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Denise Hock
Professor Jenna Lynch
ENG755A: Modes of Analysis
Spring 2015
Each of the characters in The Glass Menagerie live in their own fantasy world in which
s/he fails to either see or accept reality. Even as each character employs a different way to escape
the basic effect is the same for all of them. Each character becomes disconnected from the
outside world and is unable to enjoy their lives on their own terms. This in turn causes constant
internal frustration and disappointment. There are similarities and contrasts as to how the
characters each cope with their reality and fantasy life and how / where they find their means of
escape. Williams created a play that combines different elements including symbols to represent
different aspects of their lives. Different symbols are used in the play to represent different forms
of escape or the shift between reality and illusion. Each of the characters in the play searches for
an escape from the reality of their lives into an imaginary world. Tennessee William uses
different techniques in the play to represent with each of the characters, the themes of escape or
the shift between reality and illusion.
Tennessee William writes the timeless play, The Glass Menagerie, as a representation of
his own life. Tom Wingfield is the narrator as well as the major character in the play. Through
Toms eyes the viewers are given a glance into the life of his family during the pre war
depression era. Tom introduces his mother, a Southern belle who is desperately clinging to her
life in the past, his sister who is too fragile to exist and function in normal society, and he himself

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who is a struggling young poet working in a warehouse to help support his family after his father
abandoned them.
The Glass Menagerie takes place in the Wingfield apartment. The apartment is depicted
as a small space in the city of St. Louis. None of the family members enjoy living in this
apartment and yet poverty binds them to this detriment. The theme of escape is developed as
each of the characters experience the need to escape their lives and retreat into an illusionary
world. The escape of their lifestyle, their apartment, and relationships is a significant theme
throughout this play. The theme of escaping is linked with the symbolic fire escape.
The Wingfield family was abandoned by their father when he fell in love with long
distances. This action forced the older son Tom to take over all of the responsibilities of the
family. These responsibilities to the family included taking care of his overbearing mother,
Amanda, and his disabled sister, Laura. Tom is quite unsatisfied with the life he was forced into
and yet he has aspirations. As a young adult, he wanted to be a dreamer and a poet. When his
father left, he was forced to take a job in a warehouse where he does not fit in. He is always
seeking for ways to escape the misery. To Tom, the first escape serves as a bridge between
illusion and truth. Tom thus uses the fire escape to continuously go to the movies. There he
is able to fantasize and idealize what life could be like without the pressures and expectations
that are remanded of him.
The theme of escape is developed through the symbols of the fire escape and the
movies. The fire escape presents Toms escape from the disappointment and regret that he
suffers when he is at home and at work. The atmosphere is quite stagnant and uneventful which
keeps him from realizing and actualizing his dreams. Thus he uses the fire escape to escape

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from the pressures and constant frustrations. The movies are another symbol that William uses
to present the theme of escape. Although not realized he sees himself within these movies, and
continues as a dreamer. Tom is obsessed with movies and the better lives he sees in them. Tom
eventually abandons his family due to the allure of the alternative life that the movies present.
Each of these symbols helps the individual characters in the play to escape from their
reality. Tom uses the fire escape and the movie theater to escape from the pressures of his home
and work life. Tom has used the movies to create an ideal life in his mind. When he watches the
characters on the screen, he begins to dream about what his life would be like if he were
normal like them. He creates such an illusion that he eventually escapes from his life to pursue
this dream. The fire escape is the means of escape in which he eventually uses at the conclusion
of the play.
Toms mother, Amanda finds ways to escape her reality. The fire escape is perceived as a
way for other gentlemen callers to enter her home and pursue Laura and escape the vacant life in
which she is currently living. The theme of escape is developed through the technique of living
in the past and the fire escape. Amanda has not been able to cope with the two realities which
include her husband abandoning her and her daughter not being able to leave the house to find a
husband. Her poor coping skills force her to escape into the past often recalling her life back in
the South, among the rich and genteel society. She recalls the life before she chose to marry Mr.
Wingfield and often wonders what her life would have been like if she had chosen another man
to marry. Amanda becomes bitter and paranoid which causes her to detach from being able to
have healthy relationships with her children. The future becomes the present, the present the
past, and the past turns into everlasting regret if you dont plan for it (p.421). This
disillusionment causes her to lecture, correct, and control how her children should live their

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lives. She attempts at molding them into the form she wants as opposed to accepting who they
are and what they want.
Laura uses the symbol of the fire escape as a literal exit from her reality. The fire escape
sets her apart from the unfamiliar world outside of her shielded life within her apartment. Laura
wants to escape by hiding inside her apartment. Laura is slightly crippled and anti-social and
insecure about herself. After dropping out of high school she began to start a glass collection in
which she calls in her glass menagerie.
The use of the fire escape as a symbol altered for each of the characters depending on
their own issues. The literal use of the fire escape becomes the way each person abandons their
reality; they believe theyre escaping but in reality they are simply putting off the inevitable.
Each character needed to utilize the fire escape as a literal exit from their reality. Tom uses the
fire escape as a way out of the world which encompasses Amanda, Laura and his dismal
apartment. Amanda perceives the fire escape as a way for gentlemen callers to come enter their
lives to pursue Laura. Laura uses the symbol of the fire escape as a way to escape into her own
world, hidden away from the outside world. And, the author, William, utilizes the fire escape as
an exit from his own reality. Just by writing this play he is able to seek a safe haven and escape
into an imaginary false world.