The Glass Menagerie -x

Part I of Essay
Trapped within the confines of a St. Louis apartment building and the Great Depression, the Wingfield family dreams of escape: budding poet Tom envisions a future on the open seas, his sister Laura retreats from the resent into a fantasy world of glass animals, and matriarc ....

Part II of Essay
.... of interacting with people, she looks to her collection of glass animals as a place of secure acceptance. Laura clings to the fear that she is strange and crippled though she herself exagerates the reality of that. Magnifying her illness, denying her inner beauty to come forth, is the way Laura hides from a world lit by 'lightning." Tom, on the other hand, relies on self-denial to justify his concerns and feelings of insecurity. By making himself believe that he is a good man, he convinces himself that his needs are greater then his family' ....