Descriptions

In act 1, it mainly talks about the problems that each character has, and what would it like when there is no father around the house. Every kind of conflict is appearing from the edge. Amanda is explaining how popular she is when she was young and pretty. There are lots of gentlemen caller surround her. She starts to recall all the memory from that time period because her husband left, and the memory leads her to remember all the amazing things. For Laura, although she is quiet and shy, she also has some argument with her mother. When her mother provides a business school for her to learn to type, she dropouts of the school, and wanders around the zoo, and shops when it’s time to go. The only friend for her is the collections of the glass menageries. She talks to them about her feelings. For Tom, the narrator of the entire story, he works in the warehouse to support the family’s economy. Since his father left them in the apartment, he is the one who needs to work to earn money for the two ladies. His biggest interest is to focus on his writing because he dreams to be a writer in the future, and be free in the family, so he doesn’t need to work for the family, yet for himself to be happy. As a matter of fact, his mother Amanda always forces him to do what he doesn’t like, so he wants to escape from the pressure of work and from the control of his mother. Smoking and movies are the escaping way that could let him escape from the family.

In act 2, Amanda wants Tom to introduce a gentleman caller to Laura at dinner time because then she can depend on that boy. Jim as another character appears with Tom, and Laura finds out that Jim is the boy that she likes before in high school. She is so shy and nervous that the boy she likes is going to come. Then, she just faints in the dining room as she sees Jim. Tom tells Jim his plan of getting out of the family. Jim surprises and thinks he is going to regret it. Jim is especially nice to Amanda that always helps her to do things in the house. When the house runs out of light, Amanda lets Jim talk to Laura. Then he goes and tells Laura that she needs to be more confident about herself. As they get closer and closer, Jim tells the truth that he already has a fiancée that he meets on a trip. Then, he left the house. Amanda is so disappointed to Tom and complains his mistake because they spent a lot of money on preparing the dinner, but then he already has a girlfriend. Tom also left the house for the movie.

The journey of Amanda is depending on the other characters, in which before she wants her husband to support the house, and now she wants her son to sustain it, yet then they all left the house. She has no dependents in the house now. She doesn’t know who can she depends on, and why they are all left.  For Laura, I think she might get some connections and improvement because of the speech of Jim. Jim tells her to believe in herself, and especially be confident in what she should do. She might think deeply about that, and think what she should do in the future and left the house. She might make friends and takes them into her house. She hangs the menageries and the yearbook on the shelf just to show her friends and show the path that she went from shy to accept others. Then, she finally realizes the words. For Tom, he has already left the house, so the journey for him is he will be renting a house in another part of America because based on the fact that he wants to escape from his mother’s control and commandant. As a result, he should be leaving the house and develop his writing, and publish his book eventually to show his mother that he can also be successful without working in the warehouse. He feels so lucky because he doesn’t have to pay everything for his family now. He can have his own career and doesn’t have to go to the warehouse and drink and smoke and release stress on these anymore. The journey for Jim might be successful because he knows what to do now and in the future. He sustains for his family and also does some courses for his future career as well.