Free Essays,College Free Essays,Free College Essays at Anti Essays

Disability of the 1930s and the Glass Menagerie

The play “The Glass Menagerie” by Tennessee Williams, winner of the 1945 New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award, shocked the nation by exposing the private life of a disabled person. Williams uses the character Laura Wingfield as a symbol of all disabled female Americans of the late 1930s and the hardships they endured. Listed in the synopsis of the characters, it is made known that “a childhood illness has left [Laura] crippled, one leg slightly shorter than the other, and held in a brace” (Williams p. 21). With only a family of two for support, Laura is being forced to face her future financially and socially while bearing the stigma of her disability. A person’s disability, whether mental or physical, not only affects the historical, social, and emotional aspects of his or her life but also directly or indirectly affects the lives of others around them.
History has proven that the 1930s were difficult for everyone, especially for people with disabilities. The Great Depression began in 1929 and was known as the “longest and most severe depression ever experienced by the industrialized Western world” (Nelson). Disabled citizens of the United States of America were among the first to feel the brunt of the economic slump that swept across the nation. Beginning the Depression, the Stock Market Crash of 1929 initiated immediate panic and apprehension for all classes of people. Economic stability vanished overnight. The masses rushed banks and financial institutions with intentions of withdrawing their savings only to discover that there were inadequate amounts of cash on location to fulfill all requests. People went to their places of employment the next morning to find that their employers had no other choice than to terminate a large number of positions. While not all people lost their jobs, a vast majority of physically handicapped persons were informed that they were unemployed....