The Glass Menagerie And The Conflict Between Happines And Responsibility Essay, Research Paper

An individual’s right to be happy and its conflict with an individual’s responsibilities is a common personal problem. Many people must make the choice between the two daily. Most people have a set opinion of whether responsibility or happiness should prevail. Sometimes people have exceptions to this opinion. Some people would judge Tom, in The “Glass Menagerie,” as being right or wrong in his decision to take happiness and leave responsibility.

I believe that people have a right to be happy, and that people need responsibility. There may be a happy medium, but if there is, no one I know has found it. Usually the best way to be is happy. If a person is choosing responsibility over happiness, they are, of course, unhappy. When people are unhappy, they tend to become disgruntled and unpleasant. It begins a chain effect. Other people become unhappy and make your life hades. Also, when people are unhappy due to responsibility, they become lax. People at McDonald’s begin to spit on fries, that sort of thing. Nobody wants anyone else to become that lax in their responsibilities.

There are exceptions when it comes to people taking happiness over responsibility. If a person has always, and will always hate their job or their school, something of that sort, then by all means, that person should go where they would be happier. If responsibilities such as children are involved, I believe that the person has no right to shy from his or her responsibilities to those children. If someone decides that they dont feel well, they shouldn’t quit their job.

In, “The Glass Menagerie,” Tom had a right to leave. Perhaps he should have made sure that his mother and sister would not be out on the streets with no income, or watched from afar to see if they were doing well. He was not entitled to stay and take over his father’s responsibilities, and his mother should have been more gracious to him. The main point is, however, that Tom was entitled to his happiness and his mother and sister were not his responsibility.

Most people, when put in extremely stressful situation, will retreat, like Tom in, “The Glass Menagerie.” Most of the time people worry about their responsibilities so much that they forget to seek happiness. An unhappy person will end up as an irresponsible person. Most people will say that, to them, responsibilities are first and happiness is a distant second. Those people are either unhappy, or lying.