Tennessee Williams: The Glass Menagerie

LAURA: It wasn’t as bad as it sounds. I went inside places to get warmed up.

AMANDA: Inside where?

LAURA: I went in the art museum and the bird-houses at the Zoo. I visited the penguins every day! Sometimes I did without lunch and went to the movies. Lately I’ve been spending most of my afternoons in the jewel-box, that big glass-house where they raise the tropical flowers.

AMANDA: You did all this to deceive me, just for deception? [ LAURA looks down .] Why?

LAURA: Mother, when you’re disappointed, you get that awful suffering look on your face, like the picture of Jesus’ mother in the museum!

AMANDA: Hush!

LAURA: I couldn’t face it.

[ Pause. A whisper of strings. LEGEND: “THE CRUST OF HUMILITY” .]

AMANDA [ hopelessly fingering the huge pocketbook ]: So what are we going to do the rest of our lives? Stay home and watch the parades go by? Amuse ourselves with the glass menagerie, darling? Eternally play those worn-out phonograph records your father left as a painful reminder of him? We won’t have a business career – we’ve given that up because it gave us nervous indigestion! [ Laughs wearily .] What is there left but dependency all our lives? I know so well what becomes of unmarried women who aren’t prepared to occupy a position. I’ve seen such pitiful cases in the South – barely tolerated spinsters living upon the grudging patronage of sister’s husband or brother’s wife! – stuck away in some little mousetrap of a room – encouraged by one in-law to visit another – little birdlike women without any nest – eating the crust of humility all their life! Is that the future that we’ve mapped out for ourselves? I swear it’s the only alternative I can think of! It isn’t a very pleasant alternative, is it? Of course – some girls do marry!

[ LAURA twists her hands nervously .]

Haven’t you ever liked some boy?

LAURA: Yes. I liked one once. [ Rises .] I came across his picture a while ago.

AMANDA [ with some interest ]. He gave you his picture?

LAURA: No, it’s in the year-book.

AMANDA: [ disappointed ]: Oh – a high-school boy.

[ SCREEN IMAGE: JIM AS HIGH-SCHOOL HERO BEARING A SILVER CUP . ]

LAURA: Yes. His name was Jim. [ LAURA lifts the heavy annual from the claw-foot table. ] Here he is in The Pirates of Penzance.

AMANDA [ absently ]: The what?

LAURA: The operetta the senior class put on. He had a wonderful voice and we sat across the aisle from each other Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays in the Aud. Here he is with the silver cup for debating! See his grin?

AMANDA [ absently ]: He must have had a jolly disposition.

LAURA: He used to call me – Blue Roses.

[ IMAGE: BLUE ROSES. ]

AMANDA: Why did he call you such a name as that?

LAURA: When I had that attack of pleurosis [6] Pleurosis: Lung inflammation. – he asked me what was the matter when I came back. I Said pleurosis he thought that I said Blue Roses! So that’s what he always called me after that. Whenever he saw me, he’d holler, “Hello, Blue Roses!” I didn’t care for the girl that he went out with. Emily Meisenbach. Emily was the best-dressed girl at Soldan. She never struck me, though, as being sincere… It says in the Personal Section – they’re engaged. That’s – six years ago! They must be married by now.

AMANDA: Girls that aren’t cut out for business careers usually wind up married to some nice man. [ Gets up with a spark of revival .] Sister, that’s what you’ll do!

[ LAURA utters a startled, doubtful laugh. She reaches quickly for a piece of glass .]

LAURA: But, Mother

AMANDA: Yes? [ Crossing to photograph. ]

LAURA [ in a tone of frightened apology ]: I’m – crippled!

[ IMAGE: SCREEN. ]

AMANDA: Nonsense! Laura, I’ve told you never, never to use that word. Why, you’re not crippled, you just have a little defect – hardly noticeable, even! When people have some slight disadvantage like that, they cultivate other things to make up for it – develop charm – and vivacity and – charm! That’s all you have to do![ She turns again to the photograph .] One thing your father had plenty of – was charm![ Tom motions to the fiddle in the wings. ]

[ THE SCENE FADES OUT WITH MUSIC ]

[ LEGEND ON SCREEN: “AFTER THE FIASCO” ]

[ TOM speaks from the fire-escape landing .]

TOM: After the fiasco at Rubicam’s Business College, the idea of getting a gentleman caller for Laura began to play a more and more important part in Mother’s calculations. It became an obsession. Like some archetype of the universal unconscious, the image of the gentleman caller haunted our small apartment. [ …IMAGE: YOUNG MAN AT DOOR WITH FLOWERS. ]

An evening at home rarely passed without some allusion to this image, this spectre, this hope. Even when he wasn’t mentioned, his presence hung in Mother’s preoccupied look and in my sister’s frightened, apologetic manner – hung like a sentence passed upon the Wingfields! Mother was a woman of action as well as words. She began to take logical steps in the planned direction. Late that winter and in the early spring – realizing that extra money would be needed to properly feather the nest and plume the bird – she conducted a vigorous campaign on the telephone, roping in subscribers to one of those magazines for matrons called The Home-maker’s Companion , the type of journal that features the serialized, sublimations of ladies of letters who think in terms of delicate cup-like breasts, slim, tapering waists, rich, creamy thighs, eyes like wood-smoke in autumn, fingers that soothe and caress like strains of music, bodies as powerful as Etruscan sculpture.

[ SCREEN IMAGE: GLAMOUR MAGAZINE COVER. ]

[ AMANDA enters with phone on long extension cord. She is spotted in the dim state .]

AMANDA: Ida Scott? This is Amanda Wingfield! We missed you at the D.A.R. last Monday! I said to myself: She’s probably suffering with that sinus condition! How is that sinus condition? Horrors! Heaven have mercy!- You’re a Christian martyr, yes, that’s what you are, a Christian martyr! Well, I just have happened to notice that your subscription to the Companion’s about to expire! Yes, it expires with the next issue, honey!- just when that wonderful new serial by Bessie Mae Hopper is getting off to such an exciting start. Oh, honey, it’s something that you can’t miss! You remember how “ Gone With the Wind ” took everybody by storm? You simply couldn’t go out if you hadn’t read it. All everybody talked was Scarlet O’Hara. Well, this is a book that critics already compare to Gone With the Wind. It’s the “ Gone With the Wind ” of the post-World War generation! – What? – Burning! – Oh, honey, don’t let them bum, go take a look in the oven and I’ll hold the wire! Heavens – I think she’s hung up!

[ DIM OUT ]

[ LEGEND ON SCREEN: “YOU THINK I’M IN LOVE WITH CONTINENTAL SHOEMAKERS?” ]

[ Before the stage is lighted, the violent voices Of TOM and AMANDA are heard. They are quarrelling behind the portières. In front of them stands LAURA with clenched hands and panicky expression. A clear pool of light on her figure throughout this scene. ]

TOM: What in Christ’s name am I

AMANDA [ shrilly ]: Don’t you use that –

TOM: Supposed to do!

AMANDA: Expression! Not in my –

TOM: Ohhh!!

AMANDA: Presence! Have you gone out of your senses?

TOM: I have, that’s true, driven out!