Comparing A Streetcar Named Desire and The Glass Menagerie :: essays research papers

&8220A Streetcar Named Desire and &8220The Glass Menageries were written by Tennessee William in the new-fashioned Thirties, where the depression made countless of people struggled in poverty. Both of the plays uptaked the typical American family during the Thirties as the background setting. There were many similarities amongst the plays including characters and events. Did Tennessee William write the same play twice? Or, did the plays each hold a different meaning underneath?Before analyzing the two plays, we must first take the characters. Blanche Dubois in &8220A Streetcar Named Desire and Laura Wingfield in &8220The Glass Menageries have a lot of similarities throughout the two plays. Blanche and Laura are both living in a separate world from other people. Blanch is living in a world of fantasies, while Laura is living in her world with all the glass Menagerie. Blanche seeks for desires and fantasies all because she feels she murdered her husband. Laura lives in her world of glass animals only because of a disease that gives her a slight physical defect. They are mentally and physically crippled, and they want to use illusions to deceive other people. In P.117 Blanch said &8220I don&8217t want realism. I want magic Yes, yes, magic I experiment to give that to people. I misrepresent things to them. I don&8217t tell truth, I tell what ought to be truth. Laura does the same thing, where she deceives her mother. She lies to her mother about going to the short letter Collage, just like Blanche lies to everyone else about her past.In &8220The Glass Menagerie the unicorn represents Laura. She is different from all the others, and she would not be able to fit in with the others. She is too sensitive and shy, a very fragile being. Blanche in the play does not fit in with the rest of the people in the community either. She cannot tolerate the way husbands treat their wives in New Orleans, and she is shocked when Stella goes back with Standley after the Polka Night. The same thing happens to Eunice(Stella&8217s neighbor) a few scene after. In P. 63 Stella tells Blanche &8220You are devising much too much fuss about this. And later says &8220it wasn&8217t anything as serious as you seem to take it. Blanche will never earn how, or why Stella would go back to Stanley because she doesn&8217t fit into their community, just like Laura will never fit into hers either.