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“Where other people exist, genuine individuality is never possible.” To…

- - - - Is it right to desire adventure given responsibilities at home?
      - Tom's individuality is restricted by his responsibilities to the ones around him — especially his sister
    - - Is Tom right to abandon his "crippled" sister? Even if he is escaping the suppression of his individuality?
      - In the end, Tom gets his way
  - - - Is it right to indulge in instinctual pleasures and desires?
        
        “I put her in business college — a dismal failure! Frightened her so it made her sick at the stomach. I took her over to the Young People’s League at the church. Another fiasco. She spoke to nobody, nobody spoke to her. Now all she does is fool with those pieces of glass and play those worn-out records. What kind of a life is that for a girl to lead?”
        
        Laura # #
        
        “I went in the art museum and the bird houses at the Zoo. I visited the penguins every day! Sometimes I did without lunch and went to the movies. Lately I’ve been spending most of my afternoons in the Jewel Box, that big glass house where they raise the tropical flowers.”
        
        To what extent can Laura "fool" with her glass menagerie? Is she wrong to drop out of "business college" because she will not support her family?
        
        “So what are we going to do the rest of our lives? Stay home and watch the parades go by? Amuse ourselves with the glass menagerie, darling? Eternally play those worn-out phonograph records your father left as a painful reminder of him? We won’t have a business career — we’ve given that up because it gave us nervous indigestion! [She laughs wearily.] What is there left but dependency all our lives?”
        
        Amanda places the expectation that Laura will find a job — or a husband — against Laura's individual will to be with her glass menagerie #
    - - “you’ve got to look out for your sister. I don’t say me because I’m old and don’t matter! I say for your sister because she’s young and dependent.”
        
        “Overcome selfishness! Self, self, self is all that you ever think of!” #
        
        Tom must find a gentleman caller (suitor) for his sister #