Essay on Toms Escape

Furthermore, Tom wasn’t only to support the family financially, but hold the family together emotionally. The one duty Tom always maintain was to Laura despite his constant bickering with his mother. Laura was also pressure with unreasonable demands from her mother Amanda. Amanda let Tom know what could happen to his sister Laura, "I know so well what becomes of unmarried woman who aren't prepared to occupy a position.

Tom never does anything without doing it to the fullest, good or bad. Tom has an overall extremely short temper, assertive,confident and aggressive nature. Tom’s wild, emotional, and uncaring attitude end up getting three people killed. Tom in the end is ultimately concerned with himself and his lavished ,intense, and high paced

In The Glass Menagerie, the main character, Tom, lives a life of grave disappointment as he tirelessly works to provide for his mother and sister. However, eventually, at the end of the play, Tom finally loses his nerve and describes how he “descended the steps of [the] fire-escape for the last time and followed from then on, in my father’s footsteps...”(7. Tom) after having a fight with his mother. So, just as Tom’s father had abandoned Tom and his family, Tom deserted his sister and mother. Though there are many causes of Tom’s abandonment of his family, the three main reasons are because of his dysfunctional relationship with his mother, his hatred of his job, and of the absence of Tom’s father.

In The Glass Menagerie, Tennessee Williams uses the theme of escape to help drive the play forward. None of the characters are capable of living in the real world. Laura, Amanda, Tom and Jim use various methods to escape the brutalities of life. Laura retreats into a world of glass animals and old records. Amanda is obsessed with living in her past. Tom escapes into his world of poetry writing and movies. Jim also reverts to his past and remembers the days when he was a high school hero. Mr. Wingfield is referred to often throughout the play. He is the ultimate symbol of escape. This is because he has managed to remove himself from the desperate situation that the rest of the family is still

Williams’s play is a tragedy, and one of quietude. He once expressed that “Glass Menagerie is my first quiet play, and perhaps my last.” It is a play of profound sadness, and through relationships between characters, portrays the “cries of the heart.” There is no cry more powerful that the cry and inner desperation of the heart. Williams’s has very little social context, but rather focuses on the conflicts within a domestic family. Such a focus is powerful, and the playwright expresses this power and importance implicitly through the estranged relationship between Amanda and Tom Wingfield.

   Tennessee Williams' play, The Glass Menagerie, describes three separate characters, their dreams, and the harsh realities they face in a modern world.  The Glass Menagerie exposes the lost dreams of a southern family and their desperate struggle to escape reality. Williams' use of symbols adds depth to the play. The glass menagerie itself is a symbol Williams uses to represent the broken lives of Amanda, Laura and Tom Wingfield and their inability to live in the present.

Almost the entire play from Tom’s view is making up for the past that he put on his family. Particularly in scene 11, Tom is trying to make Jack believe that he has handled his family well and is going to continue to make his family happy. However, Jack is points out all of his flaws by saying “ It’s garbage Tom. This dangerous evil shit that you’ve brought back with you and put in this house. You gotta go” (pg 62).

Along with the character transformation in “A Doll’s House”, Tom, from “The Glass Menagerie”, also goes through some character changes. Throughout the entire play, Tom was working in a warehouse trying to support his family. While working there, he was struggling with his dreams of becoming a merchant marine. Towards the end of the play, when Tom introduces his friend Jim O’Connor to his sister Laura, his mother hopes that this could be a man that Laura could settle down with and someday marry. When Amanda finds out that Jim is already engaged, she blames Tom. She is furious that Tom brought a gentleman caller over

While Claudia is normally detached and unfriendly to most, Tom brings out the tender personality of Claudia. Tom unknowingly helps Claudia see all that’s good and beautiful. Claudia thinks, “I saw it through him and with him” (Lively 75). Claudia’s adoring persona comes into place when she falls in love with Tom. Tom has an effect on Claudia that makes her want things that she wouldn’t otherwise have wanted before.

It takes a compassionate heart to reveal a big secret like this, infact after keeping it for so long. Tom is very knowledgable to sense that it is better late than never. His idea shows that he can overcome his weakness to maintain justice. Although Tom’s wife is against him at that moment, it does not keep him from standing for what is right just as his father taught

Even more because he is trapped within his mother's home he is unable to experience life. Tom's desire for adventure can also be seen through his constant comparisons between his father and himself, and through his few jealous claims about his father's ability to just leave. Overall, Tom's inability to be independent, and his lack of expression also makes it impossible for Tom to be anyone, or to live because rather than seeing Tom as his own person, his mother views him as an asset. With this attitude Amanda forces Tom into the shadows, where he is unable to truly exist.

Tom Wingfield is a free spirit, in The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams, always wanting to fly away: “I descended the steps of the fire-escape for a last time” (7. Tom). Tom wishes for adventure, and excitement, for experience new places and new situations. However, he is haunted by the memory of his beloved sister, Laura. Stricken with guilt for leaving Laura, he tries to chase the memory of his fragile sister away with alcohol, cigarettes, and movies. Many things can drive a man to leave his family behind. Perhaps he hates how his mother treats him, or where he works and how much he works for, or that he just wants adventure.

Tennessee Williams', The Glass Menagerie, is a play that evokes great sympathy and in some cases, empathy for a protagonist who struggles to overcome two opposing forces; his responsibilities and his desires. There are many symbols and non-liner references that contribute to the development of characterization, dramatic tensions and the narrative. This essay will examine in detail, the aspects of the play that contribute to the development of the above mentioned elements.

Tom had a double role in the play as both the narrator and a main character that lived through a recollection of what life was like living with his mother and sister before he abandoned them to seek adventure. Tom’s behavior in the play could lead to question if his memory is truly accurate. SparkNotes comments, “…But at the same time, he demonstrates real and sometimes juvenile emotions as he takes part in the play’s action. This duality can frustrate our understanding of Tom, as it is hard to decide whether he is a character whose assessments should be trusted or one who allows his emotions to affect his judgment” (SparkNotes.com). Through his behavior a person is reminded that memory can be flawed by emotions or time elapsing, this would need to be taken into account when analysis of such a character is done. Tom is full of contradictions as he reads literature, writes poetry, and dreams of an escape; however he also felt bound by duty to his sister and mother. Another contradiction was that while he professed to care about his sister as seen in his ending comments in the play, “…I tried to leave you behind me, but I am more faithful than I intended to be!...” (Williams), Tom never went back to reconnect with his sister. This could be because of the great shame he felt for abandoning his sister or because of another reason. He stated that he had been in several cities over the years but never speaks of going back to St. Louis, making it unclear if he

Tom Wingfield has a dual role in The Glass Menagerie. The first Tom is the narrator, who introduces his second self, the character. In his fifth soliloquy, Tom the narrator indicates that time has detached him from the drama, "for time is the longest distance between two places" (Williams 1568). In the closing soliloquy Tom recounts how he lives and re-lives the story in his memory, though he is detached from the participants in the original affair. Like his father, "a telephone man who fell in love with long distances," (Williams 1523), Tom has fallen in love with the long distance that is time.