I came across one of
Husain’s blog comments where he asked to what extent Tom in the Glass Menagerie served as the “husband”
figure in the family. While there is
plenty of textual evidence in the Menagerie to support Husain’s claim, we can
look at this from a historical standpoint as well. Looking back at the Great Depression, we see
that the destitute conditions often thrust people out of their traditional
family roles. In the Wingfields’ case,
when Tom’s father is gone, Tom is forced to pick up the slack by contributing
financially to the Wingfield household.
Amanda is not employed, and thus she and Laura depend on Tom as their
male breadwinner. Tom is clearly old
enough and completely able to live by himself, but he lives with his mother,
probably due to financial considerations.
This is another example in the Glass
Menagerie of how societal conditions seem to “box in” people into certain
roles, whether they like those roles or not.
Tom clearly does not enjoy laboring at the warehouse all day, but due to
the situation, is forced to do so. When
Tom makes his grand exit at the end of the novel, he leaves Amanda and Laura
alone, similar to what his father ended up doing. At the same time, though, not conforming to
his traditional familial role allows him to escape the doomed situation. So perhaps Williams is creating a parallel
between Tom and his father in the Wingfield family in order to ultimately break
that parallel by the end. In any event,
it’s an interesting family dynamic to consider, and I think that it would be
very difficult to portray such a parallel in any other historical situation
than the Great Depression. This foes to
show that overall, the historical setting of a novel can really have an impact
on not only the plot but also the character developments and dynamics of the
novel.
