Struggles Of Caged Beasts

Tennessee Williams is the one of the most important playwright of the American theatre.Williams’ first masterpiece, The Glass Menagerie, won the New York Drama Critics’ Award forhim. The play tells a story narrated by the role, Tom, of the Wingfield family during the GreatDepression. The delicate and penetrating portrayal of the tragedy of the ordinary family and thepsychological struggles of people raises the deliberation of the readers on existence and life.The researches abroad appeared in the comprehensive evaluation of the playwright’s works,and focused on its theme and language. The researches at home usually developed from theviews of characters, their different sexes, and dramatic techniques. To sum up, very fewresearchers elaborated the tragedy in the play. Therefore this thesis will apply Lacan’s subjecttheory to evaluate the characters and plots of the play from the illusion of the imaginary order,the oppression of the symbolic order, and the inaccessibility of the real order, and make acomprehensive analysis on the reason for the tragedy of the Wingfields.The thesis is divided into seven parts.Chapter One is the introduction. This part points out the background of the study, brieflyintroduces the literary status of Tennessee Williams and The Glass Menagerie, and the plots ofthe play, and illustrates the significance and framework of the thesis.Chapter Two is literature review. The previous researches mostly developed on the theme,the stereotypes of characters, dramatic techniques, feminism, male roles, and the poetic languageof the play. Very few researchers analyzed the tragedy of the characters thoroughly with Lacan’ssubject theory.Chapter Three is theoretical basis. This chapter explains the core concepts of Lacan’ssubject theory. Lacan argues the human psyche begins with the mirror stage, and he divides thepsyche orders into three interactive realms of existence, that is, the imaginary, the symbolic, andthe real. Based on this, Lacan explores the mysteries of the human psyche from the complicatedrelation between the subject, desire, and the other.Chapter Four probes the tragedy of the Wingfields with the imaginary order of Lacan’stheory, explains their tragedy initially from the misrecognition of the self image and the other’simage. Because of the double illusions of the images, Amanda is obsessed to the glory of hergirlhood, Laura is addicted to the world of glass animals, and Tom yearns for the free life awayfrom home. The glass menagerie puts an important function on the family. The conflicts betweenthe family’s present images and the ideal images reflected by the glass menagerie are torturingthem.Chapter Five analyzes the Father’s domination of the family’s behaviors and minds from the perspective of symbolic orders, to reveal the personal tragedy caused by the subject’s split.Amanda’s command and Jim’s guidance dominate the behaviors of the family, and the almightyand pre-existent Name-of-the-Father controls their minds. Therefore besides their ivory-toweredthoughts, the drama displays Laura’s warmth, Amanda’s perseverance and Tom’s guilt, and theirlove and responsibility to the family. The father’s photo reminds the existence of the symbolicfather. With the photo’s surveillance, the family has to obey the Father’s orders and act as themodified subject’s.Chapter Six is based on the real order, and analyzes the deep root of the tragedy of theWingfields. The whole family considers the visitor Jim as their hope, believes that he will takethem out of the dilemma, and gets to the reality. But because Jim’s subject is developed undermisrecognition, he becomes the misleader of the family finally. The family’s unavailing strugglesand the repeated escapes result in the hardships in their road to find the subject. The appearanceof the fire-escape symbolizes the coexistence of the three orders of the subject, and it deepens thepsychological dilemma of the characters and the alienation of their subjects.Chapter Seven concludes the thesis, and points out the significance and limitation of thisresearch. Meanwhile, it shows the prospective of the research. The Wingfields’ mental status inThe Glass Menagerie demonstrates Lancan’s theory on the subject construction of human beings.The family tragedy in this play implies the dilemma of all human beings, or rather, the eternalalienation of human subject.