Lovely Literature

I am still unsure about how I feel toward the entire family. They're trying really hard to be the perfect American Dream-- Biff is supposed to go to college and has been the golden boy all his life, WIlly us supposed to bethe almighty successful salesman, Linda is supposed to be the perfect house wife who never disturbs the "peace" of the family, and Happy is supposed to be...well...happy. Happy is kind of left ouf of the perfect American dream because he is just in the background to the rest of his family's lives. The funny thing is that this perfect family is one of the most dysfunctional I have ever heard of or read about. I feel like they are so focused on success and perfection that they cause their own dilemmas. No one cares enough or love senough in the family. This is apparent by the funeral when Linda cannot cry and Biff seems angry at his father. The irony in this "American Dream" is that this is probably more typical of American families than we think. There are many, many families in the world and in America who just do not have enough love in their lives and it is what causes evil in the world.

Dramatic suspense is subtly created in this story through the progression of the story. It is very difficult to follow at times trying to figure out if it is the presenet or not. I feel like this story is modeled after Willy's mind because of the chaos in his life. The audience though has littler insight into Willy's mind and future events. There is a lot of foreshadowing and connections to death within the story. This includes the title and Linda point out to Biff that Willy has been attempting suicide. The audience can figure out that Willy will eventually meet his demise because of this foreshadowing. While Willy's death is expected, it is never fully explained because in the requiem we must assume that he killed himself in a car wreck. The ambiguous ending adds to the chaos of the whole play. Either way, this all story points back to what I said in my last blog post about Willy not having a strong enough support system to help him sustain his life and get help for whatever issues he was having. It all comes down to family support when someone is truly struggling.

This play is a tragedy because in the end of the story Willy's pain eventually kills him. He is also the protagonist in this story but he is also the antagonist. He drives himself to his own death because he drives himself crazy in his job. The whole time I read this play I imagined everything dark and chatoic because it switches back and forth among reality, the past, and Willy's crazy mind. It's very imminent that this play is a tragedy because of the title, but until one begins reading it, it is difficult to figure out if it is the death of his mind or physical body. It ends up that both ahve occured and Willy has been out of his mind for quite a while. In the end, his hubris, himself, brings him to his demise. I don't think he could have saved himself though sadly enough. If anyone could have helped him it would have been his family but he did not seem to have a good enough support system to try to look past all of the crazy things in his life and actually help him out.

So when it comes down to it, Amanda is annoying as heck. She is stuck in her yester-year and she just can't seem to get out of it. In a way I think she is very similar to her daughter because she kind of has social problems as her magazine subscription job shows. She tries way too hard to be social though and her daughter cannot begin to be social.

Amanda chooses to ignore her daughter's ailment and simply dismisses it as a defect constantly which personally I think sounds worse that cripple. She constantly uses euphemisms to make it sound better for her benefit. The most annoy part about her though was when Jim O'Connor came over and she was trying to act like a teenager again. I feel as though she was trying to make him fall for her because she doesn't receive any male attention anymore besides her annoyed son. She is controlling and manipulative and she demands that attention be on her.

On a nice note though, Amanda really does love her children. She seems to want to do all she can for them even though she isn't too great at providing for them since that's all on Tom. The problem is that when she has a heartfelt moment with her children, she immediately turns it around and says something annoying or rude or nagging to her children. I can see why Tom is driven crazy and wants to get out. I know that if I had Amanda as my mom I would want to get out too :/

There are many motifs and themes in this play along with symbolism. I read that Williams enjoys symbols and making things particularly obvious that they stand for something else. Some major themes in the play are glass, distortion of memory, and reluctance to accept the truth.

Laura basically is the glass that she handles every day. She is so socially inept that she cannot hold a conversation with a boy without feeling like she is going to puke. Now, granted, she is crippled so that causes some problems, but I think the main source of her insecurity is from her mother. Her mom always makes it sound like Laura isn't good enough because she doesn't have male suitors. Her mom doesn't approve of her or even think she is pretty when she speaks to her because when Mr. O'Connor comes over, her mom tells her that this is the prettiest she will ever be. Laura is simply fragile...just like the glass she deals with...and one day she is going to break.

This play is all told from memory which makes time very distorted and things very biased. Since Tom is telling the story, his mother may seem more harsh than she actually was because he was so suffocated by her presence. She definitely never changes throughout most of the story though so that makes it hard to believe he was exaggerating too much when he speaks about her. Memory's are often selective so we may not be getting the entire picture from the story either. This theme of the distortion of memory is indirectly shown through the play because sometimes there are things that just don't add up--a.k.a. the nonrealistic components.

Then comes the reluctance to accept the truth--basically Amanda's entire character. She lives vicariously through her daughter's life, but her daughter is not all she wants her to be. Amanda wants her daughter to be the most beautiful girl in the world with all of the confidence that comes along with that, but Laura is just too shy and too insecure to "live up" to her mother's expectations. Amanda also doesn't want to accept that she settled for a man who up and left her without a question. She is not good at accepting the truth if she doesn't like it, and I'm afraid that will cause her much pain toward the end of the story.

Just so no one would be worrying, I finally figured out what menagerie is the other day...I suppose I should have looked it but...but hey I found out so that's all that matters!

First of all, this play is incredibly boring compared to Othello. I'm not going to lie, I would much rather read another Shakespeare play than this once.

This play displays both realistic and nonrealistic conventions. Some realistic conventions include the shyness of Laura because of her insecurities and her physical ailment, Tom's need for adventure, and the father skipping town. Laura has had a difficult life because she is crippled and her mother refuses to acknowledge it. She doesn't seem to understand why her daughter doesn't have boys lining up at the door every night for her. Laura is very similar to her glass menagerie in that she is fragile and must be taken care of or else she will fall apart. She is just as breakable as the glass she collects which is common for people with such insecurities.

Tom is the man of the house but at the same time he is the youngest person who lives in the house. He has a hard time dealing with his mom because quite honestly...anyone would have problems dealing with her. He seeks adventure and a way to get out of the "coffin" of a home that he lives in. All he wants is to get away and see the world without someone constantly nagging him.

Broken parental relationships are the norm it seems like in today's societies. It is very realistic that there is a single mother raising her two children looking back on the days when she had many suitors. She laments on the times when she could do whatever she wanted because of her beauty, but since she chose the man she married, she gave away much of her freedom. The father's disappearance is very real in that there are many people who are not in touch with their fathers anymore once their parents divorce. Unfortunately these children have to also deal with their psychotic mother.

The play is unrealistic in that Tom speaks many soliloquys and asides directed at the audience since he is also the narrator. The music that plays in the background along with the comic timing of things such as a spotlight on the dad's picture are very unrealistic characteristics of the show. Both of theses elements combined add up to a dramatic yet somewhat boring show because of its realism. Personally, the treachery and killing was intriguing compared to this.