Tom explains that the play takes place when the American working classes are still suffering from the effects of the Great Depression.
Amanda calls Tom to the dinner table and, once he sits down, repeatedly tells him to chew his food.
Amanda tells about when she entertained seventeen gentlemen callers in her home in Blue Mountain, Mississippi.
Amanda tears up the keyboard diagram and says a teacher at the local business school informed her that Laura has not come to class since the first few days, when she suffered from terrible nervousness and became physically ill.
In order to make a little extra money and increase the family’s ability to entertain gentlemen callers, Amanda sells magazines over the phone.
Tom and Amanda argue loudly while Laura looks on desperately.
Mad because he works for the rent money and Amanda just called him selfish, Tom sarcastically says he spends his nights at the lairs of criminals, opium houses, and casinos.
Tom calls Amanda an “ugly—babbling old—witch” and tries to put on his coat.
Tom throws his coat across the room, and it breaks a part of Laura’s glass menagerie.
Tom comes home drunk and, after digging for it in his coat pocket, drops the door key in a crack.
Tom describes how the magician at the show he was just at nailed himself into a coffin and escaped without removing a nail
Laura almost falls on her way to buy some butter.
Tom apologizes to Amanda for yelling at her the night before.
Amanda keeps Tom late for work to ask him to find a decent, non-drunkard man at the warehouse for his sister.
Amanda says that she wishes for the success and happiness of her children. Tom announces that there will be a gentleman caller.
Amanda is overwhelmed by all the preparations that will need to be made before the gentleman caller arrives.
Amanda dresses Laura up in a brand-new dress.
Amanda recalls wearing her same dress to a formal ball and to receive her gentlemen callers.
Amanda mentions Jim’s name, and Laura realizes that the visitor is the same young man on whom she had a crush in high school.
Laura panics and says she will not be able to eat dinner at the table.
Amanda forces Laura to open to door to Jim and Tom, despite her panicky pleas not to make her get the door.
Seeing that Laura is truly ill, Amanda tells her to rest on the sofa in the living room.
The lights go out.
Jim takes a seat on the living room floor and gives Laura a glass of wine.
Laura reminds Jim that they knew each other in high school.
Laura starts to tell Jim about her glass collection.
Jim and Laura waltz.
The glass unicorn is knocked off of the table and breaks.
Jim kisses Laura, but then confesses that he is engaged to a girl named Betty.
Amanda and Laura say good-bye to Jim, and Amanda yells at Tom for not telling her that Jim was engaged.
Tom abandons his family.