Tom and Laura both are in a tough condition where there is no escape. Laura is not only trapped in the sense of not being able to flee from her situation, but is as well physically trapped suffering with her physical defect on her leg which causes her to limp slightly and wear a brace. In contrast, Tom is trapped because he is the only working person in his family and they depend on him. The family members have tightened relationships towards each other and every now and then address their desires of escaping. Tom addresses his desire by telling Laura about the magicians coffin trick that he watched at the stage show in the movie theater. “You know it don’t take much intelligence to get yourself into a nailed-up coffin, Laura. But who in hell ever got himself out of one without removing one nail?” Tom has a hard time in life but since he is the strongest one in the family, caring for the other members, it makes the audience conclude that the greatest empathy goes to Laura. She lacks the strength and ability to escape from her condition, not only because she is incredibly shy, but also because of her handicap. After dropping out of business class, she wondered around to different places representing illusion and fantasy. Because of the lack of self confidence, she never has “gentlemen callers,” for what her mother was tremendously wishing for. Laura lives in a world surrounded by glass and doesn’t come out of her shell. She makes the impression that she will never be able to get out of her place of despair.
In the play, the character which makes the audience have the least empathy for is the mother of the two siblings, Amanda. Amanda Wingfield, a former Southern Belle, used to live a wealthy life on a huge plantation. Always surrounded by gentlemen callers and slaves, from her ideal life, she was suddenly put in a crammed apartment in a district where everything is melancholic in order to avoid differentiation. This shock causes her to immerse in her own unrealistic world. She was always talking of her youth and telling Laura and Tom stories of her seventeen gentlemen callers and of her privileged life at the plantation. She didn’t attempt to do actions in order to help the family to find a way out of their desolation, instead she gave commands to her children. She enrolled Laura into business school to make sure that when Tom is gone, Laura can take care of the left over family. She should encourage the children to work together as a family instead of carrying out fights with Tom. At the end she faces distress when Jim disappoints Laura. Following this, she shouts at Tom, causing him to leave the house and her to have more distress. This shows that she is not been enough in reality to know how to deal with distress. Amanda contributes to the melancholic atmosphere instead of helping to get out of their position.
The characters Tom and Laura are both dynamic, both undergoing changes. Tom undergoes changes twice in the course of the play. First, Tom feels trapped and hides himself in a world full of illusions. As Amanda finds out that Jim, the boy Tom brought as a potential suitor for his sister, was engaged, she blamed Tom for playing a joke on them and being selfish. At this point the first transition occurs since Tom, until this point, was dreaming of how to get rid of his problems but then started taking real definite steps in changing his life; he decided to join the Marines. The second transition in Tom’s life occurs at the end when he comes back to the apartment. He makes the impression that he made it back to reality and realizes that there is no escape from distress, yet to do something which would help solve the problem. At the beginning of the play we notice that Laura is a very shy person, not having any self confidence, who is hiding in her world of glass figures. Later on when Jim kisses her and tells her that she is beautiful in a special way, she comes back to reality for a moment and visualizes how the real world looks like. For a moment she is another person, self confident and aware of her beauty. This is also highlighted by the horn of the glass unicorn breaking during Jim’s and Laura’s dance. She symbolizes the unicorn, a mythical figure different from the other horses, however then without it’s horn changed to be as ordinary as all others. After Jim tells her that he is engaged, Laura again undergoes transition back to her own world of imagination.
The siblings are in a great extent affected by their backgrounds. They grew up without a father, only in possession of a picture of him. Growing up without a father, in many families leads to lack of understanding and love for the children. In the play, the siblings often refer to their father and call attention to his picture. Amanda has no support and needs to take care of two grown up children which is hard work for her since she is used to wealth in her youth. Laura’s background had an affect on her since she never found friends in school and was often absent because of pleurosis. The braces on her leg made her loose her self confidence. In high school, she is almost invisible for the love of her life, Jim O’Connor, and stays an invisible person as well as a grown up. The family never had a close relationship towards each other and everyone lived in his own world making the situation harder since the family is not working together in order to find solutions to problems. The background of the siblings affects their way of thinking and motivation in life.
Tom’s and Laura’s external appearance both connect to their internal character. Laura is described as old fashioned, wearing a brace on her leg and limping slightly. Laura has a glass beauty which is transparent from the one side but when put light on it, shimmers in many colors. Her external appearance connects to her internal character since she is as old fashioned in personality as she is in looks. In her imaginary world she dreams of many gentlemen callers and listens to old fashioned music. She tends to wear clothing popular in the 1930s without adding much accessories to them. This shows that she likes to keep things simple and not very visible, since she herself hides and makes herself invisible to reality. At the beginning of the play, Tom enters dressed as a merchant sailor. This shows that he escapes from his old life of fantasy and illusion and solves his problem by going to the Marines and returning as a real sailor.
Tennessee Williams uses indirect characterization most effectively throughout the play. He often gives clues to the reader about what kind of person the character is. He uses symbols to show the wants and personalities of the characters. He uses the fire escape as a symbol to show that the characters want to escape from reality and he shows the glass menagerie as a symbol for Laura’s “glass” personality. Through Laura’s old fashioned appearance, he shows that her personality tends to be monotonous. Tom’s speech about the magician getting out of the closed coffin without moving a nail emphasizes his wants by using words. Through the reactions of the characters Williams emphasizes their characteristics. Laura, who is emotionally unstable, falls in a slight depression after Jim disappoints her with the news of his engagement, while Tom decides to take other measures and join the marines to change his life.
Overall one can conclude that the characters Tom and Laura from the Wingfield family existed in a false sense of reality and could not see the difference of what was truth and what was fiction. Both characters undergo an important transition from a world of illusion to the real world, which affects each character differently. For the two characters truth was a word that they wanted to escape from but at the end Tom realized that one cannot escape from the truth and reality, however one can take different measures in order to solve or reduce his problems.
