How Ideas Are Conveyed Through Dramatic Techniques in the Glass Menagerie

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How ideas are conveyed through dramatic techniques in The Glass Menagerie In The Glass Menagerie, by Tennessee Williams, the glass menagerie is a clear and powerful metaphor for each of the three characters, Tom, Laura and Amanda. It represents their lives, personality, emotions, and other important characteristics. Throughout the play, Williams explore numerous ideas through effective dramatic techniques including dialogue, symbolism, juxtaposition, set properties and stage properties. Through these various techniques Williams characterises the main characters as well as conveying the idea of the human condition being subsidized by our tendency to escape into fantasies, and concepts such as separation, abandonment and reality. Williams uses symbolism to highlight the attributes of each character and what they represent. The play is constructed so that each character has a defining symbol which resembles their personality. Tom is in distress since his father left him to be the male model in the Wingfield family. He has constant conflicts with Amanda due to the conflicting acts of duty and aspires to pursue his dreams of being a poet. When he returns from the movies he mentions the magician’s trick “We nailed him into a coffin and he got out of the coffin without removing one nail. “ The magicians trick juxtaposes with Tom’s inability to escape from his family. Juxtaposition is used here to show the freedom of the magician and Tom feeling trapped. The coffin represents Tom’s life to which he is confined and the nails symbolize the emotional constraints and an obligation Tom has towards his crippled sister Laura. Laura herself “lives in a world of her own—a world of—little glass ornaments” and the breaking of the animals by Tom foreshadows his abandonment of fraternal duties towards her. Tom’s confession at the end of the play, “Oh Laura...I tried to leave you

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