The Glass Menagerie Act 1 Scene 1 Analysis

Decent Essays
Scene ____1____ of The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams

Scene 1 begins by telling the story of a lower middle-class family of three, a mother, a daughter, and a son, whom go by the name of the Wingfield’s. The father was missing because he had abandoned them in their early years of life, and which he left the rest of the Wingfield’s to live in an apartment, which is found in the rear of the building and facing an alley. This sets the setting for the first scene in which Tom Wingfield, the son of the family, and the narrator of the play, enters the stage first. The actual play begins with two women seated at a table, the two women being Amanda Wingfield, the mother of the family, and Laura Wingfield, the daughter of the family. The two are
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meeting and about many other events and small talk. After the phoned conversation, Amanda and Tom have a somewhat unfriendly quarrel. Tom rants about his mother throwing out his books, being driven out of his own house, and about being the only one to have to work to pay the rent. Tom and Amanda, persistently arguing, can barely even get a full sentence out before the other replies with another arrogant remark. This quarrel continues for quite sometime. Amanda proclaims that she does not believe that Tom has been doing what he has said he has been doing, but yet instead, has been doing other things which causes him to act in such ways as starting hostile conflicts. Tom then complains that he hates his job, but since he is the only one who works, he states that it should be his choice of what he gets to do. After having enough of the argument, Tom starts to leave, but Amanda grabs his arm and asks where he is going. Tom says he is going to the movies, in which his mother replies that she does not believe him. Tom then outbursts with a number of rhetorical replies, in which his mother replies that she will not speak to him until he

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