Character Analysis: Glass Menagerie - Essay Example

The character, Jim O’Connor, was a friend and co-worker of Tom in a shoe warehouse who Tom invited to dinner to introduce to Laura. To comply with the objective of the character analysis, the characters to be compared and contrasted are Tom and Laura, in terms of manifesting predominant traits such as subservience to Amanda, their mother; perceiving to be trapped in their lives with their mother since their father left them; deemed to be deceiving, recluse and distant. Despite the apparent similarities, these characters exhibit differences in expressing their loneliness: Laura resorted to collecting glass figurines, termed by her mother as glass menagerie; while Tom frequents the movie every night to get out of the apartment and avoid having to converse with his mother.

The result was the feeling of being trapped in their lives where Tom had to resort to being the breadwinner for the family and supporting both his mother and his sister. The feeling of wanting to escape from the challenges and difficulties of life led to both characters finding ways to relieve their miseries and venge on other outlets such as watching movies night after night (for Tom) and collecting glass figurines (for Laura). The movies seemed the perfect outlet for Tom to venture into the lives of actors and actresses who get to portray different roles and go to different places – a life he longs for; but could not achieve.

On the other hand, Laura’s form of escape was different from Tom's since she had been afflicted with a disability when she was young and could not move freely without a brace. This situation is also perceived as a form of being trapped in the situation she currently is and the only way to get her mind off this misery was through collecting glass figurines: fragile, beautiful, transparent, and as she described the unicorn, she averred that “hold him over the light. He loves the light! You see how the light shines through him?” (Willams 779). Her collections seem to mirror her traits: fragile, and beautiful, but cold and detached. As emphasized, Laura is “so shy that she finds ordinary human relationships almost unbearable, she is unequipped for the romantic role in which her mother has cast her. She takes refuge among her glass figurines, the “glass menagerie” that is the symbol of her fragility and her retreat from reality” (The Glass Menagerie par. 3).

Another point of similarity is their deceptiveness to their mother. Laura was thought to still be enrolled in a business school by her mother; only to be found out that she has dropped out of school, Her inability to explain the fact that she could not continue pursuing the program that her mother advised her to take, led to the deception. When discovered, it was already about six months that she had been trying to go out every day supposedly to attend her classes; but instead, she allegedly stayed in the park or engaged in other activities. Tom, on the other hand, was likewise confronted by her mother, who also believed that he was likewise deceiving her. His excuse for going out every night was to go to the movies. Her mother could not comprehend how he could do that time and again without fail and took him considerable lengths of time. These moves and behavior exhibited their inability to confront their mother and tell her the truth about their feelings and what their hopes, dreams, and plans in life are.

Both characters have inner secrets which they could not reveal to their mother. Likewise, both were living unrealistic lives as they seem to want to escape from the bondage of living with their mother. As noted by Lahr (2010), “the play is memory,” Tom says; in fact, it is a ghost story in which Williams uses light, sound, and symbols to give shape to the ghostly quality of his internal world” (p. 1). Tom’s inner plan to leave both mother and sister was just revealed to Jim O’Connor. Laura’s dropping out of school was not even confided to her brother, Tom. As emphasized by Topham (2012), “the characters are trapped in a menagerie of Tom's memories, and they have become unreal like the glass animals that Laura loves so much” (par. 7). Read More