A Play with Two Heads

A compelling character within a story not only displays unique personality traits, but can do many things which include, but are not limited to: grabbing the reader's attention, affecting their surroundings, and even tell a story. Tom's role in The Glass Menagerie, by Tennessee Williams, is a character that helps narrate the story and as a character, who acts within those memories and highlights the play's conflict between truth and memory's distortion of truth. Although …

…and his best friend, Tom the narrator fills the characters with the magic he claims in his first soliloquy. Although The Glass Menagerie is considered to be a non-realistic play, there is a definite reality in Tom's retelling of his memory with his unique consciousness. Although Tom the narrator may express this idea through exaggeration, can you honestly say that you've never done this before? This is what separates memory and our experience of reality.