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¶ … play The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams, the theme of escape helps drive the play forward. Amanda Wingfield, the mother, escapes the reality of her hard and narrow life by remembering better times, possibly without great accuracy. Laura, Amanda's daughter, escapes by playing with her collection of glass animals (the "menagerie"). Tom, Amanda's son, is the only one in the family who has a chance of truly escaping the life they have lead, but if he chooses this path, he will be leaving Amanda and Laura behind just as his father did many years before. Tom and Laura's father is an important character in the play, even though he never appears. Tom describes him as "... A telephone man who fell in love with long distances." ("The Glass Menagerie," scene 1) The father's picture in his World War I uniform is placed prominently in the family's living room. In that uniform the sense of his being away is apparent. The father's absence sets the theme of escape for the play.
Tom will follow in his father's footsteps, leaving his mother and sister to fend for themselves. He works in a shoe factory, and knows his mother and sister depend on his income, but he knows he cannot spend his life taking on all responsibility for them. He is a dreamer and wants to write poetry. Tom tries to communicate to his mother and sister just how frustrated he is. With his sister he is much more gentle than he is with his mother. He says to Amanda,
Listen!...
" ("The Glass Menagerie," Scene 3)
To his sister he is kinder, but the theme of escape is still there in his conversation to her. Tom goes out every night to the movies or a show to escape the trap of his home life. In Scene 4 he describes to Laura a magic trick done by an escape artist:
But the wonderfullest trick of all was the coffin trick. We nailed him into a coffin and he got out of the coffin without removing one nail... There is a trick that would come in handy for me -- get me out of this two-by-four situation.... You know it don't take much intelligence to get yourself into a nailed-up coffin, Laura. But who in hell ever got himself out of one without removing one nail?" ("The Glass Menagerie," Scene 4)
Tom knows he must leave, has to leave, and cannot survive if he stays. He doesn't want to destroy his family (the coffin) in the process, but he knows that he will not escape from Amanda and Laura without doing damage. The imagery is clear: what Tom values most in himself will die if he…
Bibliography
Cardullo, Bert. March, 1997.l "The Glass Menagerie." The Explicator, Vol. 55:161-164.
Williams, Tennessee. "The Glass Menagerie." Dramatists Play Service, Inc. 1948.
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