The Glass Menagerie
...her that, back in high school, she had a crush on a boy named Jim. Laura explains how Jim is the hero of the school and also sat near her in chorus class, but she thinks that Jim must be married by now. Laura reminds her mother about one of her leg is shorter than the other. Amanda yells at her daughter not to mention anything like that again, and Amanda tells Laura how charm she is. One night, Amanda complains to Tom how she does not like when Tom spends every night out doing shameful stuff, though he tells her that he spends his nights at the movies, because he is endangering his job. Tom points out that he pays rent and attempts to end the conversation by leaving the apartment. He also tells Amanda how he goes to work each day nonetheless and brings home the pay, how he has put aside all his dreams, and if he were as selfish as Amanda thinks, how he would have left long ago, just like his father. He ends his argument by calling Amanda an “ugly, babbling old witch” and then grabs his coat. He then changes his mind not to take it along anymore, he throws it to the other side of the room, where it hits Laura’s glass menagerie, her collection of glass animal figurines. Laura cries out loud because the glass breaks. Amanda announces she will not talk to Tom until he apologizes her. Tom bends down to pick up the glass and looks at Laura as if he would say sorry to her but he couldn’t. Tom returns home. He has been drinking. Tom gives Laura a rainbow-colored scarf, which he says the magician gave to him when he went to the magic show. Amanda about to cry when Tom apologizes to her about the argument earlier, and begs him to promise her that he will never be a drunkard. Amanda asks Tom to find some decent man at the warehouse and bring him home to meet Laura because she wants Laura to get married soon. Shortly, Tom told Laura and Amanda that he will bring his friend named Jim O’Connor home for dinner. He explains to them that both sides of Jim’s family are Irish and he makes eighty-five dollars a month. After Laura knows it is Jim O’Connor that she had a crush with back in high school, she feels a little nervous and very intimidate of herself having “crippled” legs. Finally, Jim comes over to Tom’s house as an invitation to dinner only. Jim and Laura talk the whole night when the light goes out because Tom intends not pay the electric bill. She reminds Jim about they knew each other back in high school, and Laura shows Jim her favorite collection of glass animals. Jim tells her that she is different from anyone else he knows, that she is pretty, and that if she were his sister he would teach her to have some self-confidence. He then kisses Laura on the lips. Afterward, he c...