Brooke Lorup post #2

After finishing up the play, The Glass Menagerie, I am completely blown away as to how much Laura's character and personality has altered; only due to Jim's heart-warming presence in the final scenes. In the first five scenes of the play, it's obvious that Laura's brother Tom is rather condescending and doesn't have much faith in his own sister. On page 47, Tom and Amanda are discussing having Jim over for dinner to get acquainted with Laura. That's when Amanda states, "Once he sees how lovely, sweet and pretty Laura is, he'll thank his lucky stars he was asked to dinner. That's when Tom intervenes and completely talks down upon his sister stating that, “She only seems all of those things because shes family. Shes crippled, different from other girls and not in a good way, terribly shy and lives in a world of her own." This shows that Tom feels like she has no real purpose to the family because the only thing she does is "play old phonograph records", (page 48.) Tom is correct in some retrospect when it comes to his sister, yet completely wrong and judgmental in others. Yes he's correct when he says Laura is terribly shy because on page 14, Laura and her mother are having an argument about Laura dropping out of business school to walk the park in the middle of winter and risking getting pneumonia just because of her social anxiety and 'indigestion"(page 80). Yet, Tom is totally misinformed when he said Laura was different in a bad way because in scene 7, Jim compliments Laura in various ways. Jim says, " he’s glad to see Laura has a sense of humor, that she's surprisingly different from anyone else Jim knows, but in a nice way of course, and even takes it a step further and calls her pretty; words she's never heard before(87.) Due to Jim actually acknowledging Laura for more than a shy, anxious, crippled woman, she has no problem coming out of her shell and waltzing around the room with him. Throughout the play, Laura has always been looked down upon and never had a sense of self- worth. Jim’s presence boosted her confidence by admiring her differences, encouraging her to not be ashamed of herself, and even made her feel something that wasn't experienced at all through the play; happy.

I chose this picture because its a great depiction of how happy Laura is in the presence of Jim.