The Glass Menagerie Essay, Research Paper

In The Glass Menagerie there was a character that was alienated. Writers

often highlight the values of a culture or a society by using characters who

are alienated from that culture or society because of gender, race, class, or

creed.

Laura alienated in many different ways. One way that she is alienated

is that her physical ability prevents her from being acknowledged. She has a

crippled leg and has a crippled walk. Another way she is alienated is she

doesn?t live up to her mom?s standards o her mom doesn?t accept her for

who she is. For example when the mom asks how many gentleman callers

are coming on a certain night and the daughter says none, the mom is

shocked. The students at the school and teachers alienated her because she

was quiet and vomited in the classroom. She, I think, alienated herself from

everybody and society. She is the one who quit going to school and stays in

they house all the time. I think it is her fault for being alienated.

She was affected in many ways by this alienation. One way she was

affected by it is she hid herself from society. For example she always stayed

in the house except when she lied about going to school. Lying was another

affect of the alienation. She started to lie about going to school and just

walked around in the park when she was supposed to be at school. She also

kept to herself and had only one true friend. Her only true friend to her was

her glass animal collection.

Laura being alienated was of major importance to the work as a

whole. One reason is that one of the themes was that the mom was trying to

live in the past or trying to have her daughter live the same exact way she

did. But this was hard because she was crippled and secluded herself from

society so that no gentleman callers would come. For example the mom

thought that the daughter was going to have a whole bunch of gentlemen

callers but she ended up not having any. Another reason is how the title of

the story was The Glass Menagerie. Since this character was alienated all

she had was her glass menagerie. Another reason it is important is that she

wouldn?t of quit school and quitting school is what started the story off.

Well the mom finding out about her quitting school. If she wasn?t alienated

she wouldn?t of gotten sick and had to vomit in that classroom.

Writers often highlight the values of a culture or a society by using

characters who are alienated from that culture or society because of gender,

race, class, or creed. The character was alienated in The Glass Menagerie

because of class and physical ability or appearance.