The Glass Menagerie

At the beginning of Scene 6, Tom addresses the audience. He describes Jim, who is coming for dinner. Tom met Jim in high school where Jim was a star athlete and student. But although Jim seemed like he was headed for “nothing short of the White House by the time he was thirty” (768), he ended up with a job that is on par with Tom’s. Jim is Tom’s only friend at work, and Tom notes that he is “valuable to him as someone who could remember his former glory” (768). Jim calls Tom Shakespeare because Tom sometimes hides in the bathroom to write poetry. Although Tom is aware that Laura remembers Jim from high school, if Jim remembers Laura, he doesn’t know that Laura is Tom’s sister. Tom notes: “When I asked him to dinner, he grinned and said, ‘You know, Shakespeare, I never thought of you as having folks!’ He was about to discover that I did” (768).

The scene shifts, and it is Friday evening. Amanda has redecorated the apartment. Amid several empty shopping boxes, Laura is standing while Amanda adjusts the hem of a new dress. Laura’s hair has been styled, and “a fragile, unearthly prettiness has come out in Laura: she is like a piece of translucent glass touched by light and given a momentary radiance, not actual, not lasting” (769).