The Glass Menagerie (1945) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit see section history

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Summary edit see section history

Write a summary of the plot or a synopsis of this book.

Characters/People edit see section history

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• Laura Wingfield: She is a shy young woman who wears a brace on her leg as a result of having pleurosis when she was younger; she is a delicate person and she collects little glass animals (hence the Glass Menagerie); she pretends to go to business school to learn to type and become a secretary.
• Amanda Wingfield: The mother of Tom and Laura Wingfield; she's living in the past and has unrealistic expectations for her children; she tells the same stories about growning up in Blue Mountain over and over again; she nags Tom and sometimes, Laura; she is suspicious of Tom's every move.
• Tom Wingfield: He is cynical, long-suffering and disillusioned; he works a warehouse job that he loathes mainly because he was expected to take his father's place after he left them; he loves his sister, Laura, and feels a responsibility to her, but he has lost respect and love for his mother, Amanda, after having been inflicted by her nagging for many years.
• Jim O'Connor: A workmate of Tom's (a shipping clerk) and acquaintance of Laura's from high school, he is also the physical representation of all Laura's desires and all Amanda's desires for her daughter. He is invited over to the Wingfields' house for dinner with the intent of being Laura's first gentleman caller. He seems like a dream come true for the Wingfields.

Quotes edit see section history

• “The Wingfield apartment is in the rear of the building, one of those vast hive-like conglomerations of cellular living-units that flower as warty growths in overcrowded urban centers of lower middle-class population and are symptomatic of the impulse of this largest and fundamentally enslaved section of American society to avoid fluidity and differentiation and to exist and function as one interfused mass of automatism”

• “I am the narrator of the play, and also a character in it”

• “I'd rather somebody picked up a crowbar and battered out my brains-than go back mornings”

• “Yes, I have tricks up my pocket, I have things up my sleeve. But I am the opposite of a stage magician. He gives you illusion that has the appearance of truth. I give you truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion.”

• “I'm going to opium dens! Yes, mother. Opium dens. Dens of vice and criminal's hangouts, mother, I am a hired assassin, I joined the Hogan gang, I carry a tommy gun in a violin case! I run a stream of cat houses in the valley! they call me Killer, Killer Wingfield, see I'm leading a double life, really, a simple honest warehouse worker by day, by night a dynamic czar of the underworld, mother, I just go to gambling casinos, spin away fortune on the roulette tables, mother, I wear a patch over one eye, and a false mustache, sometimes I put on green whiskers, on, on those occasions, they call me-El Diablo! Oh, I could tell you many things to make you sleepless! mother, My enemies plan to dynamite this place. they're gonna blow us all sky high! I'll be glad,very happy, and so will you! You'll go up, up, over Blue Mountain, on a broomstick with seventeen gentleman callers! You ugly, babbling old witch...”

Setting & Locations edit see section history

• St. Louis

First Sentence edit see section history

Themes & Symbolism edit see section history

• The Difficulty of Accepting Reality: Describe this theme.
• The Impossibility of True Escape
• The Unrelenting Power of Memory
• Abandonment
• The Words and Images on the Screen
• Music
• Laura’s Glass Menagerie
• The Glass Unicorn
• “Blue Roses”
• The Fire Escape

Series & Lists edit see section history

List the series to which this book belongs.

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Tennessee Williams (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
• Dewey: 812.54

Notes for Parents edit see section history

This play is an easy read, but it is set in the 1940's so it is better to be read by young adults.

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Literature & Fiction › Authors, A-Z › ( W ) › Williams, Tennessee
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Drama › United States
• Books › Entertainment

Movie Connections edit see section history

• The Glass Menagerie (1987) (IMDb)
• The Glass Menagerie (1973) (IMDb)
• The Glass Menagerie (1950) (IMDb)
• The Glass Menagerie (1966) (IMDb)

Books That Cite This Book edit see section history