Question

questions 13 through 18 refer to the following.
read the following passage carefully before you choose your answers.
this passage is excerpted tennessee williams play the glass menagerie first performed in 1944.
tom enters dressed as a merchant sailor and strolls across to the fire escape. there he stops and lights a cigarette. he addresses the audience
tom: yes, i have tricks in my pocket, i have things up my sleeve. but i am the opposite of a stage magician. he gives you illusion that has the appearance of truth. i give you truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion. to begin with, i turn back time. i reverse it to that quaint period, the thirties, when the huge middle class of america was matriculating in a school for the blind. their eyes had failed them, or they had failed their eyes, and so they were having their fingers pressed forcibly down on the fiery braille alphabet of a dissolving economy.
in spain there was revolution. here there was only shouting and confusion. in spain there was guernica. here there were disturbances of labor, sometimes pretty violent, in otherwise peaceful cities such as chicago, cleveland, saint louis... this is the social background of the play.
(music begins to play.)
the play is memory. being a memory play, it is dimly lighted, it is sentimental, it is not realistic. in memory everything seems to happen to music. that explains the fiddle in the wings.
i am the narrator of the play, and also a character in it. the other characters are my mother, amanda, my sister, laura, and a gentleman caller who appears in the final scenes. he is the most realistic character in the play, being an emissary from a world of reality that we were somehow set apart from. but since i have a poets weakness for symbols, i am using this character also as a symbol; he is the long - delayed but always expected something that we live for.
there is a fifth character in the play who doesnt appear except in this larger - than - life - size photograph over the mantel. this is our father who left us a long time ago. he was a telephone man who fell in love with long distances; he gave up his job with the telephone company and skipped the light fantastic out of town.
the last we heard of him was a picture postcard from mazatlan, on the pacific coast of mexico, containing a message of two words: hello - goodbye and no address.
i think the rest of the play will explain itself.
the glass menagerie by tennessee williams. copyright © 1945, renewed 1973 the university of the south. reprinted by permission of georges borchardt, inc. for the estate of tennessee williams.
14
mark for review
in the second and third paragraphs, the specific references to time ( the thirties ) and place ( spain, chicago. cleveland, saint louis ) primarily serve to
a reinforce the notion that the play is part of a world of reality (paragraph 5) that will be reconstructed frommemory (paragraph 4)
b support the notion that the play is firmly asentimental play and not arealistic play (paragraph 4)
c show that tom is a poet (paragraph 5) who is mainly interested in social and political subjects
d reveal that tom is a nostalgic narrator who wishes he could live in the past

Explanation:

The references to time (the thirties) and place (Spain, Chicago, Cleveland, Saint Louis) are part of the social background. The play is described as a memory play. These specific time - place references help in reconstructing the "world of reality" from "memory" as mentioned in the text. Option B is incorrect as the text says it's a memory play (not just sentimental). Option C is wrong because there's no indication that Tom's interest in social - political subjects is shown by these references. Option D is incorrect as there's no evidence of Tom being a nostalgic narrator who wants to live in the past from these time - place references.

Answer:

A. reinforce the notion that the play is part of a 'world of reality' (paragraph 5) that will be reconstructed from'memory' (paragraph 4)