The Glass Menagerie The Glass Menagerie, written in 1945 by Tennessee Williams, remains today as a great literary masterpiece. Williams gave unimaginable depth and uniqueness to each of his characters. Even though the play was written in the mid-forties it is timeless, in that the problems and troubles of the characters can be related to life today, more than 50 years later. The Glass Menagerie is a great play with a central theme of escape and many symbols to support this theme. In the following I will give a brief summary and discuss the theme. The Glass Menagerie begins with Tom introducing the play as a memory, his own memory of the past. At the start of t