The Glass Menagerie Q&A

Tom’s father is introduced in the first scene by the narrator, who explains that his father was a telephone man, who fell in love with long distances. He goes on to tell the audience that his father had abandoned his family and only ever sent them a postcard from Mexico, without any sort of explanation of his whereabouts. Although Mr. Wingfield does not ever appear in person, he is prominently depicted throughout the play in the form of a portrait.

Amanda insists that Tom find an eligible man to bring home for dinner so that they could try to find Laura a match for dinner. Tom reluctantly invites Jim O’Connor for dinner, because he has known him since his high school, and he had heard Laura speak of Jim. Laura had been in love with Jim, and she confesses this to her mother in scene two, when Amanda asks her if she’s ever had feelings for anyone. 

After Tom’s fight with Amanda, he returns home at five in the morning and struggles to find his keys to the apartment door. He is clearly in an inebriated state and he empties his pockets to find his keys. He removes loads of tickets from his pocket as well as an empty bottle. This indicates that Tom does indeed go to the movies, but that he also uses it as an excuse to go drinking.

The play is called The Glass Menagerie, which directly refers to the collection of glass animals that Laura obsessively cleans and polishes while she stays in the apartment. The title also refers to the fragile conditions of the Wingfield apartment, all of whose residents reside in a reality of their own rather than the real world.