The Glass Menagerie and the Life of Tennessee Williams The Glass Menagerie closely parallels the author's life. From the job Tennessee held early in his life to the apartment he and his family lived in. Each of the characters presented, their actions taken and even the setting are based on the past of Thomas Lanier Williams, better known as Tennessee Williams. Donald Spoto described the new apartment building that Williams and his family moved into in St. Louis, Missouri, as having only two small windows, one in the front of the apartment and another in the back. A fire escape blocked the smoky light that could enter from the window overlooking the alley (16). In The Glass Menagerie, the apartment was described as overlooking an alley. Meyer pointed out to me that the entrance to the apartment was actually a fire escape. There was no front door in The Glass Menagerie apartment, only a fire escape to get in and out (1865). This omission of a front door represents the feeling that Tennessee Williams had that he could not leave his family and start his own business in a normal way as most children do. Tennessee Williams felt he had to literally run away to follow his dream of writing, as Tom also felt in the play. John Fritscher points out in his thesis that Tennessee and Tom were both torn between the interpretation of their mother's responsibility and their own instincts (5). Tom Wingfield, the narrator of the play, is representative of Tennessee Williams himself, as they share the same first name. Tennessee Williams did not earn his nickname until his college days at the University of Missouri (Meyer 1864). Both Tom and Tennessee William... in the middle of the paper... told their world and its experiences in whatever form seemed to fit the material. (Kahn) Works Cited: Cook, Sharon. “Permission to quote me.” Email to the author. April 2, 1999Fritscher Ph.D., John J. Love and Death in Tennessee Williams Diss.1967: Loyola University Library. Internet 1999. Available: jackfritscher.com/tennesseeKahn, Sy. Modern American Drama: Critical Essays. Edited by Willima E. Taylor. Deland, Florida. Everette/Edwards Inc., 1968. 71-88 Spoto, Donald. The Kindness of Strangers: The Life of Tennessee Williams. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1985 Tischler, Nancy M. Tennessee Williams: Rebel Puritan. New York: The Citadel Press, 1965. Williams, Tennessee. The glass menagerie. Bedford's introduction to literature: reading, writing, thinking. 5th ed. Ed. Michael Mayer. Boston: Bedford, 1999. 1865-190