After reading the first 6 scenes of the Glass Menagerie I kind of thought that nothing really had happened. First off I will begin by giving a summary of play up to scene 7 (which I hope has more action than the first 6!).
A family made up of three members, Amada the single mother, Tom the poorly paid provider son, and Laura the social outcast 24 year old daughter. Amanda is single because her husband abandoned the family a long time ago. This has added extra stress on Amanda which she usually takes out on Tom. She frequently criticizes his life choices, such as going to the movies too often and not taking the initiative to improve his life and make more money. She even goes as far as criticizing his eating habits as can be seen on page 6 “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! Animals have secretions in their stomachs which enable them to digest food without mastication, but human beings are supposed to chew their food before they swallow it down. Eat food leisurely, son, and really enjoy it. A well-cooked meal has lots of delicate flavors that have to be held in the mouth for appreciation. So chew your food and give your salivary glands a chance to function!” I felt like this quote really showed how stressed out Amanda was. I see this all the time with single mothers. They have to carry the full load of the family and fulfill the role of both parents. She just tends to ramble on and not really know what to say. This was evident throughout the entire play. The daughter, Laura, is, I think cripple and possibly mentally retarded. She basically can’t function outside of her family. She ended up throwing up in her business classes that her mom had enrolled her in. Now she sits around the house polishing and dusting her Glass Menagerie. Laura’s disposition frustrates her mother. On page 8 her mother claims to have “received – seventeen! – gentle men callers!” when she was single. But so far Laura has had no prospects of a husband. After constant quarrels with Tom over his smoking and laziness Amanda devises a plan. She knows that Tom is on the verge of leaving the family to pursue adventure elsewhere. This is because of his constantly attending movies that take him into a virtual adventure and not trying to advance himself from his dead end job. Therefore Amanda makes a deal with Tom that if he finds a suitor to marry Laura then he can leave to pursue his adventure. Laura seems to feel that she is not in need of man and lives in her own fantasy that there will be a man for her one day, possibly imaginary. In desperation to leave Tom asks his best friend at the warehouse over for dinner. This friend named Jim attended high school with both Tom and Laura. We find that Laura is deathly scared of seeing Jim again because she had once had a crush on him in high school. After introductions are completed both Tom and Jim go out onto the fire escape.
It is at this point that Tom shares with Jim his intentions to leave because he can’t bear to live here any longer. On page 62 we see that Tom really is on the verge of going nuts. “I’m starting to boil inside. I know I seem dreamy but inside-well, I’m boiling! Whenever I pick up a shoe, I shudder a little thinking how short life is and what I am doing! Whatever that means, I know it doesn’t mean shoes-except as something to wear on a traveler’s feet!”. There is a conflict of desires between Amanda and Tom. But Laura is the central character that we see in the play. They both want what is best for her but both are about to lose their minds and Jim is the “savior”.
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