Glass menagerie

The Glass Menagerie
Thesis Statement: Laura is a very unlucky character who has the mind of a child and who is dominated by a mother that will not understand her limitations. She lives in an illusion and it is hard for her to have a normal life. She cares about her brother and falls for her high-school crush.
I. Introduction
The Glass Menagerie is a story about the Wingfield family. Amanda isabandoned by her husband. They have two children, Tom and Laura. They are both young adults who leave under the shadow of her mom. Laura is a very shy girl with a crippled foot and zero personality, while Tom is a frustrated man who tries to escape from their unsuitable family environment. Amanda is trying to find a husband for Laura since she thinks that is the only way her daughter couldsurvive. They all have delusional problems and go through a very hard financial situation. At the end of the play, and after a series of problems between the characters, Tom leaves his house and never returns. Yet he recognizes he cannot get detached from his mom and daughter after trying to leave them in the past. In Triangles of Transaction in Tennessee Williams: 13 essays, Jac Tharpe mentions thatwhat the three Wingfields had in common, more important than alienation from the surroundings, was a permanent affection for one another (Tharpe 196).
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In order to understand the work, one can benefit from examining the life of the playwright. Thomas Lanier Williams III, known as Tennessee Williams, was born on March 26, 1911 on Columbus, Mississippi. He was one of the most importantAmerican writers of the twentieth century and nowadays acknowledged as one of the best playwrights in the history of theater. He started writing at the age of 16, where he started writing some essays and gaining experience as a writer. He attended the University of Iowa and received a B.A. in English in 1938 (Bloom 11).
Williams went through a very hard childhood. He came from a prestigious family inTennessee. His father was a man of strong character, and his mom was an educated woman who was a music teacher. He had an older sister named Rose, and a younger brother named Dakin. He had a very special relation with his sister. His dysfunctional family helped as one of the biggest inspirations for Williams’ plays; his sister was an influence for many of his playwright characters. His life was aseries of ups and down emotionally speaking, and this was a considerable factor in all his plays. Most of his plays are developed in the South, where his characters go through a series of conflicts with their own ideas and feeling. Williams himself struggled with such feelings, as his homosexuality excluded him from mainstream society (Delbanco and Cheuse 387).
Tennessee Williams was recognizedfor changing the course of the Southern Literature. He wrote masterpiece after masterpiece including The Glass Menagerie (1945), A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1954), and Suddenly Last Summer (1958) (Delbanco and Cheuse 387).

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Williams died on February 25th, 1983, at the age of 71 in New York. His literary rights became property of The University of The South,in Tennessee. Aside of his literary rights, his personal items went to The University of Texas at Austin. There is also a theater in Florida named after him (Adler).
II. Laura Wingfield
a. Her character
Laura is the main character in the play. She is extremely introverted and very shy. Her character shows a high level of vulnerability and tenderness. She is ill and her mental condition leaves alot to say. In the play, Laura tells her mom. “It isn’t a flood, it’s not a tornado, Mother. I’m just not popular like you were in Blue Mountain” (line 155-156). This shows how bad her perception was. She is crippled and has a problem with one of her legs. She lives alienated and anonymous from the world, spending all the time in her house. She doesn’t talk much in the story. She tries to go to...