Blog #11: Drama Presentation Part 2

Prompt: 1990. Choose a novel or play that depicts a conflict between a parent (or a parental figure) and a son or daughter. Write an essay in which you analyze the sources of the conflict and explain how the conflict contributes to the meaning of the work. Avoid plot summary.
Thesis: In Tennessee William’s The Glass Menagerie, Amanda’s desire to prevent Tom from becoming like his father and her desire to force Laura to become more like Amanda creates conflict, illuminating the fact that the more Amanda tries to shape the lives of her children, the more they deviate from what she wants, exemplifying that only a shattering of an individual's “glass menagerie” - their idealized perception of reality - is enough to create a change in a character’s personality.


Script
SCENE 1 (Scene opens in the dining room, Amanda Laura and Tom are seated at the table eating dinner)
AMANDA: One Sunday afternoon in Blue Mountain, your mother received seventeen! gentlemen callers! Why, sometimes there weren't chairs enough to accommodate them all. We had to send the servants over to bring in folding chairs from the parish house.
TOM [Standing by the wall] : How did you entertain those gentleman callers?
A M A N D A: I understood the art of conversation !
TOM: I bet you could talk.
AMANDA: Girls in those days knew how to talk, I can tell you.
TOM: Yes?
AMANDA: They knew how to entertain their gentlemen callers. It wasn't enough for a girl to be possessed of a pretty face and a graceful figure although I wasn't alighted in either respect. She also needed to have a nimble wit and a tongue to meet all occasions.
TOM: What did you talk about?
AMANDA: Things of importance going on in the world! Never anything coarse or common or vulgar. [She addresses Tom as though he were seated in the vacant chair at the table though he remains byw wall. He is holding a newspaper.] My callers were gentleman -all! Among my callers were some of the most prominent young planters of the Mississippi Delta - planters and sons of planters!
LAURA [rising]: Mother, let me clear the table.
AMANDA: No, dear, you go in front and study your typewriter chart. Or practise your shorthand a little. Stay fresh and pretty! It's almost time for our gentlemen callers to start arriving. [She flounces girlishly toward the kitchenette.] How many do you suppose we're going to entertain this afternoon? [Tom throws down the paper and jumps up with a groan.]
LAURA [alone in the dining-room]: I don't believe we're going to receive any, Mother.
AMANDA [reappearing, airily ] What? Not one - not one? You must be joking!
AMANDA: Not one gentleman caller? It can't be true! There must be a flood, there must have been a tornado!
LAURA: It isn't a flood, it's not a tornado, Mother. I'm just not popular like you were in Blue Mountain. ...

SCENE 4: Scene opens in the kitchen- Amanda is preparing breakfast as Tom is getting ready to leave for work
AMANDA: I worry so much, don't sleep, it makes me nervous!
TOM [gently]: I understand that.
AMANDA: I've had to put up a solitary battle all these years. But you're my right-hand bower ! Don't fall down, don't fail !
TOM [gently]: I try, Mother.
AMANDA [with great enthusiasm]: Try and you will suCCEED! Promise me one thing, Son!
TOM: What, Mother?
AMANDA: Promise, Son, you'll - never be a drunkard !
TOM [turns to her grinning]: I will never be a drunkard, Mother.
AMANDA: That's what frightened me so, that you'd be drinking ! Eat a bowl of Purina !
TOM: Just Coffee, Mother..
AMANDA: We have to do all that we can to build ourselves up. In these trying times we live in, all that we have to cling to is - each other. . . . That's why it's so important to - Tom, ! - I sent out your sister so I could discuss something with you. If you hadn't spoken I would have spoken to you.
TOM [gently]: What is it, Mother, that you want to discuss?
AMANDA: Laura!
TOM: - Oh. - Laura ...
AMANDA [touching his sleeve] You know how Laura is. So quiet but - still water runs deep ! She notices things and I think she - broods about them. [Tom looks up.] A few days ago I came in and she was crying.
TOM: What about?
AMANDA: YOU.
TOM: Me?
AMANDA: She has an idea that you're not happy here
TOM: What gave her that idea?
AMANDA: What gives her any idea? I know your ambitions do not lie in the warehouse, that like everybody in the whole wide world - you've had to make sacrifices, but - Tom - Tom - life's not easy, it calls for - Spartan endurance ! There's so many things in my heart that I cannot describe to you ! I've never told you but - I loved your father. . . .
TOM [gently] : I know that, Mother.
AMANDA: And you - when I see you taking after his ways ! Staying out late - and - well, you had been drinking the night you were in that - terrifying condition ! Laura says that you hate the apartment and that you go out nights to get away from it! Is that true, Tom?
TOM: No. You say there's so much in your heart that you can't describe to me. That's true of me, too. There's so much in my heart that I can't describe to"you! So let's respect each other's -
AMANDA: But, why - why, Tom - are you always so restless? Where do you go to, nights?
TOM: I - go to the movies.
AMANDA: Why do you go to the movies so much, Tom?
TO M: I go to the movies because - I like adventure Adventure is something I don't have much of at work, so I go to the movies.
AMANDA: But, Tom, you go to the movies entirely too much !
TOM: I like a lot of adventure.
AMANDA: Most young men find adventure in their careers.
TOM: Then most young men are not employed in a warehouse.
AMANDA: The world is full of young men employed in warehouses and offices and factories.
TOM: Do all of them find adventure in their careers?
AMANDA: They do or they do without it! Not everybody has a craze for adventure.
TOM: You want me to punch in red at the warehouse, Mother?
AMANDA: You have five minutes. I want to talk about Laura.
TOM: All right! What about Laura?
AMANDA: We have to be making some plans and provisions for her. She's older than you, two years, and nothing has happened. She just drifts along doing nothing. It frightens me terribly how she just drifts along.
TOM: I guess she's the type that people call home girls.
AMANDA: There's no such type, and if there is, it's a pity ! That is unless the home is hers, with a husband !
TOM: What?
AMANDA: Oh, I can see the handwriting on the wall as plain as I see the nose in front of my face ! It's terrifying ! More and more you remind me of your father ! He was out all hours without explanation ! - Then left ! Good-bye ! And me with the bag to hold. I saw that letter you got from the Merchant Marine. I know what you're dreaming of. I'm not standing here blindfolded. Very well, then. Then, do it ! But not till there's somebody to take your place.
TOM: What do you mean?
AMANDA: I mean that as soon as Laura has got somebody to take care of her, married, a home of her own, independent ?- why, then you'll be free to go wherever you please, on land, on sea, whichever way the wind blows you !But until that time you've got to look out for your sister. I don't say me because I'm old and don't matter - I say for your sister because she's young and dependent. I put her in business college - a dismal failure ! Frightened her so it made her sick at the stomach.I took her over to the Young Peoples League at the church. Another fiasco. She spoke to nobody, nobody spoke to her. Now all she does is fool with those pieces of glass and play those worn-out records. What kind of a life is that for a girl to lead?
TOM: What can I do about it?
AMANDA: Overcome Selfishness ! Self, self, self is all that you ever think of ! [Tom crosses to get his coat and opens door]
AMANDA: Tom ! I haven't said what I had in mind to ask you.
TOM: I'm too late to-
AMANDA [catching his arm - very importunately. Then shyly]: Down at the warehouse, aren't there some - nice young men?
TOM: No !
AMANDA: There must be - some
TOM: Mother [Gesture.]
AMANDA: Find out one that's clean-living - doesn't drink and - ask him out for sister !
AMANDA: Will you? [Tom walks out and Amanda calls after him] Will you? [He starts down.] Will you? Will you, dear?
TOM [calling back]: YES !

SCENE 7: *In living room, Laura and Jim are sitting on the couch in a dimly lit room
J I M [laughs gently.]: What are you doing now?
LAURA: I don't do anything - much. Oh, please don't think I sit around doing nothing! My glass collection takes up a good deal of time. Glass is something you have to take good care of
JIM: What did you say - about glass?
LAURA: Collection I said - I have one - [she clears her throat and turns away, acutely shy.]
JIM: [abruptly]: You know what I judge to be the trouble with you? Inferiority complex I Know what that is? That's what they call it when someone low-rates himself ! Yep - that's what I judge to be your principal trouble. A lack of amount of faith in yourself as a person. You don't have the proper amount of faith in yourself. I'm basing that fact on a number of your remarks and also on certain observations I've made. For instance that clumping you thought was so awful in high school. You say that you even dreaded to walk into class. You see what you did? You dropped out of school, you gave up an education because of a clump, which as far as I know was practically non-existent! A little physical defect is what you have. Hardly noticeable even! Magnified thousands of times by imagination ! You know what my strong advice to you is? Think of yourself as superior in some way!
LAURA: In what way would I think?
JIM: Why, man alive, Laura! just look about you a little. What do you see? A world full of common people! All of 'em born and all of 'em going to die ! Everybody excels in some one thing. Some in many !
JIM: Now how about you? Isn't there something you, take more interest in than anything else?
LAURA: Well, I do - as I said - have my - glass collection
JIM: I'm not right sure I know what you're talking about What kind of glass is it?
LAURA: Little articles of it, they're ornaments mostly. Most of them are little animals made out of glass, the tiniest little animals in the world. Mother calls them A glass menagerie ! Here's an example of one, if you'd like to see it. This one is one of the oldest. It's nearly thirteen. [He stretches out his hand.]
LAURA: Oh, be careful - if you breathe, it breaks !
JIM: I'd better not take it. I'm pretty clumsy with things.
LAURA: Go on, I trust you with him ! [Places it in his palm.]
LAURA: There now - you're holding him gently ! Hold him over the light, he loves the light! You see how the light shines through him?
JIM: It sure does shine!
LAURA: I shouldn't be partial, but he is my favourite one.
JIM: What kind of a thing is this one supposed to be?
LAURA: Haven't you noticed the single horn on his forehead head?
JIM: A unicorn, huh?
LAURA: Mmmm-hmmm!
JIM: Unicorns, aren't they extinct in the modern world?
LAURA: I know !
JIM: Poor little fellow, he must feel sort of lonesome.
LAURA [smiling]: Well, if he does he doesn't complain about it. He stays on a shelf with some horses that don't have horns and all of them seem to get along nicely together.
JIM: How do you know?
LAURA [Iightly]: I haven't heard any arguments among them!
JIM: [grinning]: No arguments, huh? Well, that's a pretty good sign ! Where shall I set him?
LAURA: Put him on the table. They all like a change of scenery once in a while !
JIM: How about cutting the rug a little, Miss Wingfield?
LAURA [breathlessly]: I - can't dance !
JIM: There you go, that inferiority stuff ! Come on, try !
LAURA: Oh, but I'd step on you !
JIM: I'm not made out of glass.
LAURA: How - how - how do we start?
J IM: just leave it to me. You hold your arms out a little.
LAURA: Like this?
JIM: A little bit higher. Right. Now don't tighten up, that's the main thing about it - relax.
LAURA [laughs breathlessly]: It's hard not to. I'm afraid you can't budge me.
JIM: What do you bet I can't? [He swings her into motion.]
LAURA: Goodness, yes, you can!
JIM: Let yourself go, now, Laura, just let yourself go. [He moves her about the room in a clumsy dance] [They suddenly bump into the table. JIM stops] What did we hit on?
LAURA: Table.
JIM: Did something fall off it? I think-
LAURA: Yes.
JIM: I hope that it wasn't the little glass horse with the horn !
LAURA: Yes.
JIM: Aw aw aw- Is it broken?
LAURA: Now it is just like all the other horses.
JIM: It's lost its -
LAURA: Horn! It doesn't matter. Maybe it's a blessing in disguise.
JIM: You'll never forgive me. I bet that that was your Favourite piece of glass.
LAURA: I don't have favourites much. It's no tragedy, Freckles. Glass breaks so easily. No matter how careful you are. The traffic jars the shelves and things fall off them.
JIM: Still I'm awfully sorry that I was the cause.
LAURA [smiling] I'll just imagine he had an operation. The horn was removed to make him feel less - freakish ! [They both laugh.] Now he will feel more at home with the other horses, the ones that don't have horns. .
JIM: Ha-ha, that's very funny !
JIM: The only trouble is that in my case I’m not in a situation to do the right thing. The thing is I’ve got strings on me. Laura, I’ve been going steady! I go out all the time with a girl named Betty.
JIM: The fact of the matter is, I’ve got to be going.


The Glass Menagerie Synopsis

A General Synopsis: The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams is an autobiographical "memory play," , anchored by the aging southern belle Amanda Wingfield, who hopes for her son Tom to fulfill her dreams of finding the perfect “gentleman caller” for her shy and damaged daughter Laura.

Playwright Background Information Playwright Tennessee Williams was born on March 26, 1911, in Columbus, Mississippi. After college, he moved to New Orleans, a city that would inspire much of his writing. On March 31, 1945, his play, The Glass Menagerie, debuted on Broadway. Williams described his childhood in Mississippi as pleasant and happy, but life changed for him when his family moved to St. Louis, Missouri. His new urban home forced him to leave his carefree boyhood, and as a result Williams turned inward and started to write. His parent’s marriage was often strained and his home, at times, was a tense place to live. This situation, however, did offer fuel for the playwright's art. His mother became the model for the foolish but strong Amanda Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie.
Primary characters:
• Amanda - The mother of the family, a southern belle with a bubbly personality. Amanda is paranoid and often lives in her past.
• Tom - Son of Amanda and narrator of the piece. Tom craves “adventure,” and goes to the movies every night. He wants to run away because he is fed up with his family’s oppressive dependence on him
• Laura - Daughter of Amanda. She has one leg shorter than the other (disability) and is painfully shy. She dropped out of high school and business college and is obsessive about playing her “victrola” and with her glass collection.
-Jim - The “gentleman caller” set up by Tom for Laura. A high school hero who is ambitious. However, he turns out to be engaged to “Betty.”
• The Father: Never actually appears, but is talked about. His portrait hangs in the apartment and he left the family years ago because he “fell in love with long distances”.

Setting
• The family currently lives in a cramped apartment in a lower-class part of St. Louis in the years 1930s, the time of Depression. Tom, from an indefinite point in the future, remembers the winter and spring of 1937.
• Fire Escape: Used as a way of escaping life in the apartment. Key Plot Moments.
• Family resides in St. Louis with Tom working at a warehouse and Amanda, who never states where she works, involved in different organizations and activities such as DAR. Laura, who secretly dropped out of school, helps her mother around the house and plays with glass figurines.
• Amanda confronts Tom about him being too much like his father. She confesses she is worried about him, while Tom states that he is out late at night at the movies because he craves adventure. Amanda then pleads Tom to find Laura a “gentleman caller” or future husband.
• Tom brings a “gentleman caller” named Jim for dinner one night. Jim went to high school with Laura and was her secret crush.
• Jim and Laura dance after dinner in the living room, but breaks Laura’s glass unicorn horn that was part of her figurine collection. Jim confesses to Laura that he is engaged, abruptly gets up and leaves.
• Amanda blames Tom for bringing Jim over to dinner despite Tom not knowing Jim was engaged. Tom becomes very upset and reaches his breaking point. He packs up his stuff and leaves the house to end the play.

Key Quotes
• "I'm going to the movies" - Tom (7.135)
• "Blow out your candles Laura - and so goodbye..." (7.137)
• “Poor little fellow, he must feel sort of lonesome.” (7.122)
• “Well, if he does, he doesn’t complain about it. He stays on a shelf with some horses that don’t have horns and all of them seem to get along nicely together.” (7.122)

Symbols/Motifs
• Abandonment; the words and images on the screen; music. Picture of the father.
• Laura’s Glass Menagerie-Laura’s collection of glass animal figurines represents her personality. Like the glass figures Laura is delicate, fanciful, and somehow old-fashioned.The menagerie also represents the imaginative world to which Laura devotes herself—a world that is colorful and enticing but based on fragile illusions.
• The Glass Unicorn-represents Laura’s peculiarity. The fate of the unicon’s fate foreshadows Laura’s fate in Scene Seven. Laura cannot become normal without somehow shattering.
• “Blue Roses”- Jim’s high school nickname for Laura, symbolizes Laura’s unusualness yet allure. Associated with Laura’s attraction to Jim and the memory of their unusual acquaintan. Also, recalls Tennessee Williams’s sister, Rose, on whom the character of Laura is based.
• The Fire Escape- an escape from the frustration and dysfunction in the Wingfield household. Laura slips on the fire escape in Scene Four which highlights her inability to escape from her situation. Tom, on the other hand, frequently steps out,foreshadowing his eventual getaway.

Themes
• The difficulty of accepting reality--Laura hides behind her glass in an attempt to block out the world she lives in.
• The impossibility of true escape--Tom cannot fully escape from his family troubles.
• The unrelenting power of memory--Amanda spends her time trying to make sure Tom does not follow in the footsteps of her husband, now just a memory.

Stylistic Devices
• Williams found realism to be a flat, outdated, and insufficient way of approaching emotional experience.
• The Glass Menagerie is fundamentally a non realistic play.
• Distortion, illusion, dream, symbol, and myth are the tools by which the action onstage is unraveled. • A screen displays words and images relevant to the action for example “[Screen Image: Blue Roses.]” (2.44)
• Music intrudes with melodramatic timing
• The lights rise or dim according to the mood onstage, not the time of day
• The play’s style is expressionistic—underlying meaning is emphasized at the expense of realism.
• The play’s lack of stylistic realism—Tom’s memory, yet it still has some elements of reality to make it relatable.
• Emotions like Tom’s boredom, Amanda’s nostalgia,Laura’s terror, the tension between Tom and Amanda and the quiet love between Tom and Laura are conveyed realistically. • Similarly, the lower-middle-class life of the Wingfield family is portrayed with a great deal of truth to historical and social realities.

Rationale for AP Prompt selection, scene selection, and stylistic choices. (1 page, double-spaced)
The 1990 Open Question AP prompt was fitting for Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie because one of the unifying themes of the text was the conflict between Amanda Wingfield and her children to illustrate that only a shattering of an individual's “glass menagerie” - their idealized perception of reality - is enough to create a change in a character’s personality. Amanda is constantly nagging Laura to be more outgoing, more like she herself was as a young woman in Blue Mountain. With Tom, Amanda’s main worry is that he will turn out like his father - a drunkard who abandons his family - so she constantly tries to keep him at home. However, despite having a modicum of success with Laura by showing her that there is more to life than old records and glass, Amanda fails to break Tom’s idealization of a life of adventure, and he ends up leaving the family out to dry when he joins the Merchant Marine. Another point in favor of choosing this prompt that it addresses the complexity of the relationship between the characters in the text. Although Laura did become more outgoing, it was not a direct result of Amanda’s constant nagging, but rather a consequence of Jim (the “Gentleman Caller”) kissing her, and breaking her “glass menagerie.” Prior to this occurrence, Amanda’s attempts to change Laura (signing her up for business school and sending her to the church’s “Young People’s League”) backfired by causing Laura to lose confidence in herself and close herself off to socialization even more. Also, the more Amanda tries to control Tom, the more he tries to gain independence by staying out late at the movies, and eventually not paying the bills and leaving the family entirely. In choosing the scenes to use for the video presentation, we tried to choose scenes that would exemplify the familial conflict and explore the complexity of the play. Scene 1 introduces the conflict between Amanda and Laura by showing Amanda’s fear of Laura becoming an “old maid” and the conflict between Amanda to Tom when she micromanages Tom’s every move. Scene 4 further develops the conflict between Amanda and Laura as Amanda expresses her concerns about Laura’s lifestyle to Tom. By expressing her concerns about Tom’s night-owl habits and tendency to drink, the scene adds more tension to the relationship. This scene was chosen because it is the main turning point for family, with Tom agreeing to find Laura a “gentleman caller,” and the revelation that Tom is unhappy in the apartment and has plans to leave. Scene 7, contrary to expectations, does not resolve the conflict, but brings it to its logical conclusion. Laura’s gentleman caller is revealed to be engaged to marry somebody else, and Tom leaves the family in the dark (literally - he neglects to pay the electric bill). The encounter with Jim was not a complete failure, as the symbolism of the glass menagerie is brought full circle, with the breaking of the unicorn coinciding with the breaking of Laura’s perceptions of herself (that her “clump” is horrible and she is inferior to others). The portrayal of the selected scenes was made doubly important by the time constraints, so stylistic choices had to be very deliberate and effective. Some of the more important choices were camera angle, lighting, and the modern lens through which we reenacted the play. A common camera angle we used was the over the shoulder shot. This angle allows the viewers to focus on a specific character, allowing for a greater degree of acting and plot interpretation by the actor. Similar to this angle, the point of view shot allows the audience to “become” a character, in that they can experience a conversation from the point of view of the character. Once in scene 7, the point of view is that of the glass unicorn lying broken on the ground, allowing the audience to more closely feel and understand the conversation between Jim and Laura. The basic, mid-range shot is frequently used to accurately and objectively convey the goings-on of the play. When the camera is below the characters, looking up, the characters become more powerful, as seen once when Tom and Amanda are arguing in scene 4. The effect on the interpretation of this sequence is that the audience can see two strong-willed characters in conflict, and feel the tension the way a little kid feels the tension when their parents are arguing. For most of the play, the lighting is natural, and the camera angles are relied upon to explore the nuances of the plot and theme. Scene 7, however, is an important outlier. In scene 7, the lighting is dimmer, almost like mood lighting, to emphasize the intense emotional battle going on within Laura - she is terrified by Jim because of her shyness, but she likes him. Then, once out of her shell, she is crushed to find out he is engaged to another girl. Similarly, in the sequence on the floor around the broken glass unicorn, the lighting is from below, illuminating Jim’s and Laura’s faces. This difference is important in that it draws more attention to an important part of the play, and highlights Laura’s realization that she is not inferior to others. She sympathizes strongly with the unicorn because its horn sets it apart from other horses, while her clump sets her apart from other people. The breaking of the horn symbolizes her acceptance of her difference. The modern lens through which we reenacted and interpreted the play was the reality show Keeping Up with the Kardashians. This was fitting because of the family conflict that appears in both the play and the show, and the fatherless families in both. In addition, the mother of both families is a strong character that tries to control her children, perhaps illuminating an effect of a missing paternal presence.


Works Cited
Posthuma, Johnathon. The Glass Menagerie. Cond. Teresa Ter Haar. Perf. Brian De Young. Dordt College. Dordt College, 2011. Youtue. Youtube. Web. 29 Oct. 2013. "The Glass Menagerie." SparkNotes. SparkNotes, n.d. Web. 29 Oct. 2013. West, Kanye. Graduation. Kanye West. Jon Brion, Warryn Campbell, Mike Dean, DJ Toomp, Eric Hudson, Brian Miller, Nottz, Patrick Reynolds, Gee Robertson, Kanye West (also Exec.), Kyambo "Hip Hop" Joshua (also Exec.), 2007. Youtube. Youtube. Web. 29 Oct. 2013. West, Kanye. Late Registration. Kanye West. Kanye West, Jon Brion, Devo Springsteen, Just Blaze, Warryn Campbell, 2005. Youtube. Youtube. Web. 29 Oct. 2013. Williams, Tennessee. The Glass Menagerie: A Play. [New York]: New Directions, 1949. Print.