Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie takes place now and in the past. It is a glimpse into the memory of Tom Wingfield. Tom is the narrator of the play as well as a character in it. He takes us back in time to a small apartment in a lower middle class neighborhood in St. Louis where he once lived with his mother Amanda and sister Laura.

Having been abandoned by her husband, Amanda is desperate to provide a good future for her children. Tom, though he truly longs for a life of adventure as a writer, is working in a shoe store warehouse in order to provide for the family. Daughter Laura, who has been left disabled as the result of a childhood illness, lives a secluded home life in a fantasy world of glass toy animals and old phonograph records.

Amanda is on the prowl for a husband for Laura. When she convinces Tom to bring a colleague from the warehouse home as a suitor, a spark of hope is ignited and the eventual arrival of this mysterious gentleman caller pushes the already tenuous familial relationships to the breaking point.