Sharon Salzberg once said “If you go deeper and deeper into your own heart, you’ll be living in a world with less fear, isolation, and loneliness.” Sometimes, people are so shy that they tend to isolate themselves, but they also find a comfort in that isolation and do not feel the magnitude of fear and loneliness. In isolation, there is no threat of failure, no heart break, no ridicule, and no room for potential disappointment. In The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams, the main character, Laura’s social shortcomings force her to drop out of Rubicam Business College leading to a life devoid of social connection. Laura Wingfield has a physical handicap; however, it is her mental handicap that ultimately affects her and shapes the reality of her life. Laura cherishes her glass…show more content… After discovering that Laura has dropped out, Amanda focuses on another alternative, marriage. Amanda recruits Tom to find some “gentlemen callers” for her daughter, and as a result that is how Jim comes to dinner one night. Coincidentally, Jim is the only man that Laura has ever liked. In the article “Tennessee William’s The Glass Menagerie”, the author points out how Jim “implores her to leave behind her “inferiority complex” (118) and “to be proud instead of shy and turning away” (127). Laura is entranced by his romantic encouragement, but when he reveals that he is engaged, she is reduced to a state of “almost infinite desolation” (Ardolino 132). Laura is crushed, and the heartbreak is yet another defeat. She will return to her isolation, because that is where she was safe from failure and rejection. Laura has become socially disabled, this latest blow will likely cause her to shy away from making any further attempts at social connection. She doesn’t have the resolve to pull herself back up and put herself back in the
