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Reality In The Glass Menagerie By Tennessee Williams

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The power within the mind provides people with the opportunity to create an illusion of one’s life. These illusions sprout from dreams that often are unobtainable, as they strive to reach perfection in life which is known to be impossible. The mind crafted images provide people with an outlet to escape the terrifying truth of reality. Shielding oneself from reality is only a temporary solution, and can create social struggles as well as tension. The struggle between wanting to live in a fantasy of dreams to escape the world, and accepting the hardships of reality has existed in society since the beginning of time. Tennessee Williams demonstrates that many fall into the temptation to escape reality by living in an imagination where truth and responsibilities are neglected in his novel The Glass Menagerie. After …show more content…

Although Tom physically leaves everything behind, the memories of what was once his life remain with him. While walking the streets of a foreign city, he imagines Laura standing before him and cries out to her, “Oh Laura, Laura, I tried to leave you behind me, but I am more faithful than I intended to be! I reach for a cigarette, I cross the street, I run into the movie or a bar, I buy a drink, I speak to a stranger- anything that can blow your candles out!” (Williams 97). Tom’s thoughts haunt him as a constant reminder of what he left behind. Now, he tries all possible escapes from his new dilemma he created in his mind. Tom is forced: To acknowledge that he has stumbled on a further paradox: for his escape ties him to the past even more firmly. It creates a sense of guilt,which makes it impossible ever to evade the demands that in some way are the price of one's humanity. And so not only is Tom forced to relive the past from which he thought he had escaped, but, [...] is equally haunted by [his] own failure to acknowledge a human responsibility[...] (Bloom

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Of all the social issues of his time, racism is what most disgusted Tennessee Williams. Being himself part of a minority, he understood very well the stigma and the prejudices of the society. Displeased that "The Glass Menagerie" played in front of an all-white public, has imposed on himself that "any future contract I make will contain a clause to keep the show out of Washington while this undemocratic practice

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