The Glass Menagerie: Open Endings!!!

       Every family has issues, but no family has can match those of the family in Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie.  The reader can hardly ever tell what is going to happen next in the play because the characters can be so spontaneous.  The issues that arise with the Wingfield family are what allow for the open endings to occur.   In the ending scene, Tom leaves his family and starts to move on with his life.  In his ending dialogue, he states, “Oh, Laura, Laura, I tried to leave you behind me, but I am more faithful than I intended to be!”  Laura is Tom’s sister, who he loves dearly as if she were his soulmate.  The reader begins to wonder about what happens to Tom.  Questions such as, did Tom ever go back for Laura, and does Tom end up finding another love other than Laura, pop up.  Tom later states, “I speak to the nearest stranger- anything that can blow your candles out!”  Tom wants his sister out of his mind and wants to be able to move on.  This brings up more to how the story is open ended.  Does Tom eventually rid Laura of his mind?  Or does he live his life with his love for her bottled up inside him?  So many different scenarios are possible for this play, it is just ridiculous!
       Open endings are seen at the ending of nearly every scene in the play as well.  In the opening of the play, open endings are very minuscule, but they gradually expand as the play progresses.  At the end of scene one, Amanda, Tom and Laura’s incommodious mother, begins to ask about the arrival of the gentleman callers’ arrival.  Amanda and her daughter begin to converse about it leading into the play’s first open ending:

Amanda:  …-It’s almost time for our gentleman callers to start arriving.  How many do you suppose we’re going to entertain this afternoon?
Laura:  I don’t believe we’re going to receive any, Mother.
Amanda:  What?  No one- not one?  You must be joking!  Not one gentleman caller?  It can’t be true!  There must be a flood, there must have been a tornado!
Laura:  It isn’t a flood, it’s a tornado, Mother.  I’m just not popular like you were in Blue Mountain…

The reader begins to think about why isn’t Laura popular?  More questions pop up such as, who are these gentlemen callers to which Amanda speaks of?  Why are they expecting these men?  Will any of these gentlemen show up?  Although the first open ending of the play is minute, what will happen in the upcoming scene is still a mystery.  The open ending does not leave much room for one set prediction, but leaves room for many.
       Throughout the play, Tom expresses much hatred for his mother, which leads to a big open ending at the closing of scene three.  Tom totally erupts at his mother saying to her, “you ugly- babbling old- witch….”  Tom is in such a rage that he whips his overcoat at the wall, hitting Laura’s glass menagerie.  Laura shrieks and Amanda, still angry about the insult, says, “I won’t speak to you- until you apologize!”  Numerous scenarios pop up from this scene’s ending.  Tom could apologize for verbally bashing his mother, or he could storm out and go to the movies like he usually does.  The readers do not know if Tom will storm out or if he will elevate the fight even further.  And there is the question of where does Laura stand in all this?  Laura could scold Tom vigorously over nearly destroying her most prized possession, or she could refuse to speak to Tom as well just like her mother.  There are a plethora of possibilities of what could happen from this point.
       In my opinion, the best open ending is that at the end of scene four.  For one part of the ending, the reader actually wonders what is going to happen next, but the other part is just a fun time to think about how things will play out.  The scene ends, again, with Tom and Amanda shouting at each other: 

Amanda:  Down at the warehouse, aren’t there some- nice young men?
Tom:  No!
Amanda:  There must be- some… 
Tom:  Mother-
Amanda:  Find out one that’s clean-living- doesn’t drink and ask him out for sister!
Tom:  What?
Amanda:  For sister!  To meet!  Get acquainted!
Tom:  Oh, my go-osh!
Amanda:  Will you?  Will you?  Will you?  Will you, dear?
Tom:  Yes!  

Amanda keeps bugging Tom until he finally cracks and succumbs to her wants.  The readers take this part of the open ending seriously.  Will Tom actually give in to Amanda and proceed in doing what she asked?  If he does, will he succeed in finding someone for his sister?  Although this part of the open ending comes to a close in the next scene when Tom brings over a friend from his past, the reader can still formulate numerous possibilities to what will happen before he/she reads on.  In the following scene, both potential questions proposed, are answered.  
       The second art of the open ending, which is rather a funny part to ponder about what will happen, occurs when Amanda makes a phone call.  Amanda, in a rush to get Tom out of her mind, rushes to the phone and calls up her friend, Ella Cartwright.  The conversation is completely off set from what is happening in the scene, but Amanda needs to be rid of Tom, so a random conversation was the way to go:

Amanda:  Ella Cartwright?  This is Amanda Wingfield!  How are you, honey?  How is that kidney condition?– Well, I just now happened to notice in my little red book that your subscription to the Companion has just run out!  I knew that you wouldn’t want to miss out on the wonderful serial starting in this new issue.  It’s by Bessie Mae Hopper, the first thing she’s written since Honeymoon for Three….

So Amanda starts blabbing about a magazine subscription, to which she knows that this woman’s subscription has ended!  Anyone with an expired magazine subscription can be expecting a call from her; for sure, it is marked down in her little red book.  Now, does Ella renew her subscription?  And how about that kidney condition, how is it?  The reader also wonders if Amanda successfully escapes the fighting with Tom, by engaging is this totally ridiculous conversation over the phone.  Also, does Ella even get a chance to speak in between Amanda’s rantings?  This open ending is just amazing.  There are so many open endings that the play could be rewritten into numerous other plots. 

{on a side note- this website would be so much better if it had emoticons!!!  }