The Glass Menagerie Family

"A blown-up photograph of the father hangs on the wall of the living room, to the left of the archway. It is the face of a very handsome young man in a doughboy's First World War cap. He is gallantly smiling, ineluctably smiling, as if to say, "I will be smiling forever." (stage directions, Scene One).

There is a fifth character in the play who doesn't appear except in this larger-than-life-size photograph over the mantel. This is our father who left us a long time ago. He was a telephone man who fell in love with long distances; he gave up his job with the telephone company and skipped the light fantastic out of town…

The last we heard of him was a picture postcard from Mazatlan, on the Pacific coast of Mexico, containing a message of two words: "Hello – Goodbye!" and no address. (1.1, Tom).

"Honey, don't push with your fingers. If you have to push something, the thing to push with is a crust of bread. And chew - chew! Animals have secretions in their stomach which enable them to digest food without mastication, but human beings are supposed to chew their food before they swallow it down. Eat food leisurely, son, and really enjoy it. A well-cooked meal has lots of delicate flavors that have to be held in the mouth for appreciation. So chew your food and give your salivary glands a chance to function!" (1.6, Amanda).

"I haven't enjoyed one bite of this dinner because of your constant directions on how to eat it. It's you that make me rush through meals with your hawklike attention to every bite I take. Sickening - spoils my appetite - all this discussion of - animals' secretion - salivary glands - mastication!" (1.7, Tom).

"You smoke too much." (1.10, Amanda). Amanda constantly harps on Tom with orders and complaints.

"I know what’s coming!"

`"Yes, but let her tell it."

"Again?"

"She loves to tell it."

(1.17-1.20, Tom and Laura).

"It isn’t a flood, it’s not a tornado, Mother. I’m just not popular like you were in Blue Mountain." (1.38, Laura).

Seeing her mother’s expression, Laura touches her lips with a nervous gesture. (Scene Two, stage directions).

"Oh! I felt so weak I could barely keep on my feet! I had to sit down while they got me a glass of water! Fifty dollars' tuition, all of our plans - my hopes and ambitions for you - just gone up the spout, just gone up the spout like that." (2.16, Amanda).

"Mother, when you’re disappointed, you get that awful suffering look on your face, like the picture of Jesus’ mother in the museum!" (2.31, Laura).

[in a tone of frightened apology]: "I'm crippled!"

"Nonsense, Laura, I've told you never, never to use that word. Why, you're not crippled, you just have a little defect - hardly noticeable, even! When people have some slight disadvantage like that, they cultivate other things to make up for it - develop charm - and vivacity - and - charm! That's all you have to do!" (2.47-2.50, Laura and Amanda).

"Don’t you use that—"

"—supposed to do!"

"—expression, Not in my—"

"Ohhh!"

"—presence! Have you gone out of your senses?"

"I have, that’s true, driven out!" (3.4-3.9, Amanda and Tom).

"You will hear more, you—"

"No, I won’t hear more, I’m going out!"

"You come right back in—"

"Out, out, out! Because I’m—"

"Come back here, Tom Wingfield! I’m not through talking to you!"

"Oh, go—"

[desperately]: "--Tom!" (3.22-3.28, Amanda, Tom, and Laura).

She crosses through the portieres and draws them together behind her. Tom is left with Laura. Laura clings weakly to the mantel with her face averted. Tom stares at her stupidly for a moment. Then he crosses to the shelf. He drops awkwardly on his knees to collect the fallen glass, glancing at Laura as if he would speak but couldn’t. (Scene Three, stage directions).

[beseechingly]: "Tom, speak to Mother this morning. Make up with her, apologize, speak to her!" (4.16, Laura)

A second later she cries out. Tom springs up and crosses to the door. Tom opens the door.

"Laura?"

"I'm all right. I slipped, but I'm all right." (Scene Four stage directions, 4.29, 4.30, Tom and Laura).

[hoarsely]: "Mother. I—I apologize, Mother."

Amanda draws a quick, shuddering breath. Her face works grotesquely. She breaks into childlike tears.

"I’m sorry for what I said, for everything that I said, I didn’t mean it."

[sobbingly]: "My devotion has made me a witch and so I make myself hateful to my children!" (4.32, Tom, Scene Four stage directions, 4.33, Amanda).

[with great enthusiasm]: "Try and you will succeed! [The notion makes her breathless.] Why, you – you’re just full of natural endowments! Both of my children—they’re unusual children! Don’t you think I know it? I’m so—proud! Happy and—feel I’ve—so much to be thankful for…" (4.39, Amanda).

"You can’t put in a day’s work on an empty stomach. You’ve got ten minutes—don’t gulp! Drinking too-hot liquids makes cancer of the stomach…Put cream in." (4.47, Amanda).

"We have to do all that we can to build ourselves up. In these trying times we live in, all that we have to cling to is—each other…" (4.51, Amanda).

"A few days ago I came in and she was crying."

"What about?"

"You."

"Me?"

"She has an idea that you’re not happy here." (4.55-4.59, Amanda and Tom).

"And you—when I see you taking after his ways! Staying out late—and—well, you had been drinking the night you were in that—terrifying condition! Laura says that you hate the apartment and that you go out nights to get away from it! Is that true, Tom?" (4.63, Amanda).

"Oh, I can see the handwriting on the wall as plain as I can see the nose in front of my face! It's terrifying! More and more you remind me of your father! He was out all hours without explanation!-Then left! Goodbye! And me with the bag to hold. I saw that letter you got from the Merchant Marine. I know what you're dreaming of. I'm not standing here blindfolded. Very well, then. Then do it! But not till there's somebody to take your place." (4.91, Amanda).

"I mean that as soon as Laura has got somebody to take care of her, married, a home of her own, independent-why, then you'll be free to go wherever you please, on land, on sea, whichever way the wind blows you! But until that time you've got to look out for your sister. I don't say me because I'm old and don't matter! I say for your sister because she's young and dependent." (4.93, Amanda).

"Where is your muffler! Put your wool muffler on!" (4.95, Amanda).

"There is only one respect in which I would like you to emulate your father."

"What respect is that?"

"The care he always took of his appearance. He never allowed himself to look untidy." (5.3-5.5, Amanda and Tom).

"I'll tell you what I wished for on the moon. Success and happiness for my precious children! I wish for that whenever there's a moon, and when there isn't a moon, I wish for it, too." (5.23, Amanda).

"What are you doing?"

"I’m brushing that cowlick down! [She attacks his hair with the brush.] (5.82, 5.83, Tom and Amanda).

"Laura seems all those things to you and me because she's ours and we love her. We don't even notice she's crippled anymore." (5.122, Tom).

"Laura Wingfield, you march right to that door!"

"Yes—yes, Mother!" (6.60, 6.61, Amanda and Laura).

"How about your mother?"

"I'm like my father. The bastard son of a bastard! Did you notice how he's grinning in his picture in there? And he's been absent going in sixteen years!" (6.127, 6.128, Jim and Tom).

"That's right, now that you've had us all make such fools of ourselves. The effort, the preparations, all the expense! The new floor lamp, the rug, the clothes for Laura! All for what? To entertain some other girl's fiancé! Go to the movies, go! Don't think about us, an unmarried sister who's crippled and has no job! Don't let anything interfere with your selfish pleasure! Just go, go, go-to the movies!" (7.319, Amanda).

Tom’s closing speech is timed with what is happening inside the house. We see, as though through soundproof glass, that Amanda appears to be making a comforting speech to Laura, who is huddled upon the sofa. Now that we cannot hear the mother’s speech, she lifts her head to smile at her mother. Amanda’s gestures are slow and graceful, almost dance-like, as she comforts her daughter. At the end of the speech she glances a moment at the father’s picture—then withdraws through the portieres. At the close of Tom’s speech, Laura blows out the candles, ending the play.

Although Amanda often nags and bother her children, her very maternal instincts take on a positive light in the direst of circumstances

"I didn't go to the moon - I went much further-for time is the longest distance between two poles. Not long after that I was fired for writing a poem on the lid of a shoe-box. I left St. Louis. I descended the steps of this fire escape for a last time and followed, from then on, in my father's footsteps, attempting to find in motion what was lost in space." (7.321, Tom).

"Then all at once my sister touches my shoulder. I turn around and look into her eyes. Oh, Laura, Laura, I tried to leave you behind me, but I am more faithful than I intended to be! I reach for a cigarette, I cross the street, I run into the movies or a bar, I buy a drink, I speak to the nearest stranger-anything that can blow your candles out! For nowadays the world is lit by lightning! Blow out your candles, Laura--and so, goodbye… (7.321, Tom).