Menagerie #2

The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams

"I've joined the Hogan gang, I'm a hired assassin, I carry a tommy-gun in a violin case! I run a string of cat-houses in the Valley! They call me Killer, Killer Wingfield, I'm leading a double-life, a simple, honest warehouse worker by day, by night a dynamic czar of the underworld" (Williams, page 1247).

Tom's exaggerating anecdote adds ironic elements to the play as well as give meaning to Tom's actions. When Tom goes on and on about the things he feels his mother believes he does when he stays out late, he is emphasizing that his mother over dramatizes his actions. Although Tom is willing to get away from his family like his father, he seems to actually care for his family.  Tom is expressing how he feels through his anecdote that he goes out for his own sanity. By Tom going out at night, he is refreshing himself for the next day where he will again feel suffocated. Furthermore, Tom's anecdote is ironic. His anecdote is about what harmful and crazy things his mother is doing to him yet his mother is doing nearly the same to him. He feels trapped in a crazy environment that he admits he wants to escape. What Amanda does not realize is that it is her pressure to not be like his father that is pushing him to be like his father and leave. The ironic part of the anecdote comes through when he says he is going to the movies yet she does not believe that he could simply just go to the movies. I believe that her pressure will shoot back irony when he actually does something more dramatic than going to the movies.