Example research essay topic: World Of Illusion Glass Menagerie - 1,444 words

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Generally when someone writes a play he / she try to elude some deeper meaning or insight in it. Meaning about ones self or about life as a whole. Tennessee Williams The Glass Menagerie and A Few Good Men by Aaron Sorkin are not an exception. For the every play it is essential to include effective methods of delivering the message to the audience, as it is very important and the matter of fact for every author and for every play produced.

In the two plays I have chosen, I would like to discuss the themes of method seen throughout the entire plays. Of course, both Williams and Sorkin show the masculinity and manhood by the major horror of the plays. Thus, the play The Glass Menagerie establishes itself as a memory play Williams is giving the audience a look at his own life, but being that the play is memory some things are exaggerated and these exaggerations describe the extremity of how Williams felt during these moments. The play centers itself on three characters. Williams characters are all lost in a dreamy state of illusion or escape wishing for something that they dont have. As the play goes from start to finish, as the events take place and the play progresses each of the characters undergoes a process, a change, or better yet a transition.

The masculinity and manhood are presented in the play very clear and effectively, as the features of characters illustrated by Williams do not really change significantly during the play. Even in the most difficult situations the heros stay strong and firm. By the events shown in the play author delivers the message to the auditory about the true will and bravery of the people. Tom Wingfield is one of the main characters of the play and it is him, who shows us his power and stability. However, during the play we can notice the change of the person, under the pressure of the situation. But still, the true features of the man do not leave the person.

One change occurs at the end of the memory part of the play, then he is changed again sometime between when the actual play took place and the time that he returns after serving in the merchant marines. In the beginning Tom Wingfield, the main character and the narrator of the play, feels trapped like a caged animal who needs to be set free which some times causes him to seem to be without pity or remorse (Kirszner and Mandell 1806). As a result of this he is often very frustrated and one of the only ways he can get the slightest sense of freedom is by going to the movies, which he later expresses his discontent for (Book Summary The Glass Menagerie). The thing that frustrates Tom the most is the fact that he reduces himself to a slave working at the factory to support his mother and sister, yet his mother says to him that all he thinks of is himself, she says this because he desires to have some freedom in his life. Things continue in this direction for Tom and it lasts quite a while. Tom is trying to preserve his manhood and tries to cope with it and even obeys his mother in some of the things she asks him to do.

One may think that the situation that caused for Tom great stress may not be so hard to survive through, however, it was rather difficult for Tom to hear from Amanda that she considers him to be selfish. That touched upon the dignity of the men and made him leave the family search of a better life as a merchant marine. This even may be seen by the audience as not the depiction of the masculinity, but visa verce the weak side of the character. However, the thoughts of Tom presented by the author let us think that this action was rather difficult decision and one more time underlines the absence of the fear for Tom. Now that he has left home, he has also left behind a world of illusion, illusion of being trapped without escape for when he did escape it was no longer an illusion, it became reality. Yet what he did not fully understand was that the world he was escaping from, the world of illusion, he was merely trading for another world of illusion.

This time instead of illusion of being trapped, it was illusion of being free. On the other hand, A Few Good Men is a play about the trial of two Marines for murder. The main characters are Dan Kaffey and Lt. Cmdr Joanne Galloway. They are both lawyers in the Judge Advocate General Corps of the Department of the Navy. They are the defense attorneys for Lance Corporal Dawson and Private First Class Downey.

The plot itself is built on the idea to show the masculinity and manhood of the characters as the events shown in the play are rather laborious for the audience to observe. By his technique of letting the thoughts of the characters on the surface the author allows us to watch all the struggle that is going not only in the content of the play, but also in the mind of the heroes. The speeches that we can preserve are seen the great power of the men, even though by the actions they might seem to be rather weak. The difficult side of the situation lies within the plot that shows us that Dawson and Downey were charged with murdering a member of their squad, Private First Class William Santiago. The two Marines did not want to cut a deal for minimum jail time because the believed that they did nothing wrong they were following orders and they did not intend to kill him. They were found guilty of conduct unbecoming of a Marine and were dishonorably discharged from the Marine Corps.

Thus, many of the ideas presented in the play were developed and refined during the course of hundreds of single-sex workshops and classes conducted over the past decade with boys and mens athletic teams, college fraternities, groups of enlisted men and officers in the United States Marine Corps and Army, and mixed-gender workshops and classes in middle schools, high schools, and colleges. The six strategies discussed are: Introducing violence against women as a mens issue; framing gender violence prevention as a leadership issue for boys and men; personalizing gender violence issues through remedial empathy exercises; focusing on the role of bystanders and discussing concrete options for intervention; making the connection between homophobia and mens reluctance to challenge sexism; and preempting predictable criticisms and objections from boys and men. Many researches have been made concerning the issues of manhood and masculinity in the literature. Thus, Jackson has created the workshop finding out that traditional masculinity needs to be looked at critically and in news ways. The time is long overdue for us to have a national conversation about the way our culture teaches boys and men across class, race, and ethnic distinctions to think about and act toward women. We are raising generations of boys in a society that in many ways glorifies sexually aggressive masculinity and considers as normal the degradation and objectification of women.

Jackson also believes that the media needs to be looked at critically because it represents masculinity in a steady stream of images connected with dominance, violence, and control. In general, the play A Few Good Men was at the other extreme. It showed life in the military as a hard, unforgiving life where one slipup could result in death or serious harm. The two Marines Dawson and Downey were the total opposite of Yossarian. Where he was undisciplined they were disciplined. While he only cared about himself they believed in their mission and were willing to die for it.

Dawson and Downey were described as recruiting poster Marines while Yossarian would be sent off to count cracks on the runway the second anyone important showed up. In all both described plays the reader meets real courage and power of the men. Both authors depict their heroes in such ways that while reading the story everyone as if could feel the power of those men, even though they are in the troubles. The characters presented in The Glass Menagerie and A Few Good Men are true example to be followed in many perspectives. Bibliography: A Few Good Men by Sorkin, Aaron, ISBN: 0573 69200 9; The Glass Menagerie by Williams, Tennessee. Pg 1893 - 1937; Introduction of Literature, edited by Michael Meyer, Boston; Bedford, 2002.

Research essay sample on World Of Illusion Glass Menagerie