Tom had every reason to leave this family. Although they did depend on him greatly, he was so unhappy, and his family was so fake. His mother did nothing but dwell on his father’s decision to abandon the family, his sister has faked going to college and instead stays at home all day playing with her glass menagerie collection and playing old records. He was being held down by this broken family. He finally understood why his father left. He wasn’t enjoying this hectic family.
Tom: Listen! You think I’m crazy about the warehouse? [He bends fiercly toward her slight figure.] You think I’m in love with the Continental Shoemakers? You think I want to spend fifty-five years down there in that- celotex interior? with-fluorecsent-tubes? Look! I’d rather somebody picked up a crowbar and battered out my brains-than go back mornings! I go! Every time you come in yelling that God-damned “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 is all I ever think of. Why, listen, if self is what I thought of, Mother, I’d be where he is- GONE! [He points to his father's picture.] As far as the system of transportation reaches! [He starts past her. She grabs his arm.] Don’t grab at me, Mother!
He was unhappy. He may regret it in the end, but would he have liked it if he had stayed. It was a waste of life to say. He would never be happy with what he had. He knew why his father had left. It was to escape the God-awful life he was living with this family.
TOM: I didn’t go to the moon, I went much further-for time is the longest distance between two places. Not long after that I was fired for writing a poem on the lid of a shoe-box. 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 that was lost in space. I traveled around a great deal. The cities swept about me like dead leaves, leaves that were brightly colored but torn away from the branches. I would have stopped, but i was pursued by something. It always came upon me unawares, taking me altogether by surprise. Perhaps it was a familiar bit of music. Perhaps it was only a piece of transparent glass. Perhaps I am walking along a street at night, in some strange city, before I have found companions. 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!
[Laura bends over the candles.]
For nowadays the world is lit by lightning! Blow out your candles, Laura-and so goodbye….
[She blows the candles out.]
He wants to forget, but there’s always a reminder.
