The Play is about a Family Trying to Succeed.
The Glass Menagerie has many different interpretations and one of the plays" main themes is that it is about a family trying to succeed. The Wingfield family, aren't quite living on the streets but they are poor enough. Amanda Wingfield is portrayed as a very pushy mother who always tries to urge on and persuade her two children to do exactly what she says. However, it is this sort of behaviour that I feel has lead her daughter Laura to be terribly timid and shy and reluctant to be a part of the world. This driving behaviour has lead her son Tom in the total opposite direction, constantly annoyed by his mother waiting for the perfect time to escape. And last but certainly not least, Amanda. The character most longing for succession - the American Dream. Amanda so desperately longs for no money worries and her children successful too. Each character has their own reasons for wanting to succeed:.
Starting with Tom, it is clear right from the beginning parts of the play his main ambition in life is to succeed within himself. He wants to be able to succeed for his own reasons and not because Amanda told him to.
He wanted to succeed in getting out, escaping from his regular life at the warehouse; a chance of adventure. We learn that this was his idea as he hardly ever showed up for work and he kept spending all his money watching movies only dreaming of a more adventurous life.
In an ironic way, he wanted to succeed like his father did. We know that his father ran out on the family early on in their childhood. Tom is so jealous of the fact that he escaped and is now exploring the world. In scene one's monologue made by Tom there is that sense of envy when he tells the audience of how his father just "upped and left town." Last hearing from him by a postcard saying "Hello-Goodbye" from Mexico.
The spontaneity of escaping appealed to Tom and after all he was always like his father: he said so himself "I"m like my father.