1、1. IntroductionThe Story of Qiu Ju was directed by Zhang yimou(1951?) who is one of the most famous and influential directors in China .He s full of deep Chinese local touch movies known and Artistic feature is charactered by its vivid details and romantic themes shining to each other .The movie tel
2、ls that a man fought with his village head and his genitals was hit ,and so his wife , Qiuju ,did want to get a statement to the head for his husband .With the help of the officer, the head promised to pay some money but he was so arrogant that he insulted Qiuju when paying money , and then Qiuju ga
3、ve up the money and went on her way against the head .It was another movie ,namedErin Brockovich .directed by Steven Soderbergh .It stated that an unfortunate woman who was the mother of three kids with no skills was adopted by her lawyer .In a investigation ,she discovered that there were some pois
4、onous substance in sewage ,then she told the water supplying company but they did with it carelessly ,thus,she decided to seek justice for citizens .As a gifted and prolific writer, TennesseeWilliams (1911-1983) is one of the most important and influential playwrights in contemporary America and one
5、 of the most widely performed dramatist in the history of the Western stage. Noted for his poetic lyricism and vivid frankness, he was celebrated as a“ poet of the human heaand the “Laureatef the Outcast ”(Heintzelman and Smith-Howard 2005: 3). His major plays include The Glass Menagerie, A Streetca
6、r Named Desire, Summer And Smoke and Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, which are among the most acclaimed dramas performed on Broadway. The poetic play The Glass Menagerie； which describes the life of the Wingfield family, marks the beginning of the post-war American drama.TennesseeWilliams was born in Mississ
7、ippi on March 26, 1911. His parents named him Thomas Lanier Williams III, but he changed his name to Tennessee as a token of admiration for his father ancestors who were frontiersman from EasternTennessee(Moon: 7). He started writing when he was only twelve and decided to become a writer at the age
8、of twenty. After his father pulled him out of the University of Missouri for failing at ROTC, Tennessee worked as a clerk and typist in the Shoe Factory. Finally, he graduated from the theatre program at the University of Iowa and became a screenwriter.Tennesseealways remained a writer at heart. He
9、wrote poems, short stories, novels and plays throughout his life with varying degreesof success.Although his first Broadway production, Battle of Angels, put on by the Theatre Guild in 1940 was a complete disaster, his second play on Broadway, The Glass Menagerie was an instant hit. There were 24 cu
10、rtain calls on opening night, and it ran for two years and won the New York Drama Critics Circle award for best play. His next play, A Streetcar Named Desire, was also a box office and critical hit. Tennessee became one of the most famous playwrights of the twentieth century. He won two Pulitzer pri
11、zes, two New York Drama Critics Circle awards for best play and a Tony award. He also was elected to the National Institute for Arts and Letters and received an honorary doctorate from Harvard University (Moon: 8). In 1980, he was presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Jimmy C
12、arter.The Glass Menagerieis a memory play about life of the Wingfields in St. Louis, 1937. The narrator Tom, his mother Amanda, and his sister Laura are trying to make ends meet in a small tenement apartment. Tom s father, a telephone repinairman falls love with long distance and has abandoned the f
13、amily. Amanda is a former southern belle who indulges herself in the memory in Blue Mountain. Tom is the breadwinner of the family by working in a warehouse, but he is eager for an adventure. Laura lives in a world of her own and spends all her time polishing her glass animals and listening to old r
14、ecords. After discovering that Laura has dropped out of Business College, Amanda decides that she must find a husband for Laura and she asks Tom to bring a gentleman caller. When Tom invites Jim O Connor, his only friend at the warehouse, home for dinner, Laura finds that he is the same boy she like
15、d in high school. After dinner, Laura and Jim begin to talk and she overcomes some of her shyness. However, after kissing her, Jim confesses that he is engaged and leaves the apartment hastily. Inthe end of the play, Tom abandons the family for his dream adventure, but he is still tortured by the gu
16、ilt of leaving Laura in the everlasting darkness.Besides the poetic structure and language, critics such as Harold Bloom, DelmaE. Presley and Judith J. Thompson frequently comment on the psychological complexity of The Glass Menagerie, in which escapism is a major theme. Set in the times of the Grea
17、t Depression, the play s events occur when America s middle clasfaced personal and social crises becauseof economic collapse. The Wingfields live among the lower middle class, which is described as the largest and fundamentally enslaved section of American society. The entrance to their apartment is
18、 a fire-escape a name with “atouch of accidental poetic truth, for all of these huge buildings are always burning with the slow and implacable fires of human desperation” (Williams 2009: 1). Obviously, the Wingfield family and the gentleman caller, Jim, all struggle to escape from the harsh realitie
19、s by using their different ways.This thesis focuses on the escapism of the four characters, Amanda, Laura, Tom and Jim. As part of my critical methodology, I carefully analyze this particular play, The Glass Menagerie, by probing into the psychology of the four characters, analyzing the cause and th
20、e result of their escapism as well as the relation between TennesseeWilliams and the play. This thesis starts with the analysis of Amanda, trying to find out the cause of her escape.It proceeds with the concern of the shy crippled daughter, Laura, followed by Tom, a poet working in a warehouse but h
21、aving a thirst for adventure. Then, it attempts to analyze the real identity of the gentleman caller Jim: a disguised loser presenting the illusion of escape. The next part reveals the relation between TennesseeWilliams and the play. In the end, a conclusion is provided to summarize the thesis.2. So
22、urces2.1 the story of QiujuThe movie adapted from the novel .It came to the world in 1992 and it gained great contents immediately .2.2 Erin BrockovichIt was adapted according to a real case happened in America.3. 2.1 A former southern belleIn Scene One, after finishing the evening meal, Amanda pret
23、ends she is a servant and cleans the dishes, telling Laura she needs to stay fresh and pret tyfor gentleman callers. Ignoring Laura csomment that she does not expect any callers, Amanda begins her familiar narrative:“ One Sunday afternoon in aBinlu,eyoMuorumntotherreceived seventeen! gentlemen calle
24、rs! Why, sometimes there werent chairs enough to accommodate them all. We had to send the nigger over to bring in folding chairs from the parish house” (Williams 2009: 7). Tom tells Laura that he knows what is coming while Laura insists that Amanda be allowed the privilege of cultivating the illusio
25、n because she loves to tell it.Life in Blue Mountain is the most important memory to Amanda. She recollects this community in the Mississippi Delta as the home of a number of prosperous cotton farmers, merchants, and landholders. It is there that she participates in the social and cultural activitie
26、s, entertaining her many gentlemen callers, which she finds rewarding. Amanda inherits a view of the world that inspires many who live in the Deep South in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (Presley 1990: 36). In the middle and late 1930s, the myth of the antebellum South permeates a
27、 best-selling novel by Margaret Mitchell, Gone With The Wind.Williams depicts Amanda as a darker image of Scarlett O Hara. Scarlett, an antebellum belle who moves up in the world, eventually faces crushing defeat at the hands of the enemy of the “ Southern way of life ” . Amasndeas cription of herse
28、lf as a young woman in Blue Mountain could allow her to pass for Scarlett “ a pretty face and a graceful figure, ” possessain “g nimblewit ” (.Presley 1990: 59)Amanda sets Scarlett as an example and she firmly believes in her south tradition in which women should revolve around the family. As a sout
29、hern belle, Amanda understands the art of conversation, knows how to entertain gentlemen callers and has a tongue to meet all occasions, but all of these qualities are only for one aim to find a suitable husband. She could have chosen any of those planters and sons of planters, but she picks a man w
30、ho works for the telephone company. What sworse, after getting married, the telephone repairman falls in love with long distance and deserts the family for adventure, leaving her and their children alone.Amanda s plight might be interpreted as an indictment of the southern system of values she inher
31、its. However, she never questions the pattern of her youth, only assuming that she makes a mistake when she marries Mr. Wingfield. She can hardly accept the fact that her romantic time is gone, so when the gentleman caller comes to visit the Wingfields, she shows greater enthusiasm than anyone else.
32、 Observing Amanda s girlish southern vivacity and unexpected outlay of social charm, both Tom and the gentleman caller Jim are distinctly shocked. When she is having dinner with them, she acts as if she were still a young girl talking to her own gentleman caller.In spite of the vigor with which she
33、pursues her illusions, clearly Amanda is deceiving herself. The cruel reality forces her to retreats into the memory of Blue Mountain where she receives seventeen gentlemen callers one day.2.4 A frustrated motherBesides a former southern belle, Amanda has a more important identity at present a mothe
34、r with two children. It is doubtless that she shows great love and care for her son and daughter, but the result is converse, making her frustrated. Amanda is obviously an overstressed and psychotic single care taker with insufficient mothering skills (Zang 2006: 20).Laura, the daughter, is a crippl
35、ed girl who lives in her world of the glass menagerie. Amanda realizes that Laura sshyness and introversion is the biggest obstacle for her connecting to the outside world. What Laura needs to do is toovercome self-pity and gain independence. In Amanda sview, the task is very important, and demands
36、sacrifice. Thus she accepts a demeaning job at Famous and Barr Dsepartment Store demonstrating ladies undergarmentsin order to pay for Laura tsuition at Rubicam Bs usiness College (Presley 1990: 37). However, Laura secretly drops out of the course just as she drops out of high school. Having no othe
37、r choice, Amanda is determined to marry the girl off, imposing the image of her youth upon Laura. Instead of accepting the fact that Laura is crippled, she insists that Laura not refer to herself as cripple, that she speak only of a “ littledefect, a”nd that she distract attention from it by develop
38、ing charm and vivacity (Bloom 1988: 81).The son, Tom, is a poet working in the warehouse without ambition. Amanda wants Tom to have a bright future, so that he can put his talents to good use. This is why she encourages him to spend his evenings at night school learning some practical things rather
39、than at the movies. So, she carps at him continually about his eating habits, his smoking, his going to the movies, his late hours, his boredom with the warehouse job, and his need for adventure (Ibid.). And her only request of him is to find a gentleman caller for Laura, and then he can do what he
40、wants to do.It is obvious that Amanda really loves her children. In Scene Five, she tells Tom her deepest wish: “ Succeasnsd happinessfor my precious children! I wish for that whenever theres a moon, and when there isnt a moon, I wish for it, too ” (Williams 2009: 37). However, Amanda s good intenti
41、ons make her dangerous. She holds that what is best for herself is best for her daughter, and what is best for her daughter should dictate her son sbehavior. She ignores her children feselings Laura s unwillingness to be married and Tom s eagerness for adventure. The result is: Laura will feel more
42、inferior because the engaged gentleman caller will leave an everlasting trauma in her heart; the quarrels between Tom and Amanda aggravate his pain and provoke him into leaving home.Amanda is a frustrated mother, although in her opinion she has done nothing wrong. She refuses to accept the fact that
43、 her way of love is unsuitable for her children, but imposes her ideas upon them. As long as she escapes from the reality, she can forever live in her illusionary world where she is still a southern belle, whereher son works hard with his ambition, where her daughter marries a suitable man. To a lar
44、ge extent, only escapism can save and comfort Amanda.3. Laura Wingfield3.1 A unicorn in the glass menagerieLaura is an extremely shy girl. Her mother, Amanda, sends her to Rubicam sBusiness College, hoping that she can learn typing and find a job to support the family.However, Laura s hands shake so
45、 badly that she can t hit the right keys. The first time she is given a speed test, she breaks down so completely that she even needs to be carried into the wash room. Then, she secretly drops out of the course just as she drops out of high school. She walks in the park, visits the art museum, goes
46、to themovies, or spends most of her time in the“ Jewel Box, that big glass house where theyraise the tropical flowers ” (Williams 2009: 14).When Amanda reveals that she has discovered Laura dseception, she is so disappointed:“So what are we goingto do the rest of our lives? Stay home andwatch the pa
47、rades go by? Amuse ourselves with the glass menagerie, darling? Eternally play those worn-out phonograph records your father left as a painful reminder of him? d.)” (IbiThe answers to all these rhetorical questions are the same: yes, yes, yes and yes.Laura has no plan for the rest of her life at all
48、 She has accepted her isolation as hopeless because she is a cripple. Williams character description of Laura is particularly helpful:Amanda, having failed to establish contact with reality, continues to live vitally in her illusions, but Laura s situation is even greater. A childhood illness has l
49、eft her crippled, one leg slightly shorter than the other, and held in a brace. This defect need not be more thansuggested on the stage. Stemming from this, Laura s separation increases till she is like a piece of her own glass collection, too exquisitely fragile to move from the shelf. (Williams 2009: The Characters)To Laura, it is the physical defect that leads to her shyness and inferiority. She thinks everybody notices her deformity and l
