The Glass Menagerie connection (stage 1 – withdrawal from reality/social alienation/ fear/isolation) Tennessee Williams (Childhood) • Williams often skipped school, did poorly on tests, and was bullied • “He endured the teasing not only from the other children there, but from teachers as well. They mocked him for being the newcomer, for his Southern accent, for his diminutive stature, and for his reluctance to play the rough-and –tumble games expected of boys. “I can remember gangs of kids following me home yelling ‘Sissy!’ – and home was not a very pleasant refuge. If I had been born to this situation, I might not have resented it so deeply. But it was forced upon my consciousness at the most sensitive age of childhood” (Bloom 17). • Tennessee …show more content…
The first time we gave a speed test, she broke down completely-was sick at the stomach and almost had to be carried into the washroom! After that morning she never showed up any more! (Williams, 13-14). • Skipping school o “I went in the art museum and the bird houses at the Zoo. I visited the penguins every day! Sometimes I did without lunch and went to the movies. Lately I’ve been spending most of my afternoons in the Jewel Box, that big glass house where they raise the tropical flowers” (Williams 15). Conclusion/Similarity: both retreated from reality by escaping into their imaginative worlds - to feel