Both plays explore struggle, Tom’s struggle to find creative expression and freedom which makes family commitment a burden and Eddie’s struggle to retain his central role in his community. The allusion to Guernica and the turmoil in Spain in The Glass Menagerie, juxtaposed to the uneasy peace in America, establishes a tense atmosphere as the play's background. The great depression and economic hardship is essentially what drives Tom to entrapment. Similarly Miller uses economical context to shape his play, A view from the Bridge. If it were not for the economical conditions Beatrices’ relatives would not have the need for a roof over their heads, and the love between Catherine and Redolpho would never have developed.
Williams set informs the audience of Tom’s struggle for identity, he uses the fire escape, a visually prominent part of the set, as an important symbol for the imprisonment that Tom feels and the possibility of a way out. In his stage directions, Williams characteristically imbues the fire escape with symbolic weight, saying that the buildings are burning with the "implacable fires of human desperation." Tom addresses the audience from the fire escape, and his positioning there, standing alone between the outside world and the space of the apartment, points to the painful choice he makes later in the play and symbolises irony in that he has not yet done so. In order to escape, he must escape alone and leave his mother and sister behind. The opening informs the audience that the apartment is at ‘the rear end of the building’ setting an ominous tone and establishing the abandoned and forgotten environment in which they are living. Tom introduces the play standing isolated in front of the Wingfield apartment, making it obvious that guilt plays an important part in the role of his character; it takes away his ability to leave, corroding his dream of finding his own identity. Alfieries role as narrator in Miller’s A view From The Bridge...