Willy Loman And The Glass Menagerie

Have you ever caught yourself reliving your past? Or has your past ever come back to haunt you? In Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman” and Tennessee William’s “The Glass Menagerie” readers are presented with two stories about very similar protagonist characters, Willy Loman and Amanda Wingfield, who are essentially trapped in their past “memories” and fail as parents to prepare their children for a better future. The general theme which is a “memory play,” reveals two stories that are set in a non-realistic poetic and gloomy setting of selfish but sometimes heroic parents, who are trapped between the past and present, and allows for their families to seem very dysfunctional as demonstrated by the following elements of drama: the exposition,

In “The Glass Menagerie” the story begins with help from the narrator, Tom. Tom Wingfield describes the setting of the play which takes places in the 1950s in St. Louis, Missouri. He reveals the different settings surrounding and found inside the Wingfield Apartments. He then begins to introduce 5 characters of the play which are: Amanda Wingfield who is the mother and “southern belle”, Himself, Tom, who is the son, and evidently ends up just like his bastard father, Laura Wingfield who is the daughter but is fragile like glass, Jim O’Conner the “gentleman caller”, and a picture of their father who abandoned them. The introduction of the setting also includes a conclusion, Tom who is the narrator of the play, gives an overall feeling of being trapped in the apartment by the over demanding needs and expectations to take care of the family set by his mother Amanda. Tom eventually becomes frustrated with his mother and just like his father, he too abandons his family in which he is then haunted by the memories of his past. In “Death of a Salesman” the setting takes place in a house found surrounded by apartments in Brooklyn, NY

This is pretty much the point of no return. In “The Glass Menagerie” there are several points that lead to the climax. Tom who is always pressured by his mother to go to work which he ultimately hates, decides one day not to pay their electric bill. Instead Tom is secretly planning his escape from this mother and their house. Tom is also approached by his mother as mentioned in the rising action to find a “gentlemen caller” for his sister. Tom invites an old high school friend named Jim O’Conner. I have not mentioned this before, but this is Laura’s high school crush and probably one of the only men she ever had feelings for. So for Amanda, this is ultimately a dream come true. She wants to marry her daughter off. This is something that she hopes for and tells Tom that if it works out, then he has her permission to leave. So Jim comes over for a planned dinner in which Amanda, falls back into her past as a “gentleman caller” and acts like she is a southern belle. Laura who is extremely shy and sickened becomes intrigue by Mr. O’Conner when they find time to be alone. She shows Mr. O’Conner he glass collection of animals. Mr. O’Conner sees a similarity in Laura and her glass animals. But with the climax taking over, Jim breaks one of Laura’s glass figures and announces to her and the