Ridicule Of Traditions And Ideals Of Religious People: "The Glass Menagerie"

As a gay man who was raised by a strict Episcopal family in Mississippi during the early 1900s, Tennessee Williams, born Thomas Lanier Williams, obviously had strong feelings about religion, many of which, as one can imagine, were quite critical. As a successful playwright, Williams included many of his views subliminally throughout his works. Through his use of Bible references, symbols, and also mentions of religious traditions as well as ideals, in his play The Glass Menagerie, Williams asks readers to question whether or not the religion they have been taught to obey so stringently is really as good as their religious leaders and other religious civilians may make it seem.

For example, Williams hid multiple Bible references throughout The Glass Menagerie as devious and slightly sarcastic treasures for readers to find. One instance of these secret allusions can be found midway through the play. Sloppy drunk and a little agitated, Tom makes a snide remark to Laura about the magician he saw at the cinema performing a trick in which he turned water into wine, a clear allusion to the Bible verse John 2:1-11 in which Jesus supposedly turns water into wine. The only difference is that the magician then went on to the wine into beer and later into whiskey. Williams was obviously making fun of the bible verse and the impossibility of the “miracle” Jesus had allegedly managed to perform. Later in the play Tom’s announcement to Amanda of Jim’s dinner invitation is referred to in the stage directions as an, “annunciation,” a term that is usually used in reference to the message purportedly brought by the angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary (Williams 1633). Williams is most likely specifically referencing the Annunciation iconography he most likely would have seen in St. Louis at the time he was writing The Glass Menagerie (Barnard 224). Not only does Williams mention these things, but he uses them as a sort of joke. Williams uses these allusions as his way of rolling his eyes at the people like his family and neighbors who often tried to influence his personal feelings and views on/about religion (Barnard 220). While he does this, he is also pointing a finger at the people who are forcing the religious views onto the general public in a similar way.

In addition to the sarcastic biblical allusions, there are also many religious symbols scattered throughout the play; even a few characters are representatives of bigger things. One example of this is Jim. When he is introduced, it seems as if he is a savior; similar to how Jesus is made out to be in the Bible. Jim seems to be the answer to Amanda and Laura’s prayers: a nice, hardworking man to take care of Laura just like they had been searching for. Everyone expects Jim to save Laura from her imaginary world and to breathe life into her (Barnard 229). Critic Roger B. Stein even goes on to say that Jim was supposed to, “give their drab lives meaning,” which is a rather large task to ask of anyone (Stein 1680). Unfortunately though, the women find out that Jim will not be able to live up to their extremely high expectations when it is revealed that he is engaged to marry another woman.

Upon finding out about Jim’s engagement, Laura’s emotions as well as Amanda’s plans are crushed. They both think that they have lost their only chance at salvation from the dead-end lives they are currently living. Another, maybe even more obvious, symbol in the play is light. For many religious people, God signifies the light and prospect of life. The light, or more importantly the lack of light, in the play symbolizes that there is no hope for the Wingfield family anymore. This is most obvious in the scene near the conclusion of the play when the lights get shut off as a consequence of Tom not paying the electrical bill. One critic even went on to say that, “the performance of his characters within these paradoxical three halves of their universe, from which God so often seems totally absent, more than once approaches the denouement of tragedy,” (Miller 83). Basically, Williams uses symbols in the play as a way to indirectly tell the audience that no one can really save them from the darkness of the world and their own poor choices, not even God.

Williams also pokes fun at quite a few of the traditions and ideals that many religious, and more specifically Christian, people cling to so tightly. Williams does this as a way of spiting the church and its followers. He makes subtle jokes about how so many religious people take seemingly ridiculous things so seriously, like saying grace. After sitting down for dinner while Jim is over, Amanda looks at Tom to say grace, and he just stares back like an idiot because he has no idea what she wants from him since he is not normally one to participate in saying grace. It is even in the stage directions that Tom, “looks at her stupidly,” (Williams 1645). When he finally gets his mother’s hint, he basically ends up taking a stab in the dark and comes up with a makeshift prayer to satisfy his mother. This part is especially comical due to the fact that Tom so obviously does not know what he is doing, and does not want to be a part of saying grace, but Amanda wants to impress Jim so she makes him do it anyways. There is also a reference to the practice of taking communion a little later on in the play. Normally, in the Christian church, communion is when bread and wine are shared in remembrance and celebration of Christ.

Williams makes a bit of a comical allusion to this when Jim and Laura share wine and chewing gum over candlelight (Williams 1648). Earlier in the play, Tom jokingly fights with his mother Amanda about being “good Christian adults,” (Williams 1630). Amanda contests that Christian adults are superior to others, and that they are too good to give into their animalistic instincts. In an attempt to try to convince him of her argument, she says to Tom, “Surely your aims are somewhat higher than theirs!” (Williams 1630). Amanda is trying to get Tom to say that she is right, that he is an evolved species with goals better than those of less-developed animals, but instead Tom decides to throw back a witty comeback, retorting, “I reckon they’re not,” soon before trying to get up and leave the discussion (Williams 1630). It may seem like Tom is being self-deprecating by saying that he is on the same level as stupid animals, but he is actually throwing the joke back into his mother’s face by teasingly admitting that he probably is no better than an animal which would inferably be her fault since she was the one who raised him to be that way. All through the play, Williams puts in comical responses to traditionally religious practices and ideals as a way to gently mock what he sees as somewhat ridiculous customs.

Williams had very critical views of religion, probably because he grew up around people whose religion told him that there was something wrong with him for being homosexual, but maybe also because, his grandfather was an Episcopalian rector (Barnard 220). As a child growing up, he was surrounded by so much of it that eventually he began resisting it all. Either way, it is safe to say that he was not religion’s biggest fan and that comes out quite obviously in his works. The Glass Menagerie is practically soaked with religious undertones, many of which made evident by Williams’ use of references to Biblical passages and terms, symbols, and jokes in which the punch-lines have to do with common Christian traditions and ideals. Through his masterful use of these techniques, Williams is able to open reader’s eyes to the possibility that maybe religion is not all that it is cracked up to be.