The Glass Menagerie Analysis

Register to read the introduction… As a slight cripple, she shies away from the world, hiding among glass unicorns and other figurines, and listening to her phonograph records. The real world unnerves her, deeming her unable to even handle typing class at Rubicam’s Business College. She couldn’t even type from nerves, her hands jittering across the keys. And when she tried to take her speed typing test, she vomited on the floor, and almost had to be carried to the washroom. While she was supposed to be in class, Laura simply wandered through parks and visited animals at the zoo, or the local conservatory, slipping even further from reality. Laura preferred to be locked in her own fantasy world, far from the real world. She could care less about getting a career or finding gentlemen, much to her mother’s dislike. Amanda wants her to be an intelligent woman, able to entertain potential suitors with her brains and character, just like she supposedly did when she was younger. Amanda cannot accept her daughter’s peculiar personality, nagging on her supposed “flaws” when Amanda herself is flawed. Although she thinks she is helping Laura, and simply wants the best for her, it is this constant harping and helping that drives Laura further into the realms of her own fantasy, further from …show more content…
Amanda cannot face reality, and accept the fact that she has a quirky daughter and a son that is beginning to care less and less about his home life, and wants to pursue his own ventures. She can’t grasp the thought of Laura and Tom wanting something other than what she wants for them. She also can’t seem to even fathom that she is contributing to her children’s downfall. Granted, she’s not the only one contributing to it. Tom refuses to acknowledge the thought of actually humoring Amanda and becoming a businessman or indulging in a relationship, preferring to venture into the world of his poems and literature, movies and booze, delving into a fantasy world of his own “adventures”, far from the reality of a grown man. This is a lot like Laura, who declines the life of a normal, outgoing woman, and prefers to lose herself in the glass world of her menagerie, which proves as fragile as she is, but also truly sparkling if she could overcome her nerves, instead of running from them. If Laura stepped into the real world, and let the light of a normal life hit her, she could shine, revealing her colorful and sparkling character. But simply refuses to do it, and retreats to the distracting sounds of her Victrola and her glass world, which could so easily be