Themes+Glass+Menagerie

Love, Hate, Hero


 * The Difficulty of Accepting Reality[[image:http://www.piperreport.com/archives/Images/Reality%20Check%20for%20Big%20Pharma%20and%20Medicare%20Part%20D.jpg width="445" height="271" align="right"]]**

One of the biggest themes throughout the play is facing reality. Laura faces the biggest problem when it comes to dealing with reality. She escapes reality by entering her own imaginary world whose only inhabitants are herself and her glass animals. He excuse for such a world is her disability. Tome is the only member of the family who seems to have the most normal life style, having a job and being able to communicate with others, but even he has his own imaginary escape. Books, movies, and his drunken nights are his ways of escaping reality. He is like Laura in the fact he has no wish to pursue a life in business or to get married. Amanda's imaginary escape is one that is down to earth, yet also by far the most complicated. Amanda has real life values, she wants to live a good life, has goals, and wishes to have success and money. These things are, at the same time, the cause of her imaginary world. She cannot seem to accept that times have changed for her and that she is no longer the girl she was when she was growing up who had everything. She also needs to realize the needs of her children and that maybe the reason they are living such a horrible life is because of her.




 * Running Away from Difficult Times**

This is a recurring theme in the book. First it starts with Mr. Wingfield running away from the family leaving them in economic and social difficulties. It goes to Laura trying to escape her conflicts, and then it goes to Tom running away from the family just like his father. The fire escape symbolizes how everyone is trying to escape their conflicts.

Run away and never return

The possibility of an Impossible Escape
The play has a great focus on Tom and his desire to escape the life he lives. The problem is, can he truly escape this life of his? No, because for him, and for many others in life, there is no such thing as a true escape. Tom can not truly escape because of Laura and Amanda. Whether it is because he loves them, or for some other reason, they are what's holding him back from truly escaping. Even at the end of the play, when Tom does leave, he still states that he continually thinks about Laura, which proves that though he has left the Wingfield house, he still has not left the Wingfield house. Many people feel the same way in real life as well, they try to escape something but find that there is something pulling them back that they just can let go of, this is what Tom felt as well.

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