The Wayward Son
In the play The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams, Tom is the youngest in a dysfunctional family. With a renegade father, and him being the only male left, he is forced to support his mother and older sister by himself. Tom soon grows tired of his mundane life and wishes to escape and live a life of adventure and excitement on his own. Some of the reasons he wants to escape is his over barring mother and his crippled sister Laura. Tom cause problems for the family before he leaves on his journey. While Tom was on his adventure he always felt haunted by the memory of his sister, showing that while a person can run away from his or her problems can always catch up.
Tom had a stagnant life; he woke up, went to work and came home to his nagging mother and and crippled, shy sister. Tom dreamed of having an exiting life, not necessarily a life of riches, but a life that deviates on a day to day basis. Day after day Tome has to come home from a horrible job, that only pays $65 a month, to a seemingly unappreciative mother, who has the nerve to tell him how selfish he is. His mother was always telling he was doing things wrong as well, going as far as saying “And chew--chew! Animals have secretions in their stomachs which enable them to digest food without mastication, but human beings are supposed to chew their food before they swallow it down.” (1654; scene 1). Not only is this inappropriate dinner conversation, she is comparing Tom to an animal. While his sister dose not make him angry per say, her refusal to get a job dose put an added strain to his already difficult life. Tom had all the motivation he needed to pack his bags and leave.
Before Tom left, he wanted to make sure he was not missed by his mother. To start, Tom brought home a suitor named Jim for his sister that already had a fiance. To add to this Tom did not pay the light bill, and it was almost as if he timed it with the dinner party his mother threw for Jim, because right in the middle of dinner the lights are turned off. Then after being thoroughly chewed out by his mother for bringing Jim to court Laura, even though he claims he knew nothing of Jim’s fiance, Tom leaves his family and starts his new life. Tom is finally free to do as