Self-preservation in the Play “Glass Menagerie”
Self-preservation refers to the need shared by all beings to protect themselves from danger and to survive in their environment. It plays a major role in both survival in nature and survival in modern society. In the human world, the meaning of survival gets lot more complicated than survival in the wild—it’s not only about meeting the 5 basic needs of living but maintaining a sense of security and preserving one’s individuality and needs. Different approaches to cope with problems and difficult situations in life may result in different levels of success in surviving. In his modern play, “The Glass Menagerie”, Tennessee Williams explores the nature of Self-preservation through the way of escaping from the difficulties in reality. By depicting the internal thoughts and behaviors of the character Tom Winfield, he presents his audience how sometimes the choice of escaping and dodging away from an extreme difficult situation is considered an effective way to preserve one’s individual needs and individuality in contemporary society.
Tom’s first attempt to protect himself from being crushed by the overwhelming stress and pressure from external demands is to maintain an escaping attitude towards them. In the first three scenes of the play, it’s not hard to see what kind of dismal situation the Winfield is in and how frustrating it’s for Tom to cope with it alone. Abandoned by his father at an early age, he now is the only man in the family. The burden of making enough money to afford a living falls all on his shoulder. He need to take care of his aging mother and an older sister Laura, whose invert character disables her from growing up and getting a job to support this family. As a young man full of ambitions and dreams, Tom struggles between his sense of responsibility for the family and his own wants and needs. To try to maintain a balance between the two, he decides not to give in to the demands of his surroundings by escaping from confronting them directly. In order to preserve his individual wants while coping with a stressful situation, Tom first tries to escape by drinking and smoking. He feels that he can release his stress and forget about the difficulties that he faces in reality for a brief moment by stupefying himself with smoke and alcohol. Tom’s another approach to escape from facing the problems around him is to go to the movies every night. By watching the actors in the screen seeking for their adventure, it gives him the illusion of pursuing his dreams and who he wishes to be through imagination. Everything Tom has done helps him to preserve his sense of individuality and stops him from losing who he is.
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The character of John Proctor was a tragic hero in The Crucible. Proctor was a sensible farmer that had committed the sin of adultery. He had a tragic flaw that lead to his downfall. Proctor's excessive pride hindered him from reality. He felt that the Salem witch trials would and could not affect him. However, he was wrong because his former lover Abigail accuses his wife of witchcraft. Proctor ...
Tom also preserves his desire for a better life by preparing himself for the pursuit of his ambition. He establishes this by ignoring his problems in the household and at his workplace such as Amanda’s blame for his selfishness and the scorn of his coworkers. Tom’s true career of passion is to become a famous poet. However, the harsh reality of life puts him in the situation where he has to work at a warehouse to make a $50 income every month. Determined to protect his ambitions and goals, he sticks to his field of interest rather than to give in to any outside influences. In doing so, Tom again escapes from the problems in his current life in exchange for the freedom to preserve his individual needs and personal well-being. The workers at the warehouse make fun of him when they see him writing poems and his mother keeps nagging him about not considering enough for his family but his selfish passion of poetry. Despite of all the troubles going on in his life now, he continues to prepare himself for his dream to be an outstanding poet and waits for the opportunity to come where he will be able to live the life he longs for. The need of self-preservation keeps Tom to strive for his goals no matter how difficult the situation is for him. By taking no actions to accommodate the demands and pressure exerted by his environment, Tom manages to hold on to his interests and keep his individuality—everything that define who he is, secure.
The Essay on Tom Life Play Mother
"Man is by instinct a lover, a hunter, a fighter... ." says Tom Wingfield while arguing with his mother. In Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie, Tom and his mother Amanda suffer through a turbulent familial relationship, much of which is based around Tom's slightly crippled sister Laura. Since Tom's father has left, the Wingfield family relies on Tom for income. This responsibility cages Tom ...
Tom’s sense of self-preservation is fully demonstrated when he decides to leave his family and his workplace to find the life of his own. When Tom finally realizes that staying in his current plight with his family members will never get him any closer to the kind of life he wants, he takes off to start another life over. Instead of just blindly ignoring all the pressure and demands that are loaded on his back, Tom gets himself completely out of the difficult situation he is in now by flight. He knows well that if he stays in the life he knows, there is no future for him and someday he will eventually give in to those external demands and lose control of his life and who he is originally. Up to this point, Tom makes his final decision to abandon his responsibility of taking care of his family and leaves to start a new life in which he will be able to put all of his plans and dreams to action. The instinct of self-preservation keeps Tom to always be honest to his personal wants, and motivates him to do all he can to map out a brighter future and a prosperous life for himself. In the end, Tom’s escape from his situation and abandonment of his family enables him to pursue what he has dreamed for and protect his integrity and wholeness from being destroyed by his environment.
Although Tom escapes from the difficulties of life as opposed to confront them bravely and resolve them, Tom’s way of self-preservation is considered effective as he succeeds in preserving his wants to achieve greatness and his individuality. Sometimes under circumstances where the difficulty of a situation gets extreme and it’s beyond one’s ability to cope with it, escape is an appropriated path to choose because it can help one to preserve who he or she is internally and be true to one’s individual wants and needs. TomWinfield’s experience in the play the “Glass Menagerie” typically reveals that escape is one of the ways to achieve self-preservation at critical times especially when one starts feeling losing individuality and personal needs to deal with certain situations.
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Many children suffer at the hands of adults - often their own parents. They are beaten, kicked, thrown into walls, and / or burned with cigarettes. They have their heads held under the water of toilet bowls, are scalded by hot water or they are forced to stand in freezing showers until they pass out. A child could be stuffed into running washing machines or sexually molested, suffer from neglect ...
