The Glass Menagerie Essay

The glass menagerie is a memory play, and it’s based upon three characters: Tom, Amanda and Laura. Even though Amanda has been portrayed as a powerful character in the play but overall Tom is the main character that opens and closes the play as he dreams back to when his father left him and his family as he writes in the opening of the play that, “The last we heard of him was a picture post-card from Mazatlan…..and no address” (338). I think he is saying this as in a humorous way and not being angry or anything about his father, as the play itself is becoming a sentimental act and the the focus shifts here from Tom’s soliloquies to these two women, Amanda and Laura who are trapped in their St. Louis apartment, living in their own illusions

Amanda talks about her East Tennessee memories and the way she dressed up to attract gentlemen and even her own husband who later left them all. Since this whole play is about memories and both characters Amanda and Tom just talks about the past and tells Laura see the way things were, see look at your mother the way she dressed etc. Amanda’s East Tennessee memories, “Possess your soul in patience you will see….so he and Mr. O’Connor could take the service car home” (365). In this Amanda talks a lot about his good memories form the East Tennessee also about the South, as she is describing to Laura how she wore different beautiful frock to the evening dances and how she asked the young men for jonquils. I think she is missing her youth and living in south as she even describes the climate from Tennessee to Delta, evening dances, after noon picnics etc. I think besides telling how she attracted more gentlemen callers she is missing being young and having a good time, and now as her husband left her I think she feels lonely inside by recalling all those events. I think she misses her romantic and nostalgic time as well when she was young and she had nothing to worry about and how she used to go to the parties all over the Delta. I think this is also another way of telling her daughter how she met her dad and she was having malaria fever but

This is about Tom’ memories and how he describes his past in front of the audience. All three soliloquies about Tom here define irony and nostalgia and how he tried to distance himself from his situation. I think this is Tom’s way of describing his old good days as Amanda did while describing her southern belle memories. I think Tom is trying to run away from his responsibilities as his father ran away long time ago and he being the male is considered the head of the house hold but he is very delusional and does not pay attention to his surroundings, harshness and reality of the outside world. In this article the author describes, “Rainbow colors, in fact, fill much of the play” (212). I think the author is trying to say that most of the play of filled with dreaming in the past rather than fixing their present. Tom has done an excellent job by getting audience’s attention in to his rainbow themed world and the pleasant memories of his past. The whole play is about the past memories either of Amanda or Tom and they both seem lost in their past rather than focusing on their present. By dreaming in the past I think they both are trying to escape from the responsibilities and the reality of the outside world. Top set the same example as his father by leaving Amanda and Laura and