Tennessee Williams' play, The Glass Menagerie, is about a family's struggle to survive the trials and tribulations of life in the early nineteen hundreds. The Wingfield family is faced with many tough times which include Laura's inability to attract a gentleman caller, Tom's mischievous behavior, and Mr. Wingfield's departure from the home. Tennessee Williams created the character, Tom, to act as an inside voice for the audience. He acts as the narrator, central character, and stage manager. Tom's different roles in the play are essential to the understanding of the story line and theme. Tom's quest for an escape passage out of the life he is living is evident through out Tennessee Williams' use of imagery and symbolism in The Glass Menagerie.
             Mr. Wingfield left his family behind as he went off to seek a better life. Tom often makes jokes about his fathers prior job at the telephone company, and tells the audience that he "fell in love with long distances"(Williams 695). This is his attempt to ease the pain of abandonment by turning it into something humorous. At one point in the story Tom is talking about a magician he went to see and how he got out of a nailed coffin without removing a nail. " You know it don't take much intelligence to get yourself into a nailed-up coffin, Laura. But who in hell ever got out himself out of one without removing one nail"(Williams 705)? Almost as an answer, his father's picture lights up showing the giant portrait of him grinning. This symbolizes the house as a coffin, and his fathers' successful exit from it. It's almost like a light bulb going off in someone's head. It is inevitable that the thing that Tom resents most in his father is exactly what Tom himself will carry o!
             ut in the end. He also escapes from his coffin, but unlike the magician he removes a nail. The nail symbolizes Tom removing something vital to his life. "To leave home and Amanda is to insure sel
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