The Glass Menagerie

In "The Glass Menagerie" the setting seems to take place in the south during the mid 1900's. I believe the theme of this play thus far, is the mother Amanda is always wanting to find her daughter Laura a gentleman caller. The glass figurines symbolizes Laura's shyness and inability to find a gentlemen caller. The figurines is all she has and all she cares about right now in her life. I believe that Amanda, the mother is so bored with her own life that she has made it a vow to take over her children's lives. Tom, however is getting quite tired of this and finally stands up for himself.

My reaction to the first five scenes was at first it started out boring and slowly I became engrossed in the play. I kept imagining myself in Laura's shoes with having my mother always riding me about needing to find a gentleman friend and making something of myself. My Response to the play is that Amanda is always doing this with both the kids, more so with Laura though. Amanda appears sincere about her affection for both Tom and Laura. However, she is very overbearing and persistent with interfering in their lives. I predict that in the end, now that Tom has invited his friend from work over for dinner, that Laura and Jim will get along good and it will love at first sight. Tom will move out and go on with his life the way he wants to live it. As for Amanda, she is going to finally be left alone with no one to fuss about and this will in turn drive her crazy.