The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams
I will be writing about Toms life, from “The Glass Menagerie” written by Tennessee Williams
Ultimately what Tom wants is an escape and some adventure from his harsh reality his own father left behind by abandoning his family, Tom further explains in detail how this happened, “There is a fifth character in the play who doesn’t appear except in this larger-than-life photograph over the mantel. This is our father who left us a long time ago. He was a telephone man who fell in love with long distances;” (Williams, scene 1, p. 1041) his father’s last contact with his family tom proclaims, “the last we heard from him was a picture post-card from Mazatlán, on the Pacific coast of Mexico, containing a message of two words-’’ Hello-Goodbye!” (William, scene 1, p.1041) his father’s absence has left an abundance of responsibility on his shoulders with a, a crippled sister and a mother who is overzealous about her children’s future. Toms character has a very mysterious nature about him, his comment “I have tricks in my pocket and things up my sleeve, but I’m the opposite of a stage magician, he gives you the illusion that has the appearance of truth, I gave you truth in the pleasant disguise of an illusion.” (Williams, Scene 1, p.1041). Basically, saying he will do what he has to for his family, only to sneak away to pursue his very own peace and success in life.
Tom is completely miserable; Tom has the hardest role in this play, working in a warehouse to support his mother and un married sister in the 1930’s in a time of poverty, In the over-crowded town of St. Luis he explains in summary “that he lives in a time of shouting and confusion where there are disturbances in labor, sometimes pretty violent compared to other cities” (Williams, Scene 1, p. 1041). Already feeling the pressure of society his mother is constantly nagging at him and they are always fighting, she critiques the way he eats “Honey Don’t Push with your fingers. If you have to push with something, the thing to push with is a crust of bread. And Chew- Chew!” (William, scene 1, p.1041). Amanda his mother also says, “You smoke too much.” (William, scene 1, p.41) she claims he drinks to much alcohol, goes out to the movies to much and even gets onto him about his hair, the pressure is starting to build daily as this continues,
His mother doesn’t believe a word he says he’s doing when he leaves the house at night she pushes him away with her constant nagging from the very beginning of the play, Amanda his mother says things like; “I think you’ve been doing things that you’re ashamed of. That’s why you act like this. I don’t believe that you go every night to the movies. Nobody goes to the movies night after night. Nobody in their right minds goes to the movies as often as you pretend to. People don’t go to the movies at nearly midnight, and movies don’t let out at two A.M. Come in stumbling. Muttering to yourself like a maniac! You get three hours’ sleep and then go to work. Oh, I can picture the way you’re doing down there. Moping, doping, because you’re in no condition.” (Williams, scene 3, p. 1042) pushing him to the brink of insanity because she doesn’t want him to jeopardize his job at the warehouse he works at he replies to her with in summary “you think I’m crazy about the warehouse? You think I’m in love with the continental shoemakers? You think I want to spend fifty-five years down there in that- celotex interior!” (Williams, scene 3, p.1043) he would literally want someone to bash his brains out before that would ever happen, he creates a crazy story about what he’s really doing with his time just to shut her up, saying he’s on drugs, killing people for money, and in a gang, and so many more elaborated tall tales. The pressure is too much to live around his mother anymore and she can feel it.
Tom’s mother notices him wanting another life, so she basically gives him a way out, Amanda tells him “I mean that as soon as Laura has got somebody to take care of her, married, a home of her own, independent — why, then you’ll be free to go wherever you please, on land, on sea, whichever way the wind blows! Finding his sister someone to take care of her would be extremely hard, because she is unusually shy to the point it makes her sick to talk to people, she has dropped out of school, and lives in a fantasy world with her glass animal menagerie collection, because she is a crippled woman with a deformation of one leg being shorter than the other, making it hard for her to pursue her own dreams or even find a husband of her own.
Tom attempts to find his sister someone to take care of her so he can finally get away like he has always dreamt of. But, this little get together didn’t go over very well, because little did Tom know this is an engaged man, Toms mother becomes irate with starting up with the entlitled to everything nagging, because she just went all out to prepare for some other woman’s husband, in a frenzy Tom leaves after he stopped paying the bills at home to pursue exactly what his adventurous soul wants, this was the last fight he had with his mother for not being good enough in her eyes, so he leaves to explore the lands. Even in his pursuit of happiness he feels the guilt of leaving his sister which haunts him daily.
Apryl Ceja
References
William T. (2013). The Glass Menagerie. In X.J Kennedy and D Gioia (Eds.) The Literature Collection: An E-Text [VitalSource digital version] (pp. 1040–1047). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc. Retrieved from https://digitalbookshelf.southuniversity.edu/#/books/9781269582674/cfi/6/86!/4/628@0:12.8