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She also knows her own personal reasons for doing this. For instance, at the end of the play she admits to Tom that she understands self-control and what dreams and escaping are all about, "Go then. Go to the moon -- you selfish dreamer!" Did she once say these words to her husband as well when he disappeared?
Laura, because of her disability, also disappears into a fantasy world as a way to deal with her personal stress. It consists of the clear, shining world of her glass animals. These glass figurines also give her something to love and to fondle that is missing in her present life. The here and now only offers her fragile hopes that she know will break like her glass, as when Jim comes for dinner. The broken unicorn represents her shattered life, because she does not considers herself physically whole with her limp. Yet Laura, unlike Amanda, has a more difficult time escaping into other worlds and free herself from the pain of the present one. She clearly knows the truth about herself, as she says to her mother: "I'm crippled!" She has become resigned to her continually dismal future. Also like Amada, Laura from dreams to reality to rest and redeem herself. She may be fractured, but not totally in shards.
Tom does not run away in his mind or to some fantasy world of glass. Rather, he physically leaves his home. Similar to his father,...
but, just as his mother and sister, he is not able to completely leave the present for another world somewhere else. Sharp pieces of him still sting him guilty when he decides to leave. "I pass the lighted windows of a shop where perfume is sold. The window is filled with pieces of colored glass...like bits of shattered rainbow....Oh, Laura, Laura, I tried to leave you behind me, but I am more faithful than I intended to be."
When the play comes to an end, the Wingfields are more in touch with reality as they were previously. Amanda says she has put aside her "silliness." Laura once again feels the pain away from her retreats into the glass world. Tom goes from movie house to find his escape, which does not come. Eakambaram, in his forward about this play, explains that Williams is also depicting the fantasies of the American dream. In America, far from what everyone says about the roads being paved with gold and where anyone can become what he/she wants, is the life of the many people like Amanda, Tom and Laura Wingfield.
References
Eakambaram, (ed) a. Glass Managerie. Tennessee Williams. New Delhi: S. Chand, 2005
Glass Menagerie http://pagesperso-orange.fr/absolutenglish-972/notes/uscivi/glassmenagerie/ressourcepage.htm
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