centers around the hopes,
despairs, predicament and failure of
Wing field family. The Wing fields try
to escape from reality to a world of
fantasies, dreams and imagination to
mitigate the pain resulting from a realization
of failure and frustration of actual
life. Temporary stay in the dream world
is pleasant but the return to reality
if inevitable.
Amanda,
the mother, finds that her son has not
worked and earned enough. Her daughter
is a cripple who suffers from inferiority
complex. She has failed in study and
is very shy. This present reality is
not satisfying in any way. Unable to
face the bitter reality of present life
she tries to live in her past when many
gentlemen callers used to visit her.
She tells the stories from her past
and imposes her dreams and wishes on
her children. But it is only an illusion.
Laura has her own illusion too. A psychotic
and a cripple with a great degree of
shyness she has withdrawn into the world
of artificial glass animals. The beauty
of the glass menagerie fascinates her
and helps forget the pain of real life.
But the glass animals are fragile and
breakable. It’s also a glass of
fragile dreams. The moment the glass
animal is broken she is awakened to
the reality of life from which she was
hiding herself. When Amanda comes to
know that Jim will not marry her daughter
the artificial world of dreams has broken
down. She is enacting a drama to show
the there are no tensions. She tries
to hide behind the façade of
illusion to conceal her sorrow and problems.
She speaks in a very jovial manner in
order to show that life is devoid of
problems. She forces herself to be led
by illusion. When the world of dreams
breaks down, she remains a shattered
woman. Tom has his own world of illusion
as well. Being unable to have any worldly
success he lives in the world of movies
to escape from the realities of life.
Though he is more independent and better
able to withstand the assaults of his
mother, he shuns responsibility and
resorts to the illusion of cinema. His
ultimate decision to leave his sister
and mother behind and move to sea provides
him an escape. However, it is also an
illusion because a sense of guilt will
always haunt him that he has run a way
from the responsibilities to life.
The
gap between appearance and reality helps
us understand the nature of illusion
in the play. Though escaping into the
world of illusion is not a reliable
solution, the people concerned have
found a remedy for the sickness of life.
As their stay in the world of illusion
can help them to temporarily forget
the aches and pains of life the illusion
sounds pleasant. The playwright has
succeeded in prompting us thinking along
that line by dramatizing the conflict
between reality and illusion. No matter
how pleasant the world of illusion may
be, one cannot however turn one’s
back complacently on reality for long.
How
do you interpret the theme of appearance
versus reality in The Glass Menagerie?
The
difference between appearance and reality
creates an ironic gap in the play The
Glass Menagerie. The characters
of the play pretend to be happy and
fine which contrasts sharply with the
realities of their lives. This creates
the situation of illusion in the play.
This illusion is simply a facade used
by the characters to hide from the ugly
realities of their daily existence.
Such kind of illusion provides a temporary
escape from the bitter and harsher realities
of actual life. People who are unable
to face the facts of life resort of
such delusions. Despite providing a
temporary relief form the tensions and
problems of life, the return to reality
is inevitable and shockingly enervating.
Many
of the characters live in the fantasy
world of their own. They deliberately
try to turn their back on the actualities
of life. Amanda, the mother takes herself
to her beautiful past when she used
to be courted by a number of gentlemen
callers. She fabricates stories of her
beautiful past and imposes those stories
on her children. She is a widow left
behind by her husband without much to
provide for the family. Her daughter
and son are failures who have not worked
to meet her expectations. She is enacting
a drama to show that there are no problems.
There is a conflict between appearance
and reality. Amanda speaks in a very
jovial and a frivolous manner as if
she has no problems. She is forcing
herself to be led by illusion. When
the world of illusion topples down she
remains a broken woman. Talking about
the gentlemen callers makes her forget
the sorrows and problems of her present.
Present is reality and the past of gentlemen
callers is an illusion. No matter how
hard she works to keep her in the idealized
past, the intensity of the problems
of real life draws her back to the present.
Laura is also withdrawing into the world
of artificial glass animals. In real
life she is a cripple who has failed
her mother in the academic life. She
is very shy and has not been able to
accomplish anything. The glass menagerie
is a dream world. Her fascination for
the glass animals is contrasted with
the reality of her life. She is psychologically
paralyzed by a sense of humiliation
and inferiority. To make up for this
sense of loss she takes refuse in the
fantasy world of glass menagerie. The
animals there are very fragile and breakable.
When the mother realizes that Jim will
not marry her daughter, the artificial
world of dreams suddenly breaks down.
Tom has his own version of the tension
between appearance and reality. The
reality of his life is that he has not
been able to help his mother to get
Laura married off. He has not been able
to earn much. He is like his father.
He has not been of any meaningful use
to his widowed mother. The realization
of this inability to be of use to his
family takes him to the world of movies.
He loses himself in the illusory world
of dreams and fantasies symbolically
represented by the cinema. He may feel
joy as long as he is in that unreal
world but the moment he comes out of
the cinema hall he unwillingly has to
face the realities of actual life. Read
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