“The Glass Menagerie” By Tennessee Williams

   The play “The Glass Menagerie is one of famous play in the world that had won New York Drama Critics Circle Award in 1945. It was performed in Chicago in 1944. It was very good theater, I think. After I read this drama, something through in my mind is a weird thing. This drama is very long, but it is four-character play.

   The four characters of this drama are :

1. Laura Wingfield is slightly crippled, extra sensitive mental condition,and shy.

2. Tom Wingfield is Amanda’s son. He works at warehouse and want to be a writer

3. Jim O’Connor is Tom’s workmate at shoe factory. He is also Laura’s friend at High School. Tom invites him to Wingfield’s house and hope him to be Laura’s gentleman caller.

4. Amanda Wingfield is Tom and Laura’s mother. She is a single parent.

5. Mr. Wingfield is Tom and Laura’s father. But in this play, he is a minor character because he is only showed as photograph hung in the wall, but he is often referred to.

   I saw in this play, Amanda as Tom and Laura’s mother need to rise up her family alone without her husband besides her. She is getting hard to do that, but with Tom’s help, she revolt from her condition as single parent and together with her son, they pass their life. Laura is a crippled and shy woman who wants to get a husband, but she is too shy to do that. So, her mother (Amanda) and Tom make a plan to give her the first gentleman caller. Thus, Tom decides to invite his workmate Jim O’Connor to his house. And Jim accepts it. 

   When Jim comes to Wingfield’s house, Amanda treats him as the first gentleman caller for Laura. Amanda and Tom leave them in the living room with candle light. It is so romantic. But, when Laura begins to love him, Jim say, he had engaged and to be married. Laura gets sad and Amanda try to make her happy over again. But, she can't do it, she ask Laura to blow the candle out. Laura blow the candle and say good bye.

   From this summary, I can realize and imagine how hard Amanda to through her life and her children (Tom and Laura) without her husband. and also Laura is crippled. Only Tom is her expectation. I think, I got some messages when I read this drama :

1. In life, we have to be strong in all conditions.

2. Do not be afraid to do something impossible according to people

3. We have to keep living although our surround conditions are troubled

4. A son can cover a father if father is never been back forever

   And not only the messages that I had gotten, but I think the theme of “The Glass Menagerie is about people make decisions for themselves that affect others and yearns themselves. I got this in my mind because I think, we should know what we want to get, where we want to go and why we live. If we know all of our purpose we can decide it as it is performed in the play “The Glass Menagerie”.

Robbi Nurdin Hidayat