Blue Mountain and Blue Roses: An Exploration of the Feminine Psyche in Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie

Namitha V S

doi:10.24113/ijellh.v9i1.10891

Abstract

Tennessee Williams, the remarkably outstanding American dramatist of the 1920s, through his plays, presents a marked concern for the identity crisis a woman faces. He projects the crisis arising out of the conflict between a woman’s own aspirations and the traditional role expectations. The Glass Menagerie (1945) depicts the life of two women- Amanda Wingfield and her daughter Laura Wingfield. Amanda is the typical Southern belle that suffered a reversal of economic and social fortune, who withdraws from reality into fantasy. Her daughter Laura, the physically and emotionally crippled heroine of the play is a self-less character who does not speak as much of others. She is extra-ordinarily sensitive and delicate; and her cripple isolates herself into her own illusory world with her own glass menagerie. This paper is an attempt to close study the women protagonists in this play and to reveal that they are a combination of a particular personality type. Williams seems to be interested in the personal and psychological aspects of his women. This paper tries to analyse the psyche of these women and prove that they seem to be more complex and complicated than portrayed in the work.

Highlights

American society was in an interesting stage of rapid transition after the first world war
Modern American drama came alive in the second quarter of the twentieth century and Tennessee Williams emerged as the most outstanding playwright during the period
Taking refuge in memories of bygone greatness connected with her adolescence and early adulthood, we see her recalling her life in Blue Mountain, “One Sunday afternoon in Blue Mountain

Summary

Introduction

American society was in an interesting stage of rapid transition after the first world war. William’s The Glass Menagerie (1945) introduces the audience to two female characters – Amanda, the mother and Laura, the daughter of the Wingfield family. (The Glass Menagerie 36) Amanda’s preoccupation with past – her life in the American South – is the basic fact of her being.

Results

Conclusion