The Glass Menagerie, written by Tennessee Williams, is a play that is full of various types of themes.

The second theme that will be discussed is the theme of escape. This theme helps drive the play forward. Amanda escapes the reality of her hard life by remembering better times, possibly with most of it not being the truth. Laura escapes by playing with her collection of glass animals, the  "menagerie". Tom is the only one in the family who has a chance of truly escaping the life they have lead, but if he chooses this path, he will be leaving Amanda and Laura behind just as his father did many years ago. He thinks of his father as escaping from his family rather than abandoning them and that shows how Tom feels about the position he’s in. Of course, by the end of the play, he does abandon his family but he chooses to think of it as escaping. Another symbol of escape is the fire escape landing in which Tom delivers his closing monologue. That’s a stage direction, and they are as important to the theme of the play as the dialogue itself. Detailed stage directions create the unrealistic settings, foreshadow events, and develop the characters. Dim colored lighting and hazy images create the setting for a memory play.

The third and final theme that will be discussed is the biggest theme because its how the play is written, and that is memory. The story that the play tells is told because of the hard grip it has on the narrator's memory. The fact that the play exists at all is evidence to the power that memory can apply to people's lives. The narrator, Tom, is not the only character haunted by his memories. Amanda, too, lives in constant pursuit of her long gone youth, and old memories from her childhood are almost as important to her as the glass animals are to Laura. For these characters, memory is a crippling force that prevents them from finding happiness in the present or the future.

The play is about escaping real life. None of the members of the family like their life situation. Amanda always believed her life would turn out well, but it didn't. Her way of escaping real life is to think about and tell stories from her life as a young girl, when everything seemed possible. What Williams wanted to say with this play, is that escaping the real life is not a good option. No matter how bad things seem to be, a person should rather try to solve their problems and do something about it, rather than run away. It is impossible to hide from his or her problems forever.