Scene 1
What is Amanda's obsession?
Amanda is obsessed with getting Laura a gentlemen caller.
What is significant about the place Laura visits?
Her main destination was a greenhouse where tropical flowers are grown. Laura herself is like a delicate flower.
Where is Tom when he introduces this scene? Why is this significant?
Tom is on the fire escape. Tom and the audience are back in the present, looking into the past as one might look into the apartment - from the outside - in the time after he has made his getaway. Mentally, however, he never quite escaped the past. As Tom remembers Amanda's sales calls, he gradually absorbed into his memories.
a person who is put to death or endures great suffering on behalf of any belief, principle, or cause
Martyr
a woman still unmarried beyond the usual age of marrying
Spinster
Tom opens the scene as the narrator explaining that there is a specter and a hope hovering over the apartment. What is it?
The hope for gentlemen caller for Laura
What does Laura compare her mother to?
The picture of Jesus’s mother in the museum.
How is it shown that the boy in the yearbook was important to Laura? Why doesn't Amanda seem particularly interested in this young man?
Amanda doesn't seem particularly interested in this young man because their encounter was about six years ago, so it might as well have been any other guy.
a married woman, especially one who is mature and staid or dignified and has an established social position
Matron
a walkway between or along sections of seats in a theater, classroom, or the like
Aisle
Why is it significant that Amanda calls laura 'sister'?
Amanda's happiest memories are those of her own youth in Blue Mountains. She wants to hold on to those moments and delude herself into thinking that not much has changed in her life since then, so she refers to herself as laura's sister than her mother.
Notice that Tom is not present in this scene, and yet it is based on his memories. What can we tell about the way he remembers the things from this scene?
The images on the screen show the parts of Tom's memories that are highlighted. Laura still lives in the world of her dreams which largely revolve around the heroic Jim and his acknowledgment of her (the blue roses). Amanda is shown as melodramatic and baffled by Laura, but not deliberately cruel.
Why is Amanda especially angry at Tom’s drinking?
Because the husband that left her used to be a heavy drinker, and she does not want Tom to leave them like Mr. Wingfield.
a complete and ignominious failure
Fiasco
unusual in an interesting or pleasing way — especially when old-fashioned
quaint
Why is the gentleman caller an "emissary"?
An emissary is someone sent to bring a message, and by definition, he is also someone who travels. The gentleman caller visits from 'a world of reality'; Tom explicitly says that he, Amanda, and Laura do not live in such a world.
What do we learn about the phonograph records that Laura plays on the Victrola in this scene?
The records were left behind by Mr. Wingfield. Laura's endless playing of them symbolizes her inability to move past the trauma of his departure.
How does Tom almost destroy both Amanda and Laura at the end of this scene?
Tom attempts to destroy Amanda by shattering her illusion of herself as young and beautiful. At the same time, he breaks Laura's glass menagerie, her most treasured possession.
a brand of the phonograph
Victrola
to be enrolled at a college or university
matriculate