A Feministic Interpretation Of The Glass Menagerie

Tennessee Williams is one of the greatest American playwrights after the SecondWorld War who has made great contributions to the development of American drama.During his lifetime, Williams creates many famous plays such as The GlassMenagerie, A Street Car Named Desire, and Cat on a Hot Roof and so on. Hisparticular concern about women in the play becomes one of his main writing features.The Glass Menagerie, his masterpiece, is considered an American classic. Scholars athome and abroad have spent much academic energies on his works from differentperspectives. Up till now, however, most studies mainly focus on his theatricaltechniques and writing skills, especially the use of “poetic realism” and “plastictheatre”. This thesis explores two typical female characters in The Glass Menageriewith the help of feminist literary criticism to provide a new approach to analyze thecharacter’s image in the play.From the perspective of feminism, this thesis offers an interpretation of TheGlass Menagerie by means of close re-reading of the text. This paper attempts toprobe the sufferings and miseries of the two heroines in the patriarchal society. Itreveals the extended social significance of the play, namely, women’s suppressed andsubordinate situation as “the Other” in male-dominated society, men can’t savewomen’s fate and the reliance on patriarchy will lead to tragedy in the end.The thesis is composed of six chapters. Chapter One begins with a generalintroduction to the life and literary life of Tennessee Williams, central theme of TheGlass Menagerie, a review on previous studies on this work at home and abroad, anda brief survey of the originality and significance of this thesis. Chapter Two discussesbriefly the feminist literary criticism; it focuses on the possibilities of approachingThe Glass Menagerie from the theory. Chapter Three is an analysis of two typicalwomen images in the patriarchal society from the perspective of feminist approach. Itaims to reveal the female tragic fate in the male society and analyze its causes. Thispart is the focus of the thesis. Chapter Four mainly analyzes the two men figures in the play who are the representatives of the “invisible patriarchy” and the “newpatriarchy”respectively. Chapter Five the author reflects on the way–out of twoheroines. Chapter Six is conclusion which restates the topic and summarizes the mainpoints of the thesis.