Glass Menagerie Connections

Tennesse Williams' "The Glass Menagerie"  reminded me heavily of the other stage piece I have read this year, "A Raisin in the Sun". Both of these poems show a family that has hopes that are greater than what is currently possessed. Tom wants to live adventure; Walter wants to own a liquor store. Amanda wants her daughter to get married, and to live her life vicariously through her daughter: Mama simply wants to own her own house. Both of these families have dreams, though in Raisin a happy ending comes, Glass Menagerie shows a bleaker outcome. While the Younger family is kept strong through their trials, The Wingfields are driven apart. Tom abandons his family in an effort to be happy. "I didn't go to the moon, I went much further--for time is the longest distance between two places--not to long after I was fired for writing a poem on the lid of a shoe-box.I left Saint Louis." I found myself relating the plays to eachother, focusing on their similarities and differences.