Fragile Women in Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie and Marina Carr’s The Mai

(Fathia Saleh Al-Ghoreibi)

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Abstract

Both Tennessee Williams and Marina Carr are interested in female issues. Throughout his literary career, Williams expresses his feelings towards his mother and sister through the female characters that inhabit his plays. Mostly, they are fragile women in a hostile world devoid of sympathy and care. The Glass Menagerie, through the characters of Amanda Wingfield and her daughter Laura, offers exemplary figures of such characters whose only weapons against a cruel and severe present is retreat into illusionary worlds of beautiful memories or glass figurines. Similarly, Carr's females in The Mai are trapped women who cannot free themselves from imprisoning circumstances and eventually become destructive to themselves and those around them. Both Williams and Carr demonstrate common interest in treating issues such as the dysfunctional family, marriage and illusion. The treatment of the past is stressed in the two plays since both are memory plays. Keywords: Dysfunctional family, fragile women, illusion, marriage, memory play, social criticism
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References

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