THE GLASS MENAGERIE

Summary Tom explains how his mother, once she had decided that a gentleman caller was necessary, set all her energy to preparing for one. She began a campaign on the telephone to recruit subscribers for a popular woman’s magazine. When the scene opens, Tom and his mother are arguing about […]

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Summary Laura is sitting alone playing with her glass collection. When she hears Amanda ascending the stairs, she immediately hides the collection and sits before the typing chart pretending to study it. Amanda comes in and theatrically drops her gloves on the floor. When Laura asks her what is wrong, […]

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Summary At the rise of the curtain, we see an old-fashioned tenement apartment. We can also see the narrow alleyways which surround the apartment. Tom Wingfield, the narrator, enters and addresses the audience. Tom explains that the play is a memory play and that he is one of the characters […]

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Amanda Wingfield The mother whose husband deserted her years ago leaving her with a son and daughter to raise. She lives partially in the world of her youth and her gentlemen callers in order to escape the brutalities of today’s world. Tom Wingfield Her son who is employed in a […]

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The structure of the play involves the presentation of the scenes through the memory of one of the characters. Tom Wingfield is both the narrator and a character in the play. The separate scenes, then, should be seen as part of Tom’s memory of a crucial time in his life. […]

Read more About The Glass Menagerie

In the Wingfield apartment in St. Louis, the mother, Amanda, lives with her crippled daughter and her working son, Tom. At dinner she tells her daughter, Laura, to stay nice and pretty for her gentlemen callers even though Laura has never had any callers and expects none. Amanda remembers the […]

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