The Glass Menagerie Scenes 5 - 7
On a spring evening, Tom finishes dinner with his family and escapes to the fire escape landing, away from his mother’s nagging comments about how he ought to emulate his father in keeping a tidy appearance. Tom explains that on spring evenings, music could be heard throughout the apartment due to the dancing hall that was located on the other side of the valley. Amanda follows him out onto the landing and criticizes him for the money he spends on smoking cigarettes, which could well be spent at the night school. They catch a glimpse of the moon from the landing, and Amanda makes a wish. She explains that she always wishes for happiness and good fortune for her children, but Tom retorts that he thought she might have wished for a Gentleman caller. Amanda is extremely excited to learn that Tom has asked one of his acquaintances from the warehouse to call at home for dinner the following night. She is worried about preparing the house for such a visit, even though Tom warns her that there needn’t be a fuss about the dinner.
Amanda then examines Tom about all the information on the invited dinner guest, Jim O’Connor. Her primary concern is about Jim’s drinking habits since she argues that old maids are better off than the wives of drunkards. She also learns that Jim works as a shipping clerk at the warehouse, but he doesn’t earn enough to raise a family even though his salary is greater than Tom’s salary. However, she is reassured about Jim’s future when Tom informs her that Jim is focused on self-improvement, given the fact that he is studying public speaking and Radio Technology through the night school. Tom tries to manage Amanda’s expectations about the visiting gentleman caller, as he assures her that several men have dinner with women without marrying them. Furthermore, he reveals that he hasn’t spoken to Jim about Laura, and had simply asked him to come over for dinner without mentioning the true reason for the dinner.
Finally, Tom asks Amanda to remember Laura’s shortcomings, but Amanda refuses to admit to any one of them. She doesn’t wish anyone to call her daughter a cripple, and neither does she think that Laura’s extreme shyness would deter anyone from getting to know her. Tom asks his mother to remember these shortcomings, and goes off to the movies yet again, leaving her fuming. Amanda calls Laura out of the kitchen and asks her to wish for some fortune as she takes her daughter out to the landing to make a wish against the moon.
Tom talks to the audience about Jim, his coworker at the warehouse, and an old schoolmate from high school. Jim had been great at all sorts of extra-curricular activities in school, but his career had somewhat been duller than his potential had indicated at the time. Jim did not particularly care for Tom, but since Tom happened to have seen his glory in high school, Jim treated him cordially. He also called Tom, Shakespeare, because he knew that Tom often snuck away to the washroom to write poems during work days. Tom had heard Laura talk about Jim and understood that she had admired his singing, but he was certain that Jim did not know that he had a sister.
Amanda makes a mammoth effort in getting the apartment to appear luxurious and clean, and a similar effort is made in dressing up Laura. Amanda forces Laura to stuff her blouse with cloth and assures her that all pretty girls were a trap. Amanda dresses in one of her old dresses from a dance before her marriage and reminisces about her husband. During their conversation, Laura happens to learn that the gentleman caller is most likely Jim from her high school. In terror, Laura confesses that she will not come to dinner, if it is indeed the same Jim, as she reminds her mother that Jim had been the only boy she had ever liked. Amanda refuses to entertain any of Laura’s excuses and insists that she come to dinner and open the door for Tom and the gentleman caller when they arrive.
Tom arrives with Jim, just before it begins to rain outside, and Laura refuses to open the door. Tom rings the bell insistently, and Amanda refuses to indulge Laura, who goes to Victrola and turns before getting the door. She answers the door in a trance and very shyly greets Jim before rushing away. Tom explains Laura’s behavior as a product of her shyness, while Jim expresses his surprise at discovering that Tom had a sister. Jim and Tom smoke a cigarette, while Jim warns Tom that he is likely to lose his job if he doesn’t take his job more seriously. He even tries to encourage Tom about taking the public speaking course, but Tom reveals that he has other plans. He has enlisted with the Merchant Sailors and paid their subscription rather than paying the month’s electricity bill.
Tom goes on to talk about how he shares certain similarities with his father, and their conversation is interrupted by Amanda’s arrival. Both men are taken aback at Amanda’s southern belle appearance and dialect, but Jim eventually recovers from the shock. Tom is embarrassed by his mother’s behavior. Amanda turns the conversation towards Laura and regales Jim with stories about her life as she leads them to dinner. Laura asks to be excused from coming to dinner, but Amanda insists and so Laura appears in the dining room. She suffers a shock from the sound of thunder, and Amanda allows Laura to sit in the sitting room while they have dinner with Jim.
The lights go out as they are finishing dinner, and Amanda has Jim check the fuse box, which he reveals to be in good condition. Amanda asks Tom if he had paid the electricity bill, and he confesses that he hadn’t done so. She assumes that he had merely forgotten, and directs him to help her with the dishes while she ushers Jim away into the living room with a candelabra and a bottle of wine for him to share with Laura. Jim makes his way to her and invites her to come sit on the floor with him, and Laura attempts to overcome her nerves. He chews gum and talks about the Century of Progress. Eventually, Laura relaxes while talking to Jim, and asks him for a piece of gum. She then asks him whether he had kept up with his singing. She answers Jim’s shock by reminding him that he had called her Blue Roses in High School, where they had shared certain classes.
Jim finally remembers Laura, and they have a pleasant time reminiscing about High School as they go through the old yearbook that Laura pulls out. Jim asks Laura what she has been doing, and she explains that most of her time was taken up by her glass collection. She tells him about how she had been too shy for business school, and so Jim launches into a conversation about inferiority complexes. He tells her that she needs to stop thinking less of herself, for instance, she had thought about her leg brace during high school, but Jim had never even noticed it. He says that everyone has problems and talks about how his career had been a disappointment to him thus far. However, he believed he was back on his way up as he was currently aiming to become a television producer soon. Laura assures him that she is certain of his success and that she had liked him, like so many other girls at school. She shows him her glass animal collection and allows him to examine the glass unicorn, her favorite piece from the collection. The music from the dance hall changes to Waltz, and Jim asks Laura for a dance. He coaxes her to dance with him and leads her across the room. They bump into the table and cause the glass unicorn to lose its horn, but the break doesn’t seem to bother Laura. Jim suddenly sees Laura in a different light and tells her that she deserves to be kissed. He kisses her passionately, and Laura collapses on the sofa in bliss. Jim turns away from her, curses himself, and smokes a cigarette. He clarifies that he is engaged to be married and that he had gotten carried away. Laura is deeply affected by despair, but she puts on a brave face.
She gives him the broken unicorn piece to keep as a memento, and as Amanda comes into the living room, Jim begins to leave. Amanda is taken aback and asks that he come back to see them, but Jim politely refuses as he explains that he has to spend quite a bit of time with his fiancé. Amanda becomes very upset at Tom for not informing them about Jim’s marital status, while he claims that he had never heard about this from Jim. Tom tires of the argument and decides to go to the movies, while Amanda curses him for not caring for the family. She asks him to go to the moon, and as Tom exits the apartment, he explains that he left St. Louis soon afterward, and abandoned his family. Yet he was more loyal to Laura than he intended, and the play closes with Amanda comforting Laura as she blows out the candles.
Analysis
The sequence involving the wish on the moon demonstrates how both Tom and Amanda wish to escape their lives. Amanda’s wish for her children indicates her desire to live through her children rather than have dreams that she would like to fulfill. Amanda’s delusional state is reflected in her conversion of a single visit into a marriage proposal, as she begins to question Tom about Jim’s drinking habits. She worries about Laura ending up with a man who drinks because her husband had drunk often. This is yet another indication that Amanda is projecting her own life onto Laura. Her rigidity in her view of Laura further displays the fantasy world that she inhabits, and how she fails to recognize Laura’s desires. After Tom departs, Amanda physically makes Laura make the wish that she desires, literally forcing her to have the dreams that she desires.
In scene 6 the gentleman caller finally arrives in the form of Jim O’Connor, who can be seen as a foil to Tom’s character. Jim is Tom’s schoolmate and works in the same warehouse as Tom, but his outlook on life is vastly different. He is more successful at his work, and while he has dreams of progress, he isn’t haunted by them like Tom, but rather inspired by these dreams. Amanda creates a world of illusions so that reality begins to mirror the version that she lives in her head. The author notes that this illusion that is manufactured in the apartment and upon Laura, cannot be permanent, but rather fleeting and temporary. Laura’s afraid of meeting Jim because she fears that their interaction will not reflect those that she has had with him in her fantasies. Memories of Jim have comforted her throughout the years following High school, and she does not wish to ruin them with an actual meeting that is likely to go poorly.
In Tom’s conversation with Jim about his job, readers realize that Tom has changed. As he begins to prioritize his dreams over his family’s needs, Tom chooses to sacrifice the light of the apartment for his subscription to the merchant sailors.
Amanda makes a ridiculous display in front of Jim, as she fails to recognize her silliness in trying to recapture the charm of her youth with her old decades-old dress and a forced southern drawl. Laura’s nervous state is another indication that she is quite as fragile as her glass menagerie. Jim and Laura can converse in settings that mirror the dim light of memory, and Laura can relax when reality loses its harshness. Amanda’s vision of reality is shattered by Jim revealing his engagement, and she turns the blame on Tom instead of recognizing that she had exaggerated the stakes of the dinner herself. The final scene reveals the author’s regret which is reflected in Tom, who attempts to rid his guilt of abandoning his family through the narration of the play.
