Deception- A Glass Menagerie Essay Template For Faster Writing

Deception is a misrepresentation of the truth. The play, ‘A Glass Menagerie,’ is full of deception, which impacts the story and reveals a lot about the characters, driving forward the plot of the story. Characters deceive themselves as well as deceive each other to reflect the ideals of society and convince themselves of a distant reality. All the characters, Laura, Tom, and Amanda, engage in acts of deception which have far reaching effects on the family.
Laura misses classes and drops out of college but pretends and does not let her family know. It causes lose of money for the family and confronts Amanda's reality of having a daughter with a disability who may not end up living life the way that she had imagined. Laura also deceives herself by immersing herself in her ornaments and entertainment instead of embracing her disability and making good out of her life.
Tom uses the family’s money meant to pay electricity bill to join the Marine without telling his family of his intentions. He also hides his poetry from his family and his mother does not accept that he is a writer. Even though he does not regret, his leaving leaves his family heartbroken.
Amanda talks of her having mastered ‘the art of conversation’: to her words appear not to be a representation of reality, but it is just an illusion and represents what she wants people to believe. Amanda also tries to convince Laura to cultivate charm to compensate for her shortfalls and get her a man to marry her. She is encouraging Laura to be deceptive by not presenting who she is. Amanda also deceives herself to make her feel better about herself by describing herself as a "Christian martyr." Amanda's self-deception is to convince herself that she is still young; instead of embracing the reality of her imperfections, she lives in delusion.
The deception in this family drives the story and shapes major events in the story. It exposes the reality and drives them to act in certain ways. Laura’s deception leads to her mother’s desperate actions to save her by getting a suitor while Tom's deception hurts his family. Amanda's self-deception is quite detrimental to her family since she fails to see her children for who they are, maybe contributing to their failures.