I married no planter! I married a man
who worked for the telephone company! . . . A telephone man who—fell in
love with long-distance!
(See Important Quotations Explained)
Summary
Tom leans against the rail of the fire-escape landing,
smoking, as the lights come up. He addresses the audience, recollecting
the background of the gentleman caller. In high school, Jim O’Connor
was a star in everything he did—an athlete, a singer, a debater,
the leader of his class—and everyone was certain that he would go
far. Yet things did not turn out according to expectations. Six
years out of high school, Jim was working a job that was hardly
better than Tom’s. Tom remembers that he and Jim were on friendly
terms. As the only one at the warehouse who knew about Jim’s past
glories, Tom was useful to Jim. Jim called Tom “Shakespeare” because
of his habit of writing poems in the warehouse bathroom when work was
slow.
Tom’s soliloquy ends, and the lights come up on a living
room transformed by Amanda’s efforts over the past twenty-four hours. Amanda
adjusts Laura’s new dress. Laura is nervous and uncomfortable with
all the fuss that is being made, but Amanda assures her that it
is only right for a girl to aim to trap a man with her beauty. When
Laura is ready, Amanda goes to dress herself and then makes a grand
entrance wearing a dress from her youth. She recalls wearing that
same dress to a cotillion (a formal ball, often for debutantes) in
Mississippi, to the Governor’s Ball, and to receive her gentlemen callers.
Finally, her train of memories leads her to recollections of Mr.
Wingfield.
Amanda mentions Jim’s name, and Laura realizes that the
visitor is the same young man on whom she had a crush in high school.
She panics, claiming that she will not be able to eat at the same
table with him. Amanda dismisses Laura’s terror and busies herself
in the kitchen making salmon for dinner. When the doorbell rings, Amanda
calls for Laura to get it, but Laura desperately begs her mother
to open it instead. When Amanda refuses, Laura at last opens the
door, awkwardly greets Jim, and then retreats to the record player.
Tom explains to Jim that she is extremely shy, and Jim remarks,
“It’s unusual to meet a shy girls nowadays.”
Jim and Tom talk while the women are elsewhere. Jim encourages
Tom to join him in the public speaking course he is taking. Jim is
sure that he and Tom were both meant for executive jobs and that “social
poise” is the only determinant of success. However, Jim also warns
Tom that, if Tom does not wake up, the boss will soon fire Tom at
the warehouse. Tom says that his own plans have nothing to do with
public speaking or executive positions and that he is planning a
big change in his life. Jim, bewildered, asks what he means, and
Tom explains vaguely that he is sick of living vicariously through
the cinema. He is bored with “the movies” and wants
“to move,” he says. Unbeknownst to Amanda, he has
taken the money intended to pay for that month’s electric bill and
used it to join the Union of Merchant Seamen. Tom announces rather
proudly that he is taking after his father.
Amanda enters, talking gaily and laying on the Southern
charm as she introduces herself to Jim. She praises Laura to him
and, within minutes, gives him a general account of her numerous
girlhood suitors and her failed marriage. Amanda sends Tom to fetch Laura
for dinner, but Tom returns to say that Laura is feeling ill and does
not want to eat. A storm begins outside. Amanda calls Laura herself,
and Laura enters, stumbling and letting out a moan just as a clap
of thunder explodes. Seeing that Laura is truly ill, Amanda tells her
to rest on the sofa in the living room. Amanda, Jim, and Tom sit down
at the table, where Amanda glances anxiously at Jim while Tom says
grace. Laura, in the living room alone, struggles to contain a sob.
Analysis
Laura’s glasslike qualities become more explicit in Scene
Six, where, according to the stage directions, she resembles “glass
touched by light, given a momentary radiance.” She embodies the
“momentary radiance” of glass more completely in Scene Seven. Here,
however, it is the fragility of glass that is most evident in her
character. Before now, we have merely heard about the panic that
results from her shyness. In this scene, we witness it directly,
as her reason breaks down in the face of the terror that Jim’s presence
instills in her.
