WOMEN IN TENNESSEE WILLIAM’S PLAY 'THE GLASS MENAGERIE' (Pages 63-69) by Ms. J. Margaret in THE ENGLISH RESEARCH EXPRESS / ISSN:2321-1164 (Online); 2347-2642 (Print)

Tennessee Williams (1911-1983) ,one of the most famous playwrights of the twentieth Century truly excels in creating highly striking feminine characters. This paper seeks to highlight the character of women in Tennessee Williams’ play The Glass Menagerie. His heroines are not easy to comprehend but they are worth both reader’s understanding and evaluation. The Glass Menagerie is one of Williams’ best plays. The women characters in The Glass Menagerie are Amanda wing field and Laura. Amanda Wing field, the mother of Laura in The Glass Menagerie yearns for the grace and elegance of this nostalgic past that is etched in her memory, a world she mythically transforms to a grander and more idyllic place, far beyond the reaches of reality. Amanda wing field dominates the whole play. She is the Belly of the Blue Mountain. She is ‘’a little woman of great but confused vitality clinging frantically to another time and place”. Amanda wing field the mother lives in two worlds, the pleasant dream of past moon lake Casino, Blue mountain, the memory of seventeen gentle men callers. Amanda in the words of Nancy Tishchler, is “A disillusioned romantic turned evangelical realist”. Amanda is that of a pathetic character who lives in the world of sentimental illusion. Amanda lives in the world of illusion .She is illusioned about her daughter’s marriage prospects. She is unable to accept the reality of her crippled leg and her low spirits. She is also full of illusion about her son’s habits. Her illusion is smashed when she comes to know that the gentle man caller, Jim is already engaged and cannot be expected to marry her daughter. She is unable to accept the reality. The most pathetic world is of course is that of Laura, the central character of Glass Menagerie .She is the key figure around whom all the episodes revolve. Indeed the title of the play, The ‘Glass Menagerie’ perfectly symbolizes her person and personality. This twenty four year old pretty, but slightly crippled girl ,is a shy introvert, an escapist living in an illusory world of her own .Laura who finds that she is unable to adapt to the modern world of electro –dynamics, lives in a world of a candle light and fantasy. Laura lives in the word of illusions. She believes that when she was in school everybody watched her crippled leg. She is illusioned about Jim too. She thinks while dancing with Jim that he would marry her. But Laura is the only character who accepts the reality very soon. In The Glass Menagerie, both Amanda and Laura are the pathetic female victims of a male dominated society. Both the characters are living in the world of illusion. They are refuse to face the reality of their life. Keywords: Tennessee Williams, Women characters, Southern gentle women Live in Illusion, Life losers, Female Victims.