How Is Tom Presented In The Glass Menagerie

The main character Tom in Tennessee Williams’ “The Glass Menagerie” is subject to very deep mental confliction. Poor Tom is unable to have his own life since he is the caretaker of his whole family. He must keep his very boring, stressful, and difficult job at the shoe factory all for his mother and sister. At a young age, Tom’s father left the family with no notice and left them to fend for themselves. Tom’s sister is unfortunately crippled, since one leg is shorter than the other. She is unhealthily shy, and her crippled leg does not help her at all. She is older than Tom, and should have already gotten married, however, her shyness and crippled leg prevent her from finding a suitable gentlemen caller. Her mother simply chooses to ignore …show more content…
She makes him pay for the bills and constantly guilt trips him about his sister. In all honesty, Laura is the only reason he stays home. His mother knows this and constantly reminds him of this. Tom craves for adventure, and he is constantly at the movies, watching adventure movies and dreaming of his own adventures. He is constantly in a depressed state of mind, and constantly attempts to find comfort in liquor. In an article from Daniel Jacobs,”The Uses of Declarative Memory in the Glass Menagerie” explains just how deeply the connection is from Williams towards Tom is. Tom is more or less a total representation of Williams. In Williams’ past, his very own sister had began to act weird from her schizophrenia. Doctors began to do a lobotomy procedure on the poor girl, and in result, she was in way worse condition after the procedure. She was deemed mentally incompetent and sentenced to an insane asylum. Williams saved up enough money and had her transferred to a more private asylum closer to him and visited her often. He was in constant stress and depression from all that had happened to his beloved sister. To make matters worse, Williams’ father was extremely violent and