Free Glass Menagerie Essays: Laura’s Missed Opportunity

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Laura's Missed Opportunity in The Glass Menagerie

"The Glass Menagerie" is a play about intense human emotions; frustration, desperation, sadness, anger, shyness, and regret. Perhaps the most intense scene in the play is when a gentleman caller, Jim O'Connor, finally does come. All of their futures hang in the balance during this scene. Laura is actually drawn out of her shyness with someone besides her family, and she actually begins to feel good about herself.

If Jim had not been engaged to someone else the outcome of the play may have been different. If he had been free to love her, he may have continued to call on her, drawing her out of her shell and raising her self-esteem. They may have eventually married, giving Laura a husband to love her, making Amanda happy, and making Tom free to leave and live his own life. Laura is very nervous when Jim comes to the door. Amanda pleads with her to open it. Besides her words differing somewhat from the play text, she does not try to stall Jim and Tom by calling out lyrically, "Coming! Just one second."

Laura's meeting with Jim at the door is just as I imagined it while reading the play, his demeanor casual and friendly, and her shyness painfully obvious. After entering the house Tom goes out on the terrace, but he does not light his cigarette before going out as the play directs, and he also continues to read his paper once he is on the terrace, which the play says nothing about.

Another difference that was instantly apparent in the movie was the absence of the images that pop up every couple of pages during the play. I think the absence of these images slightly undermines the aura of unreality. The presence of the images represents dreams and imagination, which we know are made up, fantasy. The absence of the dreamlike images helps us forget what Tom says at beginning of the play, "the play is memory. Being a memory play, it is dimly lighted, it is sentimental, it is not realistic."

As Tom is still speaking to Jim in the movie, he does not lean over the rail with the appearance of a voyager as he says, "I'm planning to change.", as he is supposed to in the play, neither does he wave his hand toward the movie theatre as he speaks of it.

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