The Glass Menagerie is a play narrated by Tom Wingfield in which he recalls the days leading up to his departure from his apartment in St Louis. Tom's love for his family, rage about life and bitterness towards his mother and job all play a role in his final decision to leave his mother and sister once the Gentlemen Caller Jim bids the family a final farewell; Jim is the symbol of Laura's last hope for finding a mate, but he leaves toward a better life. Tom understands that staying at home would seal him into a dead end life.
             Tom leads a very frustrating life; he is a poet who works at a factory just so that he can support his family's modest life style. He feels that he is only getting older and that opportunity is fleeting fast. This is why he seems to become more and more uncomfortable in his home throughout the story. "What in Christ's name am I supposed to do?"(p20). His most obvious rage is one he feels towards his controlling mother in desperate moments like when Amanda accuses him of mischief when he claims to go to the movies every night. In a sarcastic tone Tom starts ranting about having joined a gang and how the apartment might be dynamited by his enemies at any moment; he finished his rant with an extremely angry: "You ugly – babbling old – witch."(p24).
             Tom's frustration with his mother and job also adds to his bitterness. "I haven't enjoyed one bite of this dinner because of your constant directions on how to eat it." His overbearing mother treats him like child although he is most definitely not one anymore. He states on more than one occasion that he hates his job and he'd much rather be doing something else: "For sixty-five dollars a month I give up all that I dream of doing and being ever!"(p23) Tom is therefore stuck working a job he despises to support a mother he would do better without; his bitterness is obviously the res...