Using Escape Mechanics in The Glass Menagerie In The Glass Menagerie none of the characters are able to live entirely in the present. Everyone retreats into their separate worlds to escape the brutality of life. Laura, Tom, Amanda, and even Jim use various escape mechanisms to avoid reality. Laura has developed the disease escape mechanism when an event or situation seems to threaten her. He has also created an elaborate world in his collection of delicate glass animals, a world into which he can retreat safely. Tom, faced with the dark aspects of his daily factory work and the unpleasant prospect of returning home that same evening to a family that cannot understand his needs, retreats to the cinemas and to his dream of joining the merchant navy and one day become a published writer. Amanda lives in a world based largely on her fictional past. Elaborate additions may have been made to those memories of her youth, but they serve to hide from her the reality of a lost husband and two equally lost children. Jim, while not as visibly withdrawn from reality as the others, can also be found retreating in his eternal hope that things must get better. His zeal for success, although very different in nature from the attitude of others, is nevertheless an escape mechanism that protects him from the blandness of his life..