The Illusion of Escape in The Glass Menagerie In The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams, the characters display a state of delirium that originates from their dissatisfaction with their life. Tom seeks adventure in films. Amanda often reminisces about her Southern Belle days. Laura finds herself in a dream world with her glass collection, and Jim basks in the praise of his high school glory. In their respective ways, they demonstrate their restlessness. Thoreau's quote, "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation," applies to the characters in that they are all unhappy, but take no action to improve their situation significantly. Tom, like the narrator, explains to the audience the progress of the work and attributes it to the "pleasant guise of illusion". When he speaks to the public, the events he recounts are in the past and he realizes how far his family was from real life. Throughout the show, he is angry and bitter due to his duty towards his sister and mother. His father fled, leaving Tom as sole provider, a title neither of them wanted. Tom isn't ready to settle down and feels like he's "enslaving himself." Whether or not he had the ability to create a separate life for himself, Tom feels placed in a "nailed coffin." He is tortured by boredom in the warehouse and suffers from his own outlook on life. He remarked to Laura that he didn't know how anyone could "[climb] out of a coffin without removing a nail." A major source of his desperation is the fact that he knows that if he leaves he will destroy Laura, and he doesn't want that. For a long time he remains inactive for himself, feeling closed in a life that he cannot stand. He is... middle of paper... They run here and there trying to end their suffering, but they hinder each other through their own individual efforts. These people seem condemned to their fate: escape, live in the past, or continually exist in an intangible world. Works cited and consulted Bloom, Harold. Introduction. Tennessee Williams. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House, 1987. 1-8. King, Thomas L. "Irony and Distance in The Glass Menagerie." In Tennessee Williams. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House, 1987. 85-94.Levy, Eric P. “‘Through Soundproof Glass’: The Prison of Self-Awareness in the Glass Menagerie.” Modern Drama, December 36, 1993. 529-537. Williams, Tennessee. The glass menagerie. In Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing, 4th ed. Ed. Edgar V. Roberts and Henry E. Jacobs. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1995. 1519-1568.