Homosexuality In The Glass Menagerie

“The Glass Menagerie” is a play written by Tennessee Williams. This play is so heavily influenced by Tennessee Williams that it is an autobiography. He even named one of the three main characters after his real name, Tom. The character Laura is based on his real life sister, Rose. And of course the character Amanda who is obsessed with “Southern Living”, reflects Williams’ mother, Edwina. These characters symbolize denial, as Amanda refuses to accept her daughter for who she is, Amanda constantly remeises about her old life as a Southern Belle with wealth and social class in order to avoid the harsh reality of what her new life has become. Then we have Tom, who uses to “movies” or bars to escape his responsibilities, and his homosexualilty.

And while Tennessee Williams was repressed by his father for enjoying poetry and was even pulled out of university to work at a shoe company, his escape was writing. Tennessee has given Tom these exact same obstacles and outlets for frustration, and the only reason he does not make Tom explicitly gay is because of the time the play was written, 1944. A time when homosexuality was considered a mental disorder that need to be correct through acts of electrical shock treatments or conversion therapy designed to “pray the gay away”. Even Rose was experiencing some mental health issues in her life and as a result was given a frontal lobe lobotomy, and when that didn’t work she was admitted into a hospital for the rest of her life. Which I think is what the ending of the play symbolizes, when Laura blows out her candle, she has been lobotomized, and hospitalized. Essentially killing who she really was, figuratively that is but Tom considers her dead. And refuses to look back because he can’t forgive his mother for what she has done. As Tennesse and Rose were close in real life, and Tennessee never forgave his mother for what she had