Thursday, March 5, 2015

What is the meaning of candlelight in the context of darkness in "The Glass Menagerie"?

The candlelight gives a surreal quality to the last scene, like most of the Wingfield's lives it separates them from reality, putting them in temporary dimness, just slightly out of focus, like the characters.

The candlelight is required because the lights go out, Tom fails to pay the bill.

The dim light allows Laura and Jim to have a romantic moment, that will be brief, before the darkness descends on any possible relationship or romance between the two.

The candlelight could represent the fading light that is going out of all the Wingfield's lives, soon they will be enveloped in emotional darkness when Tom leaves the family.  They are already literally in the dark, with no lights. 

Amanda's world goes dark when she finds out that Jim is not available and then when she argues with Tom about it, and he subsequently leaves the family.

Tom's world certainly goes dark after he leaves his family.  He is tormented by guilt for the rest of his life with regard to leaving his sister.

In Tom's final speech he says:

"The cities swept about me like dead leaves, leaves that were brightly colored but torn away from the branches.  I would have stopped, but I was pursued by something.  Oh Laura, Laura, I tried to leave you behind me, but I am more faithful than I intended to be!" (Williams, pg. 97)

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