The Glass Menagerie – Character Analysis of Tom Wingfield Sample

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A brother. a boy. a friend. Tom Wingfield the storyteller and a character in the drama. The Glass Menagerie. which is based on Toms memory of his many experiences populating with his Dendranthema grandifloruom and sister during the Great Depression. As this is a remembrance. the drama has a difficult clip showing the events objectively as the head. most frequently times falsify the facts of events. Tom is an draw a bead oning poet. which works at a shoe warehouse to back up the household to which is gets frustrated with due to the numbing modus operandi of his occupation and flights from it through films. literature. and intoxicant and therefore many of his ideas and actions might seems rough and disrespectful.

On the other manus. when Tom resumes the function of storyteller he seeks to supply a more degage account and appraisal of what has been go oning onstage. to which so the existent and sometimes juvenile emotions he possesses when taking portion in the dramas action is subdued. This complicates Tom as a character. on the whole. because the audience would be confused at who Tom truly is. is he a character that should be trusted or is he one that allows his emotions to impact his opinion.

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Tom has two worlds in which he invariably switches to and from. one is of the squalid. junior-grade universe of the Wingfield family and the slums of the shoe mill. whereas the other is filled with literature. films composing poesy and dreams of flight. escapade. and higher things. He reads D. H. Lawrence which Amanda takes off knocking the book and its writer. Even though he clearly cares for them. he is often apathetic and even cruel toward his household. ( QUOTE ) It is apparent at the terminal of the drama that he has strong feelings towards his sister which reside within him but during the class of the drama. contradictory actions were displayed.

He cruelly deserts Laura and Amanda. and non one time in the class of the drama does he act kindly or fondly toward Laura—not even when he knocks down her glass menagerie. His occupation to him is like a dream. unreal in which he despises and would instead person pick up a wrecking bar and hitter out his encephalons than go back in the forenoons. Even the mill itself doesnt seem existent. with celotex inside! With – fluorescent tubing! . nevertheless his dedication to his occupation is one index of his fondness and sense of duty to back up them. which ties him to his household.

One of the ways to counter his defeat he feels towards world is by traveling to the films. His love for films stands out in the drama because he goes to them really frequently which he uses as an flight technique to statements with Amanda. When she nags him about assorted facets of his personality or behaviour. he would disrupt with a simple I am traveling to the films and flights that issue. He besides uses the films to partial carry throughing his dreams of flight from the Wingfield family. which is to travel on an escapade. someplace. nevertheless. he realizes the possibility of that go oning and therefore is merely satisfied with traveling to the films. Peoples go to the films alternatively of traveling! Hollywood characters are supposed to hold all the escapades for everybody in America. while everybody in America sits in a dark room and tickers them have them! At the beginning of Scene Four. Tom regales Laura with an history of a charming show in which the prestidigitator managed to get away from a nailed-up casket. But the wonderfullest fast one of all was the casket fast one.

We nailed him into a casket and he got out of the casket without taking one nail But so Tom continues with an sarcastic remark which sheds a visible radiation on Toms feelings towards his household and his occupation. as a sort of coffin—cramped. suffocating. and morbid—in which he is below the belt confined. There is a fast one that would come in ready to hand for me—get me out of this two-by-four state of affairs! He besides alluded to the audience in scene 1 that he was the antonym of a phase prestidigitator which is mentioning to the impossibleness of flight for Tom. However. there is a promise of flight. represented by Toms losing father as he left and therefore Tom believes that it is accomplishable. However. when it is done. alternatively of being like the prestidigitator and making it without taking any nails. Tom would hold to strike hard the whole casket down as his going would greatly impact the household economically and mentally.

The electricity traveling out during Jims visit is besides important because it alludes of Toms failure to supply for the household. All along Tom has provided for the household financially but now he has failed and therefore gives a opportunity for Amanda and Laura to be accustomed to the absence of Tom. Leading out of the Wingfields flat is a fire flight with a landing. The fire flight represents precisely what its name implies: an flight from the fires of defeat and disfunction that fury in the Wingfield family. Tom often steps out onto the landing to smoke. expecting his eventual pickup.

Tom is a really complicated character to merely nail as a inactive or dynamic character due to his affaire d’honneur functions in the drama and the confusion go arounding around his realization at the terminal of the book. Bing that this drama is a memory. Tom must hold changed and is looking back because memories frequently involve facing a past. in which 1 was less virtuous than one is now. which would categorise him as a dynamic character. On the other manus. sing his function as a character in the drama. he was really inactive. lodging to his ends of escapade and maintaining the general attitude of disregard towards his household throughout the drama. However. in the terminal of the drama. he has a sudden realization. which could propose the start of Toms alteration in character as he realises the function his household dramas in giving his life nutriment and significance. Overall. Tom is a really complicated individual and therefore is difficult to indicate him in either way of inactive or dynamic.

In decision. Toms function as storyteller and character in the drama farther portrays the indispensable subjects in the drama. which were the trouble of accepting world. the impossibleness of true flight and the subjective power of memory to pull strings the yesteryear. The usage of his many flights was a good illustration of Toms trouble of accepting his world. the realization of the ties to his household that he still clings to associate to the subject of the impossibleness of true flight and as Tom provinces. Bing a memory drama. it is indistinctly lighted. it is sentimental. it is non realistic which shows that it is inevitable for prejudice ideas that cloud the true incidents that occurred in the memory.

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