In the Glass Menagerie, the main characters in the play seem as if they are living their worlds vicariously. Each seems to try and avoid reality and try to flee from actuality in their lives.

         In Amanda’s life, she is trying to cling onto past memories in her life.  This is apparent and reflected through her constant flashbacks which she persistently brings up to her children.  She continuously tells her daughter, Laura, how many gentleman callers she has had when she was young. She lives in her own fantasy, like her children, with the memories of her life back when she was young living in Blue Mountain.  Upon bringing these memories up, it affects the characters relationship with her because they are fed up with her stories. This is true with Tom who feels utterly irritated by Amanda’s stories.  Tom says, “They're going to blow us all sky-high some night! I'll be glad, very happy, and so will you! You'll go up, up on a broomstick, over Blue Mountain with seventeen gentleman callers! you ugly - babbling old- witch!” (Williams 46).  Laura also feels the heaviness to live up to her mother’s expectations, thus affecting their relationship.

        In Laura’s life, she is extremely shy and decides to live her life in her glass figures and old records.  She is so shy, she fails to adapt to new situations and even becomes sick after trying a new typing class. The typing instructor tells Amanda, “Her hands shook so much she couldn’t hit the right keys! The first time we took a test she broke down completely…sick to her stomach” (Williams 25).  In the time she is supposed to be working at her typing class, she instead walks to streets in the cold just to avoid her situations.  This shows just how far Laura will go to avoid new situations.

She is unaccustomed to the outside world and this makes her even more prone to trusting only her glass menagerie.  This is shown when Jim O’Connor visits the Wingfield apartment and Laura refuses to even open the door when he arrives.  She is so scared of failure and unattached to reality that she rejects even making contact with another man. Laura’s shyness affects the people around her such as Tom and Jim O’Connor because he knows Laura is frail and weak, which is their only perception of her.  

        Together these characters show exactly what it means to live a life vicariously.   They can’t put up with the present and each one simultaneously rejects reality and tries to escape their real lives by living it out in a fantasy. Each of these characters has their own problems and tries to deal with them individually.  Tom, Amanda, and Laura retreat to their own worlds to escape the harsh reality of life, which in retrospect affects their lives and the lives of everyone else around them.