Sunday, September 18

Second 1970 Prompt

      "Choose a work of recognized literary merit in which a specific inanimate object (e.g., a seashell, a handkerchief, a painting) is important, and write an essay in which you show how two or three of the purposes the object serves are related to one another."
      Possessions often begin describing a person's character. Laura's glass menagerie, from the drama of the same title, helps define her; her fragility and the figures' delicate forms are easily comparable. The glass menagerie's purpose, however, runs deeper; it serves as her escape into the ideal.
      Laura's unusual anxiety hinders her ability to function in the world. She was embarrassed of her typing on the first day of classes, and instead of returning the next day to improve her skill or talking to her mother about it, she avoids conflict and spends the days wandering about the park and zoo. Her behavior exhibits her detached nature. Jim, later, comments on her personality. "It's unusual to see a shy girl nowadays." Laura's favorite figure in her glass collection is a unicorn. The unicorn is a metaphor for who she wishes to be- someone loved both despite and for her uniqueness. She frantically tries to keep distance between herself and her desires, terrified that she'll find they are impossible. When she realizes Jim is her old crush, she refuses to sit at the table, not wanting him to see her and either not recognize her or be disappointed by her. When she and Jim talk about high school, Jim is surprised by how self conscious about her leg brace she was. He kisses her, wanting her to have more self confidence. In a way, her ideal has been realized- Jim has shown her affection due to her standing out.
      The dream is soon cracked. The unicorn falls off the table when she's caught up in dancing with Jim. Jim, in bumping the table, breaks the unicorn's horn off- the unicorn becomes, as Laura puts it, "just like the other horses." Laura parts with the unicorn, giving it to Jim as a "souvenir." After her return to an unwelcoming reality- Jim having a fiance- she needs something to keep a connection with that moment, something to make it more real. Finally, she had felt like other girls- the distance had been crossed.
      The glass menagerie's function changed throughout the play. It begins by focusing her longing, accenting it by how often she played with and dusted it. Later, it illustrates the lack of sustainability her ideal holds. The glass menagerie adds depth to Laura's character.

2 comments:

  1. Your thesis is excellent. Your first body paragraph has too much summarizing in it, why not use a quote instead? Also, I think you should end that on a stronger note, because the last thing is what the reader remembers the most. The second paragraph is all summary, what is the point of it? You never explained what exactly a glass menagerie is. Try using the sentences in your concluding paragraph as topic sentences for your body paragraphs.

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  2. I feel it is important to give the author of the work his or her credit in your opening paragraph.
    The way you've written this essay is great in that you address what the prompt asks of you, but your writing seems to be structured in a more original way. You incorporate some of the plot in without making it a prompt summary, which was helpful since I had not read the piece.

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