Plot+Analysis

**__Exposition__** The characters of the play are Tom Wingfield, Laura Wingfield, Amanda Wingfield, and Jim O’ Connor. The narrator of the play is Tom who is remembering his youth as well as participating in the play. The tone of the play can be best described as tragic and sarcastic. The time setting in which Tom the narrator is at is not revealed to the readers. However, it is revealed that he is remembering his old life in his apartment in St. Louis during the winter and summer of 1937.

When we first encounter the narrator he reveals that he lives with his mom and dad after their drunk of a father left them. Tom’s mom, Amanda, is lost in the past while Laura, his sister is caught up with her emotion instability. Tom feels bound to his household and thus tries to find way to escape him personal misery.

Tom fears that he will spend the rest of his life working at the warehouse where he finds no adventure.
 * __Major Conflict__**
 * **“You think I’m crazy about the warehouse?”, “You think I want to spend fifty-five years down there?” (Williams, Scene 3, 52).**
 * **“Adventure is something I don’t have much of at work” (Williams, Scene 4, 63).**

Amanda’s obsession with the past keeps her trying to make Laura more social.
 * **“I want to talk about Laura, we have to be making some plans and provisions for her” (Williams, Scene 4, 65).**
 * **“All she does is is fool with those pieces of glass and play those worn-out records. What kind of life is that for a girl to lead?” (Williams, Scene 4, 66).**

**__Rising Action__** Amanda finds out that Laura left business school because of her shyness and has just spent her time wandering the city. Amanda is disappointed that Laura will now not be able to get a job. Amanda believes that even though Laura wears a leg brace her last hope to a secure future is to get married.
 * **“Girls that aren’t cut out for business careers usually wind up married to some nice man.” (Williams, Scene 2, 44).**
 * **“After the fiasco at Rubicam’s Business College the ideas of getting a gentleman caller for Laura began to play a more important part in mothers calculations.” (Williams, Scene 2, 44).**

Tom feels even more trapped in his life and can not stand the constant his mothers constant nagging. As a result he finds himself more distant from his family.
 * **“House, House! Who pays rent on it, who makes slave out of him to-” (Williams, Scene 3, 50”.**
 * **“I don’t want to hear anymore!” (Williams, Scene 3, 50).**

Amanda tells Tom to bring a friend over for dinner so that he can meet Laura. Tom decides to invite Jim O’ Connor. Amanda prepares extensively, hoping that Jim will become Laura’s suitor.
 * **“Down at the warehouse, aren’t there some nice young men?”. “Find one that’s a clan living-doesn’t drink and ask him out for sister!”. “For sister! To meet! Get acquainted!” (Williams, Scene 4, 66, 67)**
 * **“Do you realize he’s the first young man we’ve introduces to your sister?” “Oh, Tom, Tom, Tom, of course I have to make a fuss! I want things nice, not sloppy!” (Williams, Scene 5, 74).**

Laura the reveals to Amanda that she will not attend dinner because Jim was the boy with whom she was in love with during high school and she would not be able to stand the embarrassment of confronting him again.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 20px;">**“There was a Jim O’ Connor we both knew in high school. If that is the one that Tome is bringing to dinner-you’ll have to excuse me, I won’t come to the dinner table.” (Williams, Scene 6, 89).**
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 20px;">**“All I know is I couldn’t sit at the table if it was him” (Williams, Scene 6, 89).**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 170%; letter-spacing: 0px;">**__Climax__** Laura and Jim and left alone so they have time to catch up. Jim takes a liking to laura he says he wishes he can help her gain more confidence in herself. Jim kisses Laura but he then later announces that he is engaged. When Amanda discovers that Jim was engaged she looses the hope that Laura will find a suitor.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 20px;">**“Thats what I judge to be your principal trouble. A lack of confidence in yourself as a person. You don’t have the proper amount of faith in yourself. I’m basing that fact on a number of your remarks and also on certain observations I’ve made.” “A little physical defect is what you have. Hardly noticeable even!” (Williams, scene 7, 119).**
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 20px;">**“I’ve got strings on me. Laura, I’ve-been going steady!” (Williams, Scene 7, 129).**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 170%; letter-spacing: 0px;">**__Falling action__** Laura gives Jim her broken unicorn. Jim leaves and Amanda is mad at Tom for not telling her that Jim was engaged. Laura looses the hope that she will ever be able to overcome her emotional instability.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 20px;">**“Tom didn’t mention that you were engaged to get married” (Williams, scene 7, 133).**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 170%; letter-spacing: 0px;">**__Resolution__** Tom reveals that he later lost his job and left his family. Years later he can not but still feel attached to them.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 20px;">**“Not after long I was fired for writing a poem on the lid of a shoe-box. I left St. Louis. I descended the steps of this fire escape for the last tine and followed in my father’s footsteps attempting to find in motion what was lost in space” (Williams, Scene 7, 137).**