Tom Wingfield is the narrator of the play, but also the son of the family. Tom hates the apartment, his mother and the fact that he is the one who has to work at the warehouse to take care of the family since his father left. Tom’s escapes from the family can be related to the fire escape, the movies, and last but not least Tom’s expected departure. The other two main characters of the play are Tom’s sister Laura and their mother, Amanda. Laura is both physically and emotionally crippled and the only one in the play who never does anything to hurt anyone else. Her physically and emotionally state makes her as fragile as her glass menagerie, and together with her glass menagerie Laura lives in an imaginary world, not even close to reality. Amanda, the mother in the family, has lived in a world of economic wealth where she had plenty of gentlemen callers with high social status. Nowadays she lives in the center of her memories with a hope that she will succeed in recreating her youth through Laura.
One of the biggest symbols symbolizing escape is the fire escape, a place where only Tom goes out. The fire escape is a symbol for freedom, since it separates the apartment from the reality, and it allows Tom to leave the apartment and get away from his irritating mother. However looking at the fire escape from Amanda’s perspective it allows gentlemen callers to enter their lives. However Laura finds her escape inside the apartment with her glass menagerie and the records she is playing over and over again.
Another escape for Tom is to go to the movies, however his mother thinks he spends too much time watching movies and that he instead should look for gentlemen callers for Laura. But the more Amanda nags at him, the more Tom goes to the movies. The absence of Laura and Tom’s father is referred to many times through the play, and it is also an symbol for escape. This because it reminds Tom that escape is possible, and even though Tom is unsure about leaving or not, the picture of his father hanging on the wall drives him to his final escape from the apartment, from his mother, and from Laura.
Tom escapes the apartment and his family, Amanda escapes the present and enters her memories, and Laura escapes reality inside the apartment where she has her glass menagerie and records. Tennessee Williams uses the theme of escape frequently through The Glass Menagerie to describe the fact that none of Tom, Laura, or Amanda, ever gets the chance to experience their dreams as they wish to. And I believe that Tennessee Williams perhaps is trying to convey the message that you should solve your problems, not avoid them, or escape from them.
