In memory everything seems to happen to music.
The Glass Menagerie
Tom Wingfield, as narrator, Scene 1. |
Yes, I have tricks in my pocket, I have things up my sleeve.
But I am the opposite of a stage magician. He gives you illusion
that has the appearance of truth. I give you truth in the pleasant
disguise of illusion.
The Glass Menagerie
Tom, as narrator, Scene 1. |
Mother, when you're disappointed, you get that awful suffering
look on your face, like the picture of Jesus' mother in the
museum.
The Glass Menagerie
Laura Wingfield, Scene 2. |
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?
The Glass Menagerie
Amanda Wingfield, Scene 2. |
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!
The Glass Menagerie
Amanda to Laura, Scene 2. |
Girls that aren't cut out for business careers usually wind
up married to some nice man.
The Glass Menagerie
Amanda to Laura, after she learns her daughter
has dropped out of business school, Scene 2. |
I took that horrible novel back to the library — yes!
That hideous book by that insane Mr. Lawrence. I cannot control
the output of diseased minds or people who cater to them —
BUT I WON'T ALLOW SUCH FILTH BROUGHT INTO MY HOUSE! No, no,
no, no, no!
The Glass Menagerie
Amanda, Scene 3. |
Every time you come in yelling that Goddamn "Rise and
Shine! Rise and Shine!" I say to myself, "How lucky
dead people are!" But I get up. I go! For sixty-five dollars
a month I give up all that I dream of doing and being ever!
And you say self - self's all I ever think of. Why, listen,
if self is what I though of, Mother, I'd be where he is GONE!
The Glass Menagerie
Tom, Scene 3. |
I know your ambitions do not lie in the warehouse, that like
everybody in the whole wide world - you've had to — make
sacrifices, but — Tom — Tom — life's not easy,
it calls for — Spartan endurance!
The Glass Menagerie
Amanda, Scene 4. |
Man is by instinct a lover, a hunter, a fighter, and none
of those instincts are given much play at the warehouse!
The Glass Menagerie
Tom as he argues with his mother Amanda
about his career, Scene 4. |
This was the compensation for lives that passed like mine,
without any change or adventure. Adventure and change were imminent
in this year. They were waiting around the corner for all these
kids.
The Glass Menagerie
Tom, Scene 4. |
You are the only young man that I know of who ignores the
fact that the future becomes the present, the present becomes
the past, and the past turns into everlasting regret if you
don't plan for it!
The Glass Menagerie
Amanda to Tom, Scene 5. |
No girl can do worse than put herself at the mercy of a handsome
appearance.
The Glass Menagerie
Amanda, referring to the bad choice she
made in marrying a handsome man, Scene 5. |
She lives in a world of her own — a world of — little
glass ornaments.
The Glass Menagerie
Tom, about Laura, Scene 5. |
He was shooting with such velocity through his adolescence
that you would logically expect him to arrive at nothing short
of the White House by the time he was thirty.
The Glass Menagerie
Tom's impressions of Jim O'Connor when
they were both in high school, Scene 6. |
All pretty girls are a trap, a pretty trap, and men expect
them to be.
The Glass Menagerie
Amanda's thoughts as she tries to make
Laura as attractive as possible, Scene 6. |
People go to the movies instead of moving! Hollywood characters
are supposed to have all the adventures for everybody in America,
while everybody in America sits in a dark room and watches them
have them! Yes, until there’s a war. That’s when adventure
becomes available to the masses.
The Glass Menagerie
Tom, Scene 6. |
I know I seem dreamy, but inside — well, I'm boiling!
Whenever I pick up a shoe, I shudder a little thinking how short
life is and what I am doing! Whatever that means, I know it
doesn't mean shoes — except as something to wear on a traveler's
feet!
The Glass Menagerie
Tom, Scene 6. |
All of my gentlemen callers were sons of planters and so of
course I assumed that I would be married to one and raise my
family on a large piece of land with plenty of servants. But
man proposes—and woman accepts the proposal! To vary that
old, old saying a bit—I married no planter! I married a
man who worked for the telephone company! . . . A telephone
man who —fell in love with long-distance!
The Glass Menagerie
Amanda subjects Jim, who has just arrived
at the Wingfield apartment for dinner, to her high-volume, girlish
Southern charm, Scene 6. |
People are not so dreadful when you get to know them.
The Glass Menagerie
Jim to Laura, as he tries to help her with
her shyness, Scene 7. |
You think of yourself as having the only problems, as being
the only one who is disappointed. But just look around you and
you will see lots of people as disappointed as you are.
The Glass Menagerie
Jim to Laura, Scene 7. |
I believe in the future of television! I wish to be ready
to go up right along with it. Therefore I'm planning to get
in on the ground floor. In fact I've already made the right
connections and all that remains is for the industry itself
to get under way! Full steam — Knowledge — Zzzzzp!
Money — Zzzzzp! — Power! That's the cycle democracy
is built on.
The Glass Menagerie
Jim, Scene 7. |
LAURA: Little articles of it [glass], they're ornaments mostly!
Most of them are little animals made out of glass, the tiniest
little animals in the world. Mother calls them a glass menagerie!
Here's an example of one, if you'd like to see it! . . . Oh,
be careful — if you breathe, it breaks! . . . Hold him
over the light, he loves the light! You see how the light shines
through him?
JIM: It sure does shine!
LAURA: I shouldn't be partial, but he is my favorite one.
JIM: What kind of a thing is this one supposed to be?
LAURA: Haven't you noticed the single horn on his forehead?
JIM: A unicorn, huh? — aren't they extinct in the modern
world?
LAURA: I know!
JIM: Poor little fellow, he must feel sort of lonesome.
The Glass Menagerie
Jim's warmth enables Laura to overcome
her shyness in his presence and she introduces him to the collection
of glass animals that is her most prized possession, Scene 7. |
JIM: Aw, aw, aw. Is it broken?
LAURA: Now it is just like all the other horses.
JIM: It's lost its —
LAURA: Horn! It doesn't matter. . . . [smiling] I'll just imagine
he had an operation. The horn was removed to make him feel less—freakish!
The Glass Menagerie
After persuading Laura to dance with him,
Jim accidentally bumps the table on which the glass unicorn
rests, breaking the horn off of the figurine, Scene 7. |
Glass breaks so easily. No matter how careful you are.
The Glass Menagerie
Laura to Jim, about the unincorn's broken
horn, Scene 7. |
I wish that you were my sister. I'd teach you to have some
confidence in yourself. The different people are not like other
people, but being different is nothing to be ashamed of. Because
other people are not such wonderful people. They're one hundred
times one thousand. You're one times one! They walk all over
the earth. You just stay here. They're common as — weeds,
but — you — well, you're — Blue Roses!
The Glass Menagerie
Jim to Laura, Scene 7. |
Things have a way of turning out so badly.
The Glass Menagerie
Amanda, Scene 7. |
You don't know things anywhere! You live in a dream; you manufacture
illusions!
The Glass Menagerie
Amanda to Tom, Scene 7. |
TOM: I'm going to the movies.
AMANDA: That's right, now that you've had us make such fools
of ourselves. The effort, the preparations, all the expense
! The new floor lamp, the rug, the clothes for Laura ! all for
what? To entertain some other girl's fiancé ! Go to the
movies, go ! Don't think about us, a mother deserted, an unmarried
sister who's crippled and has no job ! Don't let anything interfere
with your selfish pleasure I just go, go, go — to the movies!
The Glass Menagerie
Scene 7. |
I didn't go to the moon, I went much further — for time
is the longest distance between two places.
The Glass Menagerie
Tom, Scene 7. |
I left Saint Louis. I descended the steps of this fire escape
for a last time and followed, from then on, in my father's footsteps,
attempting to find in motion what was lost in space. . . . I
would have stopped, but I was pursued by something. . . . I
pass the lighted window of a shop where perfume is sold. The
window is filled with pieces of colored glass, tiny transparent
bottles in delicate colors, like bits of a shattered rainbow.
Then all at once my sister touches my shoulder. I turn around
and look into her eyes. Oh, Laura, Laura, I tried to leave you
behind me, but I am more faithful than I intended to be! I reach
for a cigarette, I cross the street, I run into the movies or
a bar, I buy a drink, I speak to the nearest stranger —
anything that can blow your candles out! — for nowadays
the world is lit by lightning! Blow out your candles Laura —
and so goodbye.
The Glass Menagerie
Tom speaking many years later, long after
he has left the family home, the play closing with this speech
by him at end of Scene 7. |
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