She tells Laura to stay "fresh and pretty for gentlemen callers" (348) because they "come when they are least expected" (348). There is no excuse for this kind of behavior, especially a mother. Hope emerges in the play through Laura and Tom. Laura demonstrates hope when her favorite unicorn is broken. She is clearly saddened by the act but somehow, she manages to see something positive in it. She realizes the horn made the unicorn freakish and now he will fit in with the others. She tells Jim, the unicorn "will feel more at home with the other horses" (387). As she understands this, she comes to know that she might not be as freakish as she seems. Her ability to handle the situation with grace illustrates she is tougher than everyone guessed and it gives her (and us) hope that she will emerge from this changed and seek a better life. Tom also displays hope. Near the end of the play, he returns with a rainbow-colored scarf and gives it to Laura. With the mention of the rainbow, Williams brings hope into the play. When Tom is wandering the streets at the end of the play, he sees a window display that strikes him as "bits of a shattered window" (392). At this moment, he thinks of Laura but does nothing to...

Hope does exist but it has a difficult time staying alive in the Wingfield's world.
The Glass Menagerie successfully encapsulates the problems average families encountered during financially tough times in the 30s. Tom is racked with a sense of failure, which leads to his deep regret and guilt about much of his life. He was his father's son and while he did not want to be like him, he seemed to be moving in that direction everyday. Amanda was living in a state of denial by constantly reliving her life in the Old South and filling Laura's head with the notion that men simply appear at the door asking for one's hand in marriage. Laura, too, lives in denial that another world even exists outside the apartment in which she lives. Their lives are brutally ordinary and not exaggerated at all. The hope we encounter is light and fleeting and there is no promise it will save anyone or even stay for an extended period of time. While it might be a depressing account of life, the Glass Menagerie remains a realistic one.

Work Cited

Williams, Tennessee. The Glass Menagerie. Making Literature Matter. 8th ed. Schlib, John, ed.

Boston: Bedford St. Martin's.…