The Glass Menagerie, by Tennessee Williams, is an emotional, dramatic play about a family in St. Louis. Amanda, the mother, is a lovely woman who loves to entertain people and constantly talks about all the gentleman callers she had in her youth. Her daughter, Laura, is extremely shy and her mother is afraid she will never get married. However, one day, Tom tells his mother that he is bringing a man from work over for dinner the next day. Amanda is ecstatic at the news and immediately begins making preparations, only wishing she had more time to get everything ready. Because she is trying to relive her youth through Laura and wants her to have the same experience, Amanda makes a huge deal out of the dinner and it is almost comical how ridiculous she acts.

One of the main themes of The Glass Menagerie is that each of the characters seems to struggle with accepting reality. I think Amanda displays this the most with how much effort she puts into dinner with the gentleman caller. She always talks about how she had tons of gentleman callers in her youth and how she was always entertaining people. She wants Laura to have the same experience that she had; therefore, she is constantly pushing Laura to do things such as going to college and having lots of gentleman callers. Amanda cannot understand or accept that Laura us much more shy and not interested in the same things as she was and still is. The dinner that Amanda puts on brings out their whole family's true character. Amanda goes overboard with preparations and showing off her charm, Tom couldn't care less about the whole thing, and Laura is so horribly shy that she becomes sick. Afterwards, Tom finally leaves, as he has been wanting to do, and Amanda is left with the reality that this is how things will be from now on, the way she was afraid they would always turn out.