Compare tom from “The Glass Menagerie” and Walter from “a Rasin in the Sun”

Thesis statement

In “The Glass Menagerie” a partly autobiographical play, the character of Tom is created based on the playwright, his real name is Thomas, and he, like Tom, had an unstable home life with an absent father. If this character represents the author of the play, there is not even a question of how personal experience shapes the interpretation of this play. In contrast, “Raisin in the Sun” has so many times been referred to as a story of living and struggling, with hope being the sole means of surviving. More specifically, it's the story of an African American family in Chicago's South Side in the 1950s.

Main body

The Glass Menagerie, written by Tennessee William, among the finest American tragedies, is an autobiography of the author that reveals several of the playwright's flaws as well as his strengths as an individual. Tennessee William uses the form of a memory play to intertwine illusions and reality; therefore, the reader can only captivate the truth of human ideals and dreams acted out within an illusionary world. The main character of Tom perceives himself as trapped in his situation of working to support his mother and sister.

As Williams once stated concerning Tom, "to escape from a trap he must react without pity" (Williams, 1284). Tom is not selfish by nature but, dreams of a better life than his current conditions allow. In leaving his family to seek out some type of deeper meaning of existence, Tom finds a middle ground between selfish ignorance and completely justified self-preservation.

A strong component of Tom's gradually protruding inner suffering is the classic anti-hero theorem of “Life would be better anywhere but here" (Reiner, p17). Tom looks for something beyond the confines of his life with his mother and sister, but isn't exactly sure what it is that he's seeking. He feels trapped to his current situation but, what he realizes a little too late is that physical removal from his family is not escape from them.

In his final monologue, Tom claims to "....run to the movies, buy a drink, and speak to the nearest stranger- anything that can blow your candles out"(Williams, 1284). By breaking away from his family Tom found not the sense of freedom he may have been looking for, but another layer of guilt and possibly a little bit of self-loathing to weigh heavily upon his soul. In his search for a deeper sense of personal identity, he has found and/or accomplished almost seems to be somewhat insignificant in his psyche compared to the basic fact that he left his family when they needed him. The last monologue does an excellent job of showing Tom's remorse concerning his actions. A main ground for this idea is the fact that we hear so much about Tom's life with his sister and mother, but what Tom did after he left is kept very abstract. Much of the fuel for Tom's adventurous expectations ...