The Glass Menagerie Research Paper
The Catastrophe of Success and Hollywood
The play, "The Glass Menagerie", birthed Tennessee Williams into the world of the successful. This was a life of luxuries, vanities, and a sense of dependency on the worlds "unsuccessful" to clean all of life's dirty diapers. To some this may sound ideal, but Williams found that this life was numb to reality and did not bring the happiness and fulfillment ever so advertised as a product of success. He discovered that abrupt success did not lead to "happily ever after" like Cinderella convinced us all to believe. Williams writes of his dealings with success in his essay, The Catastrophe of Success.
"This winter marked the third anniversary of the Chicago opening of "The Glass Menagerie," an event that terminated one part of my life and began another about as different in all external circumstances as could well be imagined. I was snatched out of virtual oblivion and thrust into sudden prominence, and from the precarious tenancy of furnished rooms about the country I was removed to a suite in a first-class Manhattan hotel. My experience was not unique."
Some may argue that his essay is just hot air coming from his twisted views, but the validity of Williams findings is ever-present in many of today's Hollywood's successful. …show more content…
Hollywood is the focus of today's entertainment hungry society.
Therefore, success is many times defined as becoming an actor or actress, a songwriter or a rapper, but are they really successful. Headlines read daily of another one of these "successful" getting married or divorced, turning to drugs and alcohol, or some other temporary high of this world and what is this? This is their search for the happiness and fulfillment that "success" failed to bring them. Many of them find themselves superior to the rest of the world and yet still all the money, all the luxuries, and all the attention do not satisfy. Williams too dealt with these feelings of
unsatisfaction.
"Tomorrow morning I will wake up in this first class hotel suite and I will appreciate its elegance and luxarable in its comforts and know that I have arrived at our American plan of Olympus. Tomorrow morning when I look at the green satin sofa I will fall in love with it.
It is only temporarily that the green sofa looks like slime on stagnant water. But in the morning the inoffensive little sofa looked more revolting than the night before "
So why doesn't success bring satisfaction, happiness and fulfillment to these Hollywood successes? Williams discovered that because we allow the public to convince us what true success is we loose sight of inner success and happiness based on conquering life's curve balls not just taking the walk.
" You know, then, that the public Somebody you are when you
"have a name" is a fiction created with mirrors and that the only somebody worth being is the solitary and unseen you that existed from your first breath and which is the sum of your actions and so is constantly in a state of becoming under your own violation- and knowing these things, you can even survive the catastrophe of Success!"
The play, "The Glass Menagerie", birthed Tennessee Williams into the world of the successful. This was a life of luxuries, vanities, and a sense of dependency on the worlds "unsuccessful" to clean all of life's dirty diapers. To some this may sound ideal, but Williams found that this life was numb to reality and did not bring the happiness and fulfillment ever so advertised as a product of success. He discovered that abrupt success did not lead to "happily ever after" like Cinderella convinced us all to believe. Williams writes of his dealings with success in his essay, The Catastrophe of Success.
"This winter marked the third anniversary of the Chicago opening of "The Glass Menagerie," an event that terminated one part of my life and began another about as different in all external circumstances as could well be imagined. I was snatched out of virtual oblivion and thrust into sudden prominence, and from the precarious tenancy of furnished rooms about the country I was removed to a suite in a first-class Manhattan hotel. My experience was not unique."
Some may argue that his essay is just hot air coming from his twisted views, but the validity of Williams findings is ever-present in many of today's Hollywood's successful. …show more content…
Hollywood is the focus of today's entertainment hungry society.
Therefore, success is many times defined as becoming an actor or actress, a songwriter or a rapper, but are they really successful. Headlines read daily of another one of these "successful" getting married or divorced, turning to drugs and alcohol, or some other temporary high of this world and what is this? This is their search for the happiness and fulfillment that "success" failed to bring them. Many of them find themselves superior to the rest of the world and yet still all the money, all the luxuries, and all the attention do not satisfy. Williams too dealt with these feelings of
unsatisfaction.
"Tomorrow morning I will wake up in this first class hotel suite and I will appreciate its elegance and luxarable in its comforts and know that I have arrived at our American plan of Olympus. Tomorrow morning when I look at the green satin sofa I will fall in love with it.
It is only temporarily that the green sofa looks like slime on stagnant water. But in the morning the inoffensive little sofa looked more revolting than the night before "
So why doesn't success bring satisfaction, happiness and fulfillment to these Hollywood successes? Williams discovered that because we allow the public to convince us what true success is we loose sight of inner success and happiness based on conquering life's curve balls not just taking the walk.
" You know, then, that the public Somebody you are when you
"have a name" is a fiction created with mirrors and that the only somebody worth being is the solitary and unseen you that existed from your first breath and which is the sum of your actions and so is constantly in a state of becoming under your own violation- and knowing these things, you can even survive the catastrophe of Success!"