Comparing A Glass Menagerie By Tennessee Williams And A Streetcar Named Desire

During the early twentieth century dramatic literature saw a change in its form. This change would be commonly referred to as Modern Theater and although Modern theater would take certain aspects from earlier theater they also stressed some aspects that were trivial during those theatrical periods. Such topics include the importance of theatrical contracts, symbolisms, and abstract elements. A master of such subject matter was Tennessee Williams. Williams revive of abstract elements was essential to his two plays A Glass Menagerie and A Streetcar Named Desire. A combination of lights, symbols, and music are used to pull the audience into the conflict and without these abstractions Williams’ plays would not have as much depth. Tennessee Williams
Dim colored lighting and symbolic melodies create the dreamy setting for the memory play. In his opening narration Tom says, "Being a memory play, it is dimly lighted, it is sentimental, it is not realistic. In memory everything seems to happen to music. That explains the fiddle in the wings". Throughout the play the stage directions call for "a turgid smokey red glow," "gloomy gray" lighting and "deep blue dusk" which create the hazy images of a memory. For a short while, as Jim, a friend of Tom who acts as a gentleman caller, enters, there is a "delicate lemony light" which is used to accompany Jim's upbeat personality, and the soft light brings out Laura's "unearthly prettiness." Williams himself said in the production notes of Glass Menagerie “The scene is memory and is therefore unrealistic. Memory takes a lot of poetic license. It omits some details; others are exaggerated, according to the emotional value of the articles it touches, for memory is seated predominantly in the heart.” Williams does not need to outright explain the depressing environment his characters live in, instead Williams stage calls are for a dimly lit apartment with each light source changing with the characters and
When a character in a play talks directly to the audience it is known as breaking the fourth wall. Breaking the fourth wall is an abstract theatrical contract where the audience is introduced to what the narrator thinks and feels. A Glass Menagerie is unique in that the narrator is also the protagonist which gives the audience an intimate look into how the main character interacts with his environment. Because Tom, the narrator in A Glass Menagerie, tells the audience how he feels it draws the audience closer into the