The Glass Menagerie Play Analysis

I chose to read “The Glass Menagerie” by Tennessee Williams. I chose to read this because I had read it before but I wanted to catch up and reread it. This play is a memory play told by Tom Wingfield, the son of an overbearing mother, who is torn between leaving to follow his dreams and staying because he deeply cares for his “crippled” sister. The play in my opinion is really a story full of false hopes, illusion of the mind, abandonment, lost youth, and escape. The main symbols in the play support its main theme; that change cannot be avoided and it is always accompanied by the sense of loss. There are many examples shown in the play of how Tom is basically driven away by his mother. When the play opens and the scene is set it starts with Tom, his sister Laura, and their mother Amanda sitting around the table to eat dinner. The first thing Amanda does is nag Tom about the way he is eating. She tells him not to push his food around with his hands and to chew his food thoroughly. This first scene already shows her need to direct and control everything and the people around her. I understand that most mothers feel the need to be in control but Amanda is someone who wants things to be done only the way she wants them done. I feel with the first scene showing his mother already nagging at Tom that she has been …show more content…
This of course, starts another argument between the two. Tom basically says he is tired of his mediocre life of working in a warehouse to support her and Laura. He always uses the same excuse to get away from their apartment and their mother. “I am going to the movies!” and his mother usually replies with “I don’t believe that lie!” (Williams 131). Tom says he is going to the movies almost every night and he usually leaves very late, this indicates that he is not going to the movies, but he is actually going to a