Escapism and Reality in 'The Glass Menagerie'

The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams centers on the need to escape the present and its restrictions. As the narrator and main character of the work, Tom’s efforts to break free from the dullness and monotony of his life were first achieved by trips to the movies where he could live out his fantasies. As the play progresses, Tom finds he must do something more drastic to escape his situation. Amanda and Laura mirror Tom’s urge to retreat from their lives in other ways; however, they never go as far as Tom does in an effort to find freedom from their current lives. Through the memories of Tom Wingfield, Williams expresses humanity’s impulse to escape our situations for imagined, brighter futures; however, family history and memories stay

Amanda must tell her old stories about growing up in the South as a way to live in world where she was the center of attention and wealthy. “One Sunday afternoon in Blue Mountain – your mother received – seventeen – gentleman callers!” (Williams 853). Much to the dismay of her children, these stories have been told many times. Only Tom seems to grow annoyed of this, while Laura asks him to let their mother finish. Likewise, Laura uses ways to escape the prison of her own situation by staying inside and amusing herself. Laura is frail and deformed, and she must retreat to her glass menagerie and her father’s old phonographs whenever reality is too harsh or scary for

Fordyce states, “The weight of family obligations is something Tom must cast aside, but he cannot do so unscathed; after he left, the memory of the past... leads him into an emotional impasse”(255). Tom cannot forget Laura, even after a long period of time. This is because, no matter what the circumstances, family stays with you. In varying degrees, no character in the play can seem to accept their reality. Even as Tom begins the play, he admits of the gentleman caller, “He is the most realistic character in the play, being an emissary from a world of reality we were somehow set apart from”(Williams 852). Because Williams tells this story through the memory of Tom, we are able to see that he has still not managed to overcome his guilt about leaving Laura. It is human nature to resist one’s imagined prisons, but it will end in defeat because of the imperfect nature of humanity (Fordyce 270). While some may say that one can forget their past life in favor of a new one, family has a place in the heart that cannot be easily