The Glass Menagerie

Using Tom as the narrator of the Glass Menagerie, Tennessee Williams makes the whole play come with all of Tom’s feelings, from the past. The way he uses it as a flashback of how the whole time happened, makes it so that it could be biased. This whole technique impacts the play, because of how it is told. The readers will take their impression on the story, from how the events are depicted by Tom. Since the sequence of events is only told from his perspective, then the readers will not know for a fact whether or not how Tom described life with his family, was how life actually was. This impacts the play by making Tom seem slightly ungrateful for his family, since he describes himself as a very good person, but describes Amanda and Laura as below average.

Having described himself as a good person with high ambitions, as the narrator, Tom explains how at night, he likes to go onto the Fire escape and think, and day dream about how he is going to become a writer. It makes the reader feel as if he is two sided, one side he keeps to himself, but shows more selfish, self centered characteristics towards his family. Amanda and Tom have a huge fight the night Laura had a gentleman caller, that sends him out to the movies again. Shortly after that night, Tom is fired from the warehouse for writing a poem on a shoebox lid, and he goes off with the Merchant Marines to find the adventure he craves just as his father did. Him narrating this, shows how is ambitions always ended up coming first. Laura has always been a fan of Tom but she finds it hard to be his sister because of how selfish he is sometimes. He always keeps to himself unless directed otherwise by Amanda. Tom's unhappiness, described by Amanda in Scene Four of the play, Laura is sad about. She cries because she is sad for Tom, and wishes he could be happy like Amanda and her. This, stands in contrast to the selfishness and major sacrifices that characterize the Wingfield household.

When Tom tells Jim of his plans to leave and see what he needs to do to leave, Jim cannot realize the scope of the problem. After he had embarrassed his mother and sister, when Jim came over and left after telling Amanda he is engaged.