Imagine this house: a histrionic mother breathing through the memories of her past, a son caught between chasing his dreams and staying to care for his family, a ‘peculiar’ daughter not taking up the space demanded of her because of the ways in which she had been silenced, and a father who fell in love with longdistances, living only through a larger than life portrait that hangs on the wall. It could be any house set in any time in any part of the world. But the house I was watching from the sidelines of the stage was the set of The Glass Menagerie, the play that brought Tennessee Williams critical acclaim. I knew of the playwright from his other work A Streetcar Named Desire.
But of this one I had not much background. It was after an emotional two hours that left my friend and I in tears that I came to know of the play’s significance in the author’s life, it’s autobiographical nature, and it’s relevance during the Great Depression. I spent two hours gathering all this information after watching The Glass Menagerie but even without any of it, the play struck a chord — the characters too real, the house too familiar. Laura Wingfield, the daughter of house, is really her glass menagerie. Made of shining glass, and so fragile that breathing may break her, the menagerie is kept safe by her in the way her family keep her safe. As her mother pushes her to do more with her life, she pushes her menagerie, building a world of glass animals for herself where she is accepted and safe.
Laura is the many women who think lesser of themselves for being different, those that are forced withdraw from the real world for their disabilities that are not accommodated. Laura is many a woman deemed insane for building a safe world for themselves, even if imaginary. She is like many women in their twenties whose making or breaking is hinging on a transparent thread of marriage to a worthy man; a young person who opens herself up to a person only to have her heart broken beyond repair. She is the unicorn of her menagerie, an outcast in the modern world, unique through some eyes, a ‘freak’ to most. Tom Wingfield is the man who cannot move because of his responsibilities, the one who is out at the movies every night to live adventures through the actors.
There is a dream he cannot chase because life is too real and the fallout of this is the fatigue from what he is forced to do. It was like the here and now, watching Tom on stage, so many men caught in the clutches of patriarchy, discouraged from difference and dream in order to be the provider to the family, and a real man in the world. Amanda Wingfield is based on the author’s mother but I wondered how different she is from many mothers I know who love their children enough to think they can do better and hate them for not. Mothers who want their children to lead better lives than themselves but cannot help but control their lives — all out of love, mothers living traditions as if it were scrawled on stone — work for the man, marriage for the woman, mothers whose only friends are their ghosts of the pasts and plans for the future, are all Amanda Wingfield in different ways. I could go on drawing parallels, but one thing is clear — stories stay relevant after many decades, but with the slowly changing world, I think their endings could be different. We have just had the first pride march after the 377 judgement that saw a large turnout; we just heard of a young queer person who drowned in the sea because of bullying.
There are those snuffing out the light in their lives like the candles Laura blows out at the end of the play, but there is hope, and there can always be another ending — it will be happy when we have put the smoke out from our homes, institutions and society, and keep the fire to burn down cis-het brahminical patriarchy and pink capitalism. Onward and forward we march, to stories of ‘different’ people that end differently, and till good memories are reflected in the shadows of candlelight that need not be put