Like Father, Like Son: Foreshadowing

The Glass Menagerie by Tennesse Williams

An abundance of foreshadowing indicates that Tom will most likely follow in his father's footsteps and leave his mother and sister.  First, Amanda constantly warns Tom of becoming like his father, but treats him as if he has already succumbed to his father's selfish tendencies.  In reality, Tom cares for the family selflessly, and yet Amanda commands of him, "Overcome selfishness!  Self, self, self is all you ever think of!" (Williams 1254).  Thus, inadvertently, Amanda drives Tom toward becoming like his father.  Additionally, Tom somewhat marvels at how his father "got himself out of one [coffin] without removing one nail," after he attends a magician's act (Williams 1249).  The coffin Tom refers to is the suffocating atmosphere of the Wingfield family that hinders dreams and leads to argument, while the nails are the family members themselves.  Tom hopes to escape his own personal family coffin without removing, or hurting, one of his family members.  In doing so, Tom would emulate his father's actions.  Lastly, Tom proves in scene four that all promises he makes to his mother, even those about staying with the family, have no merit behind them.  He does this when he agrees at his mother's request to never be a drunkard.  In a fit of dramatic irony, Tom makes a baseless promise as he knows that just the other night he had gone out and drowned his sorrows in alcohol.  If Tom so easily makes faulty promises to his mother about something so simple as alcohol, how can the audience trust that he will maintain his promised fidelity to family?  Certainly, by the end of the play, Tom will abandon the Wingfield family as his father did.