Tennessee Williams, looking dapper
I really enjoy reading Tennessee Williams' plays, but I have only taught The Glass Menagerie. It's a great play for teaching close reading, especially if you are interested in exploring the concept of symbols with your students.
Here are the basic questions that I ask students to consider:
On symbols:
Part of how Williams develops his characters is through the things that they say and do (including the things that people say about them), and part of how he develops his characters is through symbolism. Certain concrete items in the play become invested with meaning because of how the characters talk about them.
Consider the following symbols in relation to each character. Look at the various symbols and discuss how these items in the play reinforce, qualify, or nuance what we know about the character through dialogue and/or stage directions.
Laura: the glass unicorn in her menagerie, the blue roses, birds, and the Victrola (a type of phonograph where the speaker is hidden inside a piece of furniture).
Here are the basic questions that I ask students to consider:
On symbols:
Part of how Williams develops his characters is through the things that they say and do (including the things that people say about them), and part of how he develops his characters is through symbolism. Certain concrete items in the play become invested with meaning because of how the characters talk about them.
Consider the following symbols in relation to each character. Look at the various symbols and discuss how these items in the play reinforce, qualify, or nuance what we know about the character through dialogue and/or stage directions.
Laura: the glass unicorn in her menagerie, the blue roses, birds, and the Victrola (a type of phonograph where the speaker is hidden inside a piece of furniture).
Amanda: the Old South, jonquils (a type of flower in the narcissus family that looks like a daffodil), and Mary (the mother of Jesus).
Tom: the magician (he compares himself to one and he tells Laura about the show of Malvolio the magician), the fire escape, the Jolly Roger (the flag on a pirate ship), the movies, and Shakespeare.
On the reliability of the "narrator":
Tom opens and closes the play with soliloquies at the same time that a scrim drops down and completes the fourth wall to the Wingfield apartment. He also calls himself the “narrator” of the play and tells us that this is a memory (i.e., that this is his memory). To some extent everything we see is supposed to be biased because it is filtered to us through Tom’s memory. Look at his soliloquies. What is he saying? How are we supposed to understand his escape at the end: necessary to save his life, completely selfish, or something else in between?
This last question is the big one that students enjoy talking about. To some extent, students will either sympathize with or judge Tom depending on how they read the character of his mother, Amanda.
Amanda Wingfield is a divisive character, and I have found that it is useful for students to realize that their reading of her might not have been at all like their classmates. To this end, I have found it incredibly useful to bring in images from Al Hirschfeld's illustrations of various actresses who have performed the role of Amanda in stage productions of the play. The Historic New Orleans Collection (which houses the Williams Research Center) has collected an amazing book entitled Drawn to Life: Al Hirschfeld and the Theater of Tennessee Williams. (You can buy the book here.)
All of the images below are from the book, where you can also find a treasure of Hirschfeld's illustrations for all of Williams' plays if you are interested.
Tom opens and closes the play with soliloquies at the same time that a scrim drops down and completes the fourth wall to the Wingfield apartment. He also calls himself the “narrator” of the play and tells us that this is a memory (i.e., that this is his memory). To some extent everything we see is supposed to be biased because it is filtered to us through Tom’s memory. Look at his soliloquies. What is he saying? How are we supposed to understand his escape at the end: necessary to save his life, completely selfish, or something else in between?
This last question is the big one that students enjoy talking about. To some extent, students will either sympathize with or judge Tom depending on how they read the character of his mother, Amanda.
Amanda Wingfield is a divisive character, and I have found that it is useful for students to realize that their reading of her might not have been at all like their classmates. To this end, I have found it incredibly useful to bring in images from Al Hirschfeld's illustrations of various actresses who have performed the role of Amanda in stage productions of the play. The Historic New Orleans Collection (which houses the Williams Research Center) has collected an amazing book entitled Drawn to Life: Al Hirschfeld and the Theater of Tennessee Williams. (You can buy the book here.)
All of the images below are from the book, where you can also find a treasure of Hirschfeld's illustrations for all of Williams' plays if you are interested.
 Maureen Stapleton and Pamela Payton-Wright in The Glass Menagerie, Published in The New York Times, December 28, 1975  Jessica Tandy and Amanda Plummer in The Glass Menagerie, Published in The New York Times, January 27, 1983 |  Katherine Hepburn in The Glass Menagerie, Published in The New York Times, December 9, 1973  Linda Harris in The Glass Menagerie, Published in The New York Times, October 30, 1994 |
Katherine Hepburn in the image above looks so creepy--her beady eyes and skeletal face come across as Havisham-esque. In contrast, Maureen Stapleton looks so warm and grandmotherly. Jessica Tandy comes across as proud and disdainful, whereas Linda Harris looks intelligent and even a bit amused, perhaps. In each case, the way we think about the significance of Tom's "escape" changes when we consider whom he's leaving.
I ask students to think about what qualities of Amanda are captured in the performances of these various actresses, to consider how a casting director might want to emphasize one reading of Amanda through a particular actress, or how Hirschfeld may have emphasized various qualities of Amanda through his portraits. I ask them to look for lines that support the various interpretations of her character, and then to consider whom they would cast to play Amanda if they were in charge of casting a play.
This has been another installment of "My Smart Friends." My approach to teaching the play was shaped by my best friend, ironically named Amanda, who works at The Historic New Orleans Collection, and who introduced me to this marvelous teaching aid. Thanks, Amanda! Y'all should go visit The Collection if you're in NOLA.
I ask students to think about what qualities of Amanda are captured in the performances of these various actresses, to consider how a casting director might want to emphasize one reading of Amanda through a particular actress, or how Hirschfeld may have emphasized various qualities of Amanda through his portraits. I ask them to look for lines that support the various interpretations of her character, and then to consider whom they would cast to play Amanda if they were in charge of casting a play.
This has been another installment of "My Smart Friends." My approach to teaching the play was shaped by my best friend, ironically named Amanda, who works at The Historic New Orleans Collection, and who introduced me to this marvelous teaching aid. Thanks, Amanda! Y'all should go visit The Collection if you're in NOLA.
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