"THE GLASS MENAGERIE & A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cliff Notes)

Of course Tom may simply be following in his father's footsteps. Mr. Wingfield deserted his family years ago, leaving Amanda to raise Tom and his sister Laura in a run-down tenement in the St. Louis slums. Amanda is used to better. She repeatedly recites stories of gracious young gentlemen who came to court her on the veranda of her family's plantation. But she married Mr. Wingfield, and ever since, she copes with life by recalling gentle days in the Old South. The details often change, however, and her children sometimes suspect Amanda's stories to be mere fabrication.

Lately, Amanda has begun to notice similarities between Tom and her husband. Tom is bored with life and very restless. Down at the warehouse he ducks into the washroom during slow hours and writes poems. Every night, after a dull day of work, he escapes to the movies--for adventure, he says. Amanda is worried that Tom drinks. She fears that Tom will run away. She gets him to promise that he won't leave, at least not until his sister has a good man to provide for her.

Laura, in fact, is Amanda's gravest problem. A childhood disease has left her partly lame. She is frail and terribly insecure. Although she's older than Tom, she's never held a job. One attempt to send her to a business school ended dismally. She, like Tom, escapes to an unreal world, spending most of her time listening to old records and playing with her collection of glass animals. What the future holds for Laura, Amanda can't even guess.

That's why Amanda hounds Tom to bring home a friend, some eligible young man who will fall for Laura and marry her. Tom agrees, not because he thinks Amanda's scheme will work, but because he has pledged himself to help Amanda before he leaves home. Tom invites Jim O'Connor, an acquaintance from work. Amanda is thrilled, but Laura gets sick with fright.

Jim turns out to be someone Laura knew and admired from a distance back in high school. He charms Amanda and treats Laura kindly. He advises Laura to feel more sure of herself. To be a success you need confidence, he tells her. He shows her how to dance, and gently kisses her. In every respect, Jim seems like Laura's rescuer, the man to save her from a life of dependency and illusions. While dancing, they accidentally break the horn from Laura's prized glass unicorn. Now it looks like an ordinary horse. Symbolically, Jim has released Laura from her dream world.

But Laura's excursion into reality is a short-lived disaster. Jim won't be calling on Laura again. He's already engaged to be married. When Amanda finds out, she accuses Tom of deliberately making a fool of her. In her fury, Amanda refuses to hear Tom's denials. For Tom, this is the last straw. He packs up and leaves. Literally, he escapes.

But he fails to escape completely. As he wanders the earth, searching for some elusive paradise, the memory of his sister haunts him.

You're left with the thought that happiness, like so much else in Tom's life, is an illusion, too.


^^^^^^^^^^THE GLASS MENAGERIE: TOM WINGFIELD

When Tennessee Williams created Tom he pulled a neat trick. He created a character who exists outside and inside the play's action at the same time. When you see him standing on the fire escape adjoining the Wingfield apartment, Tom is the narrator. He is outside the action. He is a seasoned merchant sailor who's traveled on both land and sea. He's a good talker, too, the kind you might like to spend an evening with over a few beers. He can be funny, as when he describes his runaway father as a "telephone man who fell in love with long distances."

One actor's reading of Tom's lines can give you the impression that Tom regrets being a wanderer. Another actor can create the sense that Tom looks back with relief, pleased that he broke away, at least from his mother. Regardless of the interpretation you favor, you know that Laura, Tom's sister, has a firm hold on his affections. "Oh, Laura, Laura," he says in the play's final speech, "I tried to leave you behind me, but I am more faithful than I intended to be!" Evidently, memory is a potent force, one that Tom can't escape. Or, looking at Tom's character yet another way, you might conclude that he has stepped beyond the bounds of a brotherly concern for Laura into a more forbidding relationship.

Because the whole play is Tom's memory brought to life on the stage, Tom may be the most important character. However, you could make a case for Amanda's importance as well. Either way, Tom sets the sentimental mood of the play and reveals only what he wants you to know about his family. If Amanda narrated the play, can you imagine how different it would be?

Tom calls himself a poet. He writes poetry at every opportunity. You hear poetic speeches pour from his lips. A co-worker at the warehouse calls him "Shakespeare." Does he deserve the name? Do any of his speeches sound like poetry to you?

In addition, Tom claims a poet's weakness for symbols. In fact, the story bulges with symbols of all kinds, some obvious (the little glass animals signifying Laura), some more obscure (frequent references to rainbows, for example). For a full discussion of symbolism in the play, see the Symbol section of this volume.

You rarely see Tom in a cheerful mood. He complains, groans, sulks, argues, or pokes fun at others, especially at Amanda. He bristles under her constant nagging. He quarrels about inviting home a beau for Laura. Most of all, he is repelled by Amanda's repeated references to her long-ago past. Why do Amanda's stories bother him so? Is his reaction typical of children listening to parents recount tales of their youth?

Tom's resentful manner leads his mother to accuse him of having a "temperament like a Metropolitan [Opera] star." Does Amanda have a point? Is Tom preoccupied with pleasing himself? Or do you sympathize with Tom? Tom's obligations seem to tear him apart. He's caught between responsibilities to his family and to himself. In short, he faces a dilemma that's often part of growing up. Which, in your opinion, ought to take precedence: family responsibility or personal ambition?

To cope with frustration and pain Tom sometimes uses bitter humor. When Amanda accuses him of leading a shameful life, he knows it's futile to argue. So he jokes with his mother about his second identity as "Killer Wingfield" and "El Diablo," the prince of the underworld. Or when Amanda is about to start reminiscing about Blue Mountain, he comments ironically to Laura, "I know what's coming."

Humor provides only a little relief, however. That's why he rushes off to the movies whenever he can. Watching someone else's adventures on the movie screen offers Tom another diversion from his own dreary existence. But since he has to come out of the dark theater and face life again, escape to the movies solves no problems. At great cost Tom learns that running away from problems never clears them from your mind. Even when he flees St. Louis, he takes along his memories as mental baggage. He can't escape the past, however hard he tries. Escape, he discovers in the end, is an illusion, too.

What Tom tells you as he stands at the edge of the stage may be more than just the story of one young man's disillusion. You might think of Tom as a representative of a whole generation of young people coming of age just as the world is exploding into war. They have high hopes and rich dreams. But the future they wish for never comes. It is destroyed by forces beyond their control. "The world is lit by lightning," Tom says.

Tom's story, then, may be both personal and generally symbolic of life at a bleak time in our history. You can read it either way.

^^^^^^^^^^THE GLASS MENAGERIE: AMANDA WINGFIELD

In the production notes of The Glass Menagerie, Tennessee Williams tells you that Amanda is "a little woman of great but confused vitality clinging frantically to another time and place.... There is much to admire in Amanda, and as much to love and pity as there is to laugh at." Do you agree? Do you find her as difficult to bear as Tom does?

In contrast to Tom, who sets the mood in the play, Amanda is a mover, the character who sets the story into motion. Therefore, you might consider her the play's main character. Throughout the play Tom, Laura and Jim respond to Amanda's stimulating and complex personality. Even her husband, who has run from her, showed a distinctive response to Amanda. Tom shares a few tender moments with his mother, but more typically, he's put off by her scolding and nagging. Laura, unlike her brother, usually obeys Amanda's wishes and tries to understand her. Jim, during dinner with the Wingfields, is caught up by Amanda's vibrant cheerfulness.

What are you likely to remember most about Amanda? Is it her irrational and inappropriate belief in the romantic past? Or might it be her pathetic conviction that her children are bound to succeed in life because of their "natural endowments?" She refuses to accept the fact that Tom is a malcontent with a dead-end job. As for Laura, Amanda denies that her daughter has anything wrong with her that a little charm and a typing course won't fix. Even Jim O'Connor, quite an ordinary young man, strikes Amanda as a shining prince destined to rescue and marry Laura. Amanda's wishes for her children sometimes leave her blind to reality.

To understand Amanda you should decide whether she is really as far gone as she often appears. Is she unaware of the truth, or does she simply refuse to accept it? Despite her frequent silliness, she evidently has a practical streak. She thinks seriously about the future. That's why she presses Tom to bring home a friend for Laura.